For a select few evenings each month in the heart of Safety Harbor, Florida, customers are led through the 1920s-inspired main dining area and into an ultra-private screening room for the Gigglewaters Cinema Supper Series. The room, complete with movie chairs and moody table lamps, sets the stage for an exclusive dining experience. The featured films range from Grease to Anchorman, and in August, the audience enjoyed The Blues Brothers.
As the movie begins, staff serve a menu specifically designed to match the food cues on screen. For example, when the characters are eating cheese whiz, guests are served shaved prosciutto on tortilla points topped with the same cheese whiz. The food is delivered within a minute of the corresponding scenes, bringing the movie to life through a creative and immersive dining experience.
Guests may also spot Gigglewaters’ founder and CEO, Rachel Fine Wilson, dressed as a movie character alongside her husband, acting out scenes. For The Blues Brothers, she wore a prim black suit, a jazzy top hat, and, of course, black sunglasses, which she passed out to each audience member to wear.
Injecting this level of fun into her restaurant has always been one of Wilson’s goals. When she opened the speakeasy-inspired concept in 2018, she envisioned a swanky eatertainment experience that would transform the guest experience.
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“This concept has always been one of my first inspirations with Gigglewaters,” Wilson shares. “It just took us a while to feel confident enough to do it. I knew how much fun it would be, but we just weren’t strong enough operationally to launch this experience from day one. We had to put in a lot of work on the backend to get to this point.”
Each Cinema Supper Series event takes place during regular business hours. To pull it off, Wilson schedules an additional 15 employees to ensure everything runs smoothly behind the scenes. Food choices are curated based on what the kitchen can handle alongside normal service operations. The movies change monthly, as does the customized menu, which includes a mix of food and beverages.
The event also gives Wilson’s team a chance to stretch their culinary muscles. Staff members watch the film and suggest food cues, which the kitchen director then brings to life. Wilson says the experience is as much of a break from the everyday routine for her staff as it is for the guests.
“This was a huge risk for us … it took us five years of running regular operations to feel confident enough to even take this on because there’s so much involved,” Wilson says. “We’re almost more of an event company than we are a restaurant on this night. The timing is so imperative that if we miss serving a food cue by more than a minute, it doesn’t make sense, and the movie kind of falls apart for guests.”
When it comes to taking risks, Wilson advises jumping into the idea with authenticity, understanding that the pursuit of perfection can stall innovation. She encourages operators to not let themselves get stuck during the creative process.
“If you stay in this theoretical world where everything you make has to be perfect, you’ll never try. You’ll never get the great learnings that you’ll develop by making mistakes first,” Wilson adds. “We’re getting tighter operationally with each event, and we’re learning how to balance what’s logistically possible with what’s creatively fun and turn it into a two-hour transformative experience for guests.”
During the first Cinema Supper Series, Wilson stood in front of the crowd and said to her customers, “Here’s our plan, and you’re going to come with me. We might not get it perfect, but we’re going to try our best, and we’re going to have a lot of fun doing it.”
She says this helped her overcome the hurdle of taking that first leap into the unknown, and guests connected with her vulnerability and honesty. After listening to their feedback, what started as a sold-out event turned into a multi-day series, with pre-sale for the next month offered to customers at the start of the show.
Looking to the future, Wilson is excited about expanding this facet of her business. She recently announced the Cinema Supper Series will be available as a private, curated culinary experience for corporate teams. Above all, she’s focused on keeping the experience fun.
“We talk about Gigglewaters being the place of a thousand good times, and the Cinema Supper Series is one of the best,” Wilson says. “We are transporting someone through a film while they’re enjoying the food from that film. We get to step outside our comfort zone, lean into the kitsch of it, crack ourselves up, and truly innovate.”
