I'm a big movie fan. I am NOT a fan of Cinevista Theaters of Mayaguez Puerto Rico, at the Mayaguez Mall.

If Murphy's Law states that "anything that can go wrong will go wrong", then Cine Vista PR Theaters certainly adheres to the law.

Let's get right down to a list of issues, from my experience and in my *opinion*:

• Website (cinevistapr.com) rarely works. Specific problem: No list of movies playing or time. I.e. "Fecha no disponible". Fact.
• Movie actually starts 30 minutes after advertised time. I assume this is to deal with the "Puerto Rican Time" phenomenon, specifically that many people live life as if there were no clocks. That takes them from "easy going" status to "no going", i.e. no progress status. If they cannot make it on time, start the movie without them!
• Staff *always* seems willing to serve you cold and old popcorn. I can appreciate the big price tags help them turn a profit. But I do NOT appreciate paying $5 for something scraped from the bottom when the fresh stuff costs pennies to make.
• No ATH. Is this rocket science? Can we keep the payment systems online? If it absolutely has to fail so often, do you think you could work with Banco Popular to put an ATM on site so that I can withdraw cash to pay you? I don't appreciate having to walk 10 minutes to the mall in order to get into the movie if I did not bring cash. Debit and Credit cards have been around long enough for you guys to have mastered this *non new* technology.
• Big lineups. Do you realize that if you serve people faster, you make more money on concessions. Scenario: I get inside with 5 minutes to spare for the movie start time. I want the overpriced popcorn and pop/soda... and I'm willing to pay (I even brought cash in case your ATH is not working). You have 1-2 staff members working, with 50 people in line, and it's taking 3 to 5 minutes for you to deal with each staff member. I mean really. How much are you paying these popcorn servers? Is it so much you can't afford to put two more on to speed up the line up and make more sales? Reality check: 2 extra combo purchases pays for 1 staff member for a whole hour! Do the math. Read some economics 101.
• Turtles at the box office. Slow again. Sorry, but you are slow, slow, slow. Theaters all over the world are getting self-checkouts now. Make the investment. A kiosk will move your lines along. How often does someone pull up for a movie, running late, only to leave since they know they'll miss the start of the movie if they wait in *your* slow moving lineups. It happens, and it happens frequently. Again, if they do make it inside in time, they won't have time for concessions. They don't get their full service, and you don't *maximize your profit*.
• Poor picture/sound quality. It happens. It's not your fault. What *is* your fault is when you do not discover or fix it while the movie runs and customers get a sub-standard entertainment service for their money.

That is it for now.

Management take note: You can literary increase your gross revenues by 15% inside of 3 months by recognizing some of the simple economics at play here.

Owners take note: If your managers are not improving your business, fire them. If you are your own managers, then fire yourself, and hire real managers.

I guess the guy that should really be paying attention to this is Eduardo Llauger, listed as the Vice President and General Manager for Cinevista. I could not find contact information for him, but it might be possible to contact him via his LinkedIn Profile.

A little digging and I found out that Reading International off loaded the CineVista Theaters for 2.1 Million in 2005 to CV Acquisitions Corp (now CV Entertainment Group, President Raphael Nin). Press release (PDF) here. It mentioned that they were losing money, according to the EBITDA negative value. Another press release (from the Google cache gives the CV Acquisitions Corp perspective on the deal.

Here is some recent news that indicates Galaxy Lanes, CineVista might be in financial trouble (June 2008):

Galaxy Lanes to remain open at Plaza Las Américas Despite Filing for Chapter 11

Scroll back up, regarding my suggestion that some simple improvements can increase revenues.

Eduardo Llauger, President of Cine Vista movie theaters and Galaxy Lanes bowling alleys:

We’re in business, and we plan to stay in business... We’re reorganizing to regain strength and move forward. Times are not easy, and we’re making the best of it which is one of the reasons we filed in the bankruptcy court for reorganization protection against creditors. Another reason that we filed for Chapter 11 was to protect us from the pressure of the already closed theaters that we operated in Plaza Carolina and Hatillo, which are still going through a liquidation process. We needed the breathing space; otherwise we couldn’t move forward...

The Insider