A League of their own

I just love what Tim and Karrie League have done for Austin. Though it wasn’t that long ago that they opened their first Alamo Drafthouse, the place (and it’s subsequent sister locations) have had such an impact that already the Alamo is an institution, a must-do for locals as well as visitors to the city, as if it’s been around since the original Alamo.

The Leagues took a great idea — combining food and movies on a big screen — and made it better. Not only can moviegoers order a meal and drinks right from their seats, they can also count on a lot of very fun shenanigans. Besides showing first run flicks, the Alamo also offers obscure, amazing old movie clips during previews. And they also host a slew of theme nights: sing-a-longs for attendees who want to belt out tunes with the actors onscreen; “classic” schlock that hurtles us back to the good old days of bad hair and high-waisted jeans; and even movies with live music accompaniment and hilarious commentary provided by local musicians and comedians.

I also love their determination. I’ve interviewed them a couple of times over the years for different publications. They did not arrive here with piles of gold ready to go skipping down easy street. They couch-surfed for their first year and lived on just about nothing as they worked to turn their dream into a reality. Then, they grew the business, decided they didn’t like where it was going, and reined it in. So they are officially the Founders of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, and specifically the owners of the Alamos in Austin (but not owners of the other locations).

I wanted to do this interview not just to find out the secrets of their business success, but to find out about how they managed to fit into Austin so well. Like us, they took an existing model and turned it into something uniquely their own. Karrie answered my questions via email.

Spike Gillespie: When you and Tim came to Austin, was it because you knew your idea for the Alamo would work here?
Karrie League: We hoped so. We were coming off of a failed theater in Bakersfield, CA, and were unable to implement the idea of the food and drink service to turn things around there because we couldn’t get a liquor license. When we decided to try again elsewhere, we chose Austin as
the best location we could think of.

Spike: You really lived on air and water that first year, couch-surfing. Tell me about it.
Karrie: Our personal expenses totaled $5000 that year. We imposed on Tim’s cousin for about 6 months, and on Tim’s college roommate for another 6 months and we ate ramen and bologna sandwiches the whole time. We even got our bread at the Mrs. Baird’s thrift shop to save money. We liked to go to Central Market for samples, and when we had a splurge day, we would buy fruit. One time we met a group of college friends for dinner, and split a single taco from the a la carte menu. We could see everyone look at each other, trying unsuccessfully to hide how appalled they were.

Spike: During the lean days, did you make a deal with each other — like “If this doesn’t work, we cut bait?” Or did you just tell yourselves, “This is going to work,” and that was the end of it?
Karrie: We borrowed most of the money for the construction from my parents. They took out a mortgage on their house to give it to us, and we knew that if it didn’t work we would have to go and get real jobs to pay them back. Beyond that knowledge at the back of our minds, we didn’t let ourselves think that it wasn’t going to work.

Spike: How long have you been around now? Seems like forever, by which I mean if I were to ask someone to tick off ten unique Austin things to-do, you guys would make the list without a doubt. Have you always had a very clear vision of how to make/keep the business “very Austin”?
Karrie: We’ve been around since May of 1997, so 11 years now. I don’t think it was so much that we were trying to keep the business “very Austin” as much as that what we wanted to do matched the Austin vibe. I think that’s why we chose Austin in the first place.

Spike: Y’all branched out then pulled back in with the business. This makes me want to ask a “lessons learned” question. I mean, it doesn’t have to be that particular lesson, but what are one or two big things you’ve learned over the years?
Karrie: From the first failed business, we learned that sometimes failure is the best thing that can happen to you. If we had succeeded, we wouldn’t be in Austin now, and I know for a fact that the success wouldn’t be anywhere near as sweet as it is here.

From the aborted expansion, we learned that we should move at a pace that is comfortable to us and not allow outside pressure to influence our decisions. There was a lot of pressure from a lot of different sources telling us “grow or die.” We believed it, and we shouldn’t have.

Spike: Regrets?
Karrie: Not really. That episode was (and still is a little) painful, but it pushed us into a different direction that we’re happy with. That’s not to say that we wouldn’t be happy if we hadn’t made that misstep, and we wouldn’t be plagued with the problems that continue to follow it, but that’s theoretical, and in reality we’re happy where we are.

Spike: Greatest triumphs?
Karrie: There have been so many!  Every time we pull off a new event we give each other high-fives and it continues to amaze us, given how much we fly by the seat of our pants, that the events come out well. That’s all due to Tim, who works best under an extreme amount of pressure.

Spike: You’re a success now, tell me about that a little bit — when did you know you were really on solid business ground?
Karrie: It happened amazingly fast. The first month we were biting our nails, but once it caught on in the second month, we knew we were safe. That’s not to say that there aren’t always slumps and fears from time to time, but we’ve tried to change to meet these.