Broward is getting a luxury movie theater with reclining pods and cocktails

Fort Lauderdale is getting in on the South Florida luxury movie theater boom.

iPic Entertainment is expanding farther into South Florida with plans for an eight-screen, 400-seat luxury movie theater along with a City Perch Kitchen + Bar and a rooftop bar and lounge in Fort Lauderdale.

The development, at 601 N. Federal Highway, lies just north of the Flagler Village Brewery, The Brass Tap and the Mellow Mushroom restaurant.

The auditoriums will seat between 40 and 60 patrons and will feature iPic’s patent-pending Premium Plus fully reclining leather seating Pods. Don’t worry about bringing a jacket — the pods come with pillows and blankets. There will also be chaise lounges, too (the patent’s pending on those, too.)

Moviegoers can summon waitstaff to deliver items from a menu designed by James Beard Award-winner Sherry Yard. The dishes are chosen because they’re not too crunchy or too noisy and they can be eaten without cutlery.

And don’t think the beverages will be pedestrian, either. There’s a farm-to-glass beverage menu by Master Bartender and Advanced Sommelier Adam Seger.

On the technical side, the auditoriums will be fitted with 4K digital cinema technology. You can reserve seats ahead of time on iPic.com or on the iPic app.

iPic, which is headquartered in South Florida, has 15 locations around the country and operates theaters in North Miami Beach at 3701 NE 163rd St. and another in Mizner Park in Boca. Neither has the viewing Pods or chaise lounges yet; those have only been rolled out in New York and Houston.

The plans for the new theater come after a period of steady growth for luxury movie theaters in Miami-Dade County. And that Miami growth isn’t over: A six-story Silverspot Cinema is due to open sometime in 2018 at 300 SE Third St. in Miami’s Met Square.

Thanks to rising ticket prices and streaming services like Netflix, movie attendance has leveled off in recent years — and dropped in 2017. Fortune reports that movie ticket sales hit their lowest level in two decades last year, falling six percent to $1.24 million. But iPic has escaped that trend, seeing its revenue rise 25 percent to $69.4 million in the first half of 2017.

The Fort Lauderdale iPic is expected to open in fall 2020.

This story was originally published March 8, 2018 at 12:53 PM with the headline "Broward is getting a luxury movie theater with reclining pods and cocktails."