Okay. So. I love(d) this theater ($$$) and I find its combination of seats + screen + sound the best combo in the area. ArcLight ($$) has a better screen and sound, but the seats aren't as comfortable. AMC La Jolla/Chula Vista ($) have the recliner seats, but the screen and sound aren't as good as ArcLight and Cinepolis. I just sort of pick and choose which theater of those 3 to go to depending on the movie and how much I feel like spending on a ticket.

BUT! One thing that has kept me coming back to Cinepolis over the others has been -- and I know this is weird, but I don't care -- the chili and caramel popcorn. IT IS SO GOOD. We usually try to limit Cinepolis movies to once a month or so because they are pricier than the other alternatives, but after only just discovering the delightful chili + caramel popcorn earlier this month, I decided to break tradition and come back to Cinepolis for another movie two weeks later.

I reeeeeally wanted that popcorn, you guys. I bought the tickets online a week before the show and seriously talked about the popcorn the entire week. The night before the show I said to my husband "I GET MY POPCORN TOMORROW!" The morning of the show he made fun of me because I was already planning what size popcorn I wanted. I didn't eat dinner in anticipation of eating SO. MUCH. POPCORN. On the way to the show, yup -- I couldn't stop talking about the popcorn. We were early, so as we waited in the lobby for the doors to open, I took a picture of the popcorn.

After we took our seats, I pushed the menu away. I already knew what I wanted and it started with "chili" and ended with "and caramel popcorn." The waiter came to take our order and I yelled with the excitement of a kid on Christmas morning, "I'm going to have a medium popcorn, half chili and half caramel!" To which he replied "Oh, we're out of chili popcorn. The best I can do is half butter and half caramel popcorn."

My world shattered. My jaw dropped. This is no exaggeration, friends. I couldn't hide my shock and disappointment. I actually had to ask the waiter to come back later for my order because I needed to "Reevaluate my entire life." I was 100% tempted to leave and ask for a refund, but we were in too far and I was too hungry to attempt a battle with management. I ended up ordering butter popcorn and it sucked.

I know places run out of things and in the long-run, who really cares, but it seems to me something like this is a staple of the theater. How do you run out of chili powder? Send someone to the nearest Mexican market and get some more chili powder on that damn popcorn, you fools!

I can honestly say that because of this Cinepolis will be out of our rotation. Theaters with recliner chairs are becoming more and more common and as such, will get more and more cost effective. If I'm going to pay $20 more to attend Cinepolis simply because I enjoy one of their specialty food items, they better have said specialty item fully stocked for a Saturday evening show.

I'm still going to give them four stars because, like I mentioned in the first paragraph, they win in my three major categories and anyone else who doesn't care about popcorn the way I do probably wouldn't care about all that stuff I just whined about above, but for me they are a three star cinema now. If I can't trust you, Cinepolis, I can't love you.