An interesting concept. Bobby Brewers Coffee in Vietnam - there's free movies here on the top floor, as long as you order food. The food is about 2x more expensive than you could get it on the streets, but still cheap. $2 for a coffee (you could get 70 cents outside), a meal is $3 or $4 (you could get $2 outside), etc.
Inside, they screen blockbuster movies, obscure-but-highly-reviewed movies, and classics. Last time I was in Vietnam six months ago, they were showing Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon, which I hadn't seen - way cool to watch that on the big screen.
Couple days ago I finally got to see Inception. Today I'm writing in here and waiting for "The King's Speech" to start.
It's a neat business concept - offer a free draw that's very exciting to customers, charge a high but not crazy premium for things people are used to paying for anyways. I'd recommend picking up the schedule if you're hanging out in Saigon. Food's not bad, and it's cool to catch a classic movie that I'd never seen before.
I don't know how their licensing works for the movies - I'm guessing it's above board enough, since they're very public about it. They've got a schedule of their current movies at bobbybrewers.com.
I also found their Franchise page interesting - they're outright advertising that one reason to go with them is that they've navigated the local bureaucracy already -
"Vietnamese Franchise laws, dictate it would take a new player in the Vietnamese Franchise market 3-4 years to attain a Franchise license. As a Regional Master Franchisor of Bobby Brewers Coffee you are licensed to start business as a Franchisor in Vietnam from the moment your company signs our Regional Master Franchise Agreement.
In Vietnam Bobby Brewers Coffee seeks to appoint Regional Master Franchisors in Hanoi and all other major population centres. Regional Master Franchises are for 20 years and range in price from US$50,000 for the Master Franchise of Hanoi to US$10,000 for Dalat."
Interesting, interesting...
Sidenote: I've enjoyed doing boring low level work in here. It's like, if you want to screw off, you can just disengage from work for a moment and watch the movie. I set up in the back row so the light from my laptop doesn't upset anyone's movie watching, and it works pretty well. Wouldn't use it for high level tasks, but good for low level stuff. Reminds me of an office I worked at in New York where we'd always have action movies on in the background muted - it created a surprisingly good work environment, especially when doing rote work.
It's worth checking out if you're in Vietnam - cool concept. Food's not bad either.
