It’s game on in St. John’s for Cineplex Rec Room

A MASSIVE ENTERTAINMENT COMPLEX is coming to St. John’s in early 2019, courtesy of Cineplex.

The entertainment and media company, known for its movie theatres across Canada, will open its first Atlantic Canada ‘Rec Room’ concept at the Avalon Mall in Newfoundland and Labrador’s capital city. There are currently only three other Canadian cities with these complexes: Edmonton (it has two), Calgary and Toronto. In addition to the St. John’s location, Cineplex says it plans to build three others with opening dates scheduled for 2019.

Curiously, there are no theatres in the Cineplex Rec Room. The St. John’s facility, estimated to be close to 30,000 square feet in size, will have an attractions area where you can play over 90 amusement games. It will also include a casual dining restaurant with Canadian-inspired cuisine, plus air hockey, pool, ping pong, 10-pin bowling, virtual reality experiences and axe throwing. But that’s not all: it will also have a bar area where sports fans can watch games on big HD screens and a performance space to watch live musical or comedy acts.

“There are a lot of different options under one roof,” says David Terry, Cineplex’s vice-president and general manager of the Rec Room. “Our target market is the millennial age group.”

As for why Cineplex targeted St. John’s as the community to open its first Rec Room east of Toronto, Terry says it was a good fit demographically and the company’s theatres do very well in the city. Even though St. John’s has a population not much more than 100,000, it’s an entertainment hub for much of the province. “People from outside of St. John’s go there to eat, shop and take short vacations,” Terry says. “It’s bigger than its actual population.”