UnCapped: Warehouse Cinemas
Aug. 9—In this episode of the UnCapped podcast, host Chris Sands talks with Warehouse Cinemas president and CEO Rich Daughtridge and brand strategist Shanna Mueller to learn how the local theater has excelled while many others have struggled or closed. They operate cinemas in Frederick, Hagerstown and Baltimore. Here is an excerpt of their talk.
UnCapped: Today, we're talking about Warehouse Cinemas, one of my favorite places to go in Frederick. Rich, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you did before founding High Rock, because I'm sure that path of running High Rock leads directly into why you launched Warehouse Cinemas.
Rich Daughtridge: I think a little bit. I grew up in Smithsburg, went to college to play soccer in Virginia, didn't go into the military but decided to play professional soccer for a little bit. My wife said I just had to get it out of my system. So I did that off and on for about five years ... then started having kids. I was an average professional soccer player, and we needed to make more money.
I started a company called Premiere Web Solutions back in 2000, which was building websites — learned it myself with a "Websites for Dummies" book. From there, I sold it, bounced around to a couple firms, and then I started High Rock in 2005, a marketing agency for website design, branding and video production.
In 2010, it was going well — we had 35 employees, offices in Frederick, Baltimore and Hagerstown — and we decided to take over our local cinema, which was in disrepair, a little bit outside of town. They had 35-millimeter reels. We jumped into the deep end. I just felt the cinema could be turned around with amenities and food and beverages and things like that.
We ended up selling it and parlaying those funds into Warehouse Cinemas Frederick, which is our flagship location. Bad timing. It was at the beginning of the pandemic. But we fought through, opened that location, and since then, we've opened two more locations.
UnCapped: Which is, for multiple reasons, remarkable. One, getting your start when there were no first-run movies coming out and people half the time weren't allowed or were too nervous to even go see a movie — and you were able to open two more locations. How have you been successful in a business that most people are failing at?
Daughtridge: I think for a lot of different reasons we've been fortunate to be successful. I don't take it for granted at all. We were ready to open in April of 2020, so a month after everything shut down. Maryland was actually one of the last states to allow to open cinemas in November of 2020. You have to go back to the core of why you opened the movie theater, which is an experience-based concept, so we didn't have a lot of content from Hollywood, so we hustled around retro films and events. I remember before we even opened, we gave away free popcorn in the parking lot of Frederick, and I had an orange cape on. I'm an introvert, so that was a lot for me. The line was wrapped around Home Depot, and we had an hour and a half wait for free popcorn. I think that was the genesis of the event side of the business. We always did it, but we really had to lean into it during the pandemic and figure out how to get people out who either weren't comfortable or, frankly, had seen that movie before.
Another one was "Unhinged," a movie with Russell Crowe. What are we gonna do for this one? Let's get a junk car in the parking lot and let people take swings at it and take out their COVID rage.
We had to hustle. I like it, because I don't think you really appreciate where we are until you understand what we've gone through from scratch.
This excerpt has been edited for space and clarity. Listen to the full podcast at fnppodcasts.com/uncapped. Got UnCapped news? Email csands@newspost.com.
