Feed Me! Williamsburg’s Nitehawk serves up booze, food and films

Eye On Real Estate

December 2, 2015 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Dusk gathers outside Billyburg's Nitehawk Cinema. Eagle photos by Lore Croghan

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Best. Theater. Ever.

At a moment when the masses watch movies on their iPads, Williamsburg’s Nitehawk Cinema often has weekend shows that are sold out far in advance.

The movie house’s success is due in part to booze and burgers, which the waitstaff delivers to tiny tables in front of film-goers’ seats.

Make that Spielburgers, actually.

Part of the charm of the indie movie house at 136 Metropolitan Ave. is a menu that includes dishes and drinks themed to match films that are being shown. When we were there recently to see Sebastian Schipper’s “Victoria,” which was filmed in a single take, the Spielburger was being served in honor of Steven Spielberg’s “Bridge of Spies,” starring Tom Hanks.

This hamburger’s topped with “secret Russian dressing,” the menu notes, which makes perfect sense to those who see the movie. So does a “Bridge of Spies”-inspired drink called the Standing Man.

Customer favorites on the tasty menu include Tater Tots, fish tacos and popcorn with truffle butter and citric salt. There’s Glenlivet for those with a taste for Scotch and house-made mint lemonade for teetotalers.

The theater opened in 2011.

Owner Matthew Viragh purchased the building in which it’s located — which also has nine apartments — through an LLC for $5.3 million in 2010, city Finance Department records indicate.

The seller, Bolshy Gulliver Inc., with Mason Rader as president, had been working on a project to enlarge a factory at the site and turn it into a commercial and residential building, filings from city Finance and Buildings Departments indicate.

The original owner’s project was supposed to include a movie theater. The development didn’t move forward because financing could not be obtained, the New York Post previously reported.

Viragh, a former advertising executive, told the Huffington Post in 2013 that Nitehawk’s revenue from concessions was three times as high as the $5 per ticket holder that was typical in the movie industry.