If you’ve never been to an Alamo Drafthouse, you must go. It will ruin you for all other movie theaters. For one thing, there’s food and beer. But even better is the reverential geekiness that goes into pre-shows and nightly themes like “Weird Wednesdays,” singalongs, and quotealongs; the zero tolerance for talking during the film; and the occasional hilarious appearance by a C-list celebrity or culty figure. Grab a calendar at the theater and tack it up on the fridge.

For all this, we endure food that’s sort of legendarily bad. (But have you ever had great food at a movie theater?) Although the kitchen experiments with using local, quality ingredients to create specials inspired by the latest film releases, it’s rarely as good as it sounds. We’ve learned not to deviate from the pizzas, despite their mundane toppings and crackery crust; the wonderful fried pickles with magical, sturdy breading; and blameless, spicy Buffalo wings. It’s hard to resist the allure of sandwiches and burgers, but you should—they’re 70% dry bread and 30% filling.

The diverse, well-chosen beer selection is especially exciting at the South Lamar location; the one on Sixth Street also serves hard liquor. Even if the food is kind of a bummer, whenever we even think about moving somewhere else, the first thing we ask is: “Do they have an Alamo?”