Kinepolis is venturing further beyond popcorn and soda through a new partnership with Swedish restaurant and entertainment chain O’Learys, which will open a 2,500-square-meter venue connected to Kinepolis Enschede in the Netherlands this December. Kinepolis will operate the location itself as an O’Learys franchisee, combining restaurant dining, live sports, bowling, darts, billiards, karaoke and arcade games alongside the cinema. The location helps: Kinepolis Enschede sits next to De Grolsch Veste, home of FC Twente, giving the concept another sizeable audience even when nobody particularly feels like watching a movie.

For European exhibition, however, the more interesting part may be who is running the restaurant. Most European cinema operators have been considerably more cautious than their North American counterparts about expanded dining, where kitchens require space, capital, staffing and an entirely different operating skill set. Partnering with an established restaurateur gives Kinepolis a way to learn the business with somebody else’s playbook. O’Learys brings what it calls its “classic Boston-inspired menu” — though with tacos, fajitas, loaded nachos, jalapeño poppers and BBQ ribs appearing across its current menus, “American-inspired” might give Boston a little more room to breathe.

The strategy fits neatly with exhibition’s broader push to increase dwell time and capture more of a customer’s entertainment spending before and after the credits roll. It also comes as Kinepolis has been expanding aggressively in North America, completing its acquisition of Emagine Entertainment earlier this year and agreeing in June to acquire 13 Showcase Cinemas. Now it is experimenting at home with another concept North American exhibitors know well: if customers are going to have dinner, drinks and spend several hours around your cinema anyway, you might as well earn more of those euros yourself. And yes, the hospitality industry really does call this “eatertainment.” Sometimes the jargon actually describes the strategy rather well.