The Showcase Cinema De Lux at Patriot Place in Foxboro opens to the public on Friday. A player piano plays the classics and popular tunes in the atrium of the new complex. The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo

FOXBORO

Going out for dinner, movie and drinks is getting simpler.

The Showcase Cinema de Lux, which opens to the public on Friday in Patriot Place, the enormous mall-like complex being built off Route One around Gillette Stadium, presents a one-stop outing — for food, films and alcohol refreshments. Cocktails, beer and wine, appetizers and sandwiches, pizzas and panini, desserts and coffee can all be served to moviegoers who are seated in premium balcony seats. That’s the lux in Cinema de Lux: luxury.

The 14-screen theater is only the second of its kind in the 88-theater chain of National Amusements. The first one opened two months ago in Florence, Ky.

“The response we’re getting is ‘This is the only way to see a movie.’ It’s reinventing the movie-going experience,” Shari Redstone, president of National Amusements, said at a media preview yesterday.

Cinema de Lux has a restaurant, called Studio 3, which offers a full bar, salads, sandwiches and burgers. The theater also has a food court with Nathan’s Hot Dogs, Famiglia Pizzeria, Ben & Jerry’s, Starbucks and the usual movie theater concessions: popcorn, candy and soda.

What’s different about this theater is a couple of conference/birthday party rooms for rent, a downstairs lounge and a lobby with a player piano, which on weekends reportedly will be played by a human being.

“Just the presence of a piano adds an aura,” Redstone said. “This is all about how people feel.”

“We need to give people a reason to go to the movies. We need to give them a reason to leave their homes and see a movie outside their homes.”

Cinema de Lux, Redstone says, is National Amusements’ counter to the increasing convention of people purchasing big-screen, high-definition TVs, renting movies and staying home.

“Movies are meant to be a social experience. Now we’re giving people a reason to stay at the movies.”

The biggest difference between Cinema de Lux and other movie theaters is its upstairs. There’s a bar, Lux Lounge, which overlooks the lobby. You must be 21 to enter, and pay a $10 premium on a regular movie ticket ($8 for day, $10.50 for night).

That de Lux ticket premium gives you a $5 concession voucher and access to four theaters with luxury balconies in which there are big purple rocking and reclining chairs covered in ultraleather, with swiveling serving trays, menus and a button for service of drinks and food.

Hotels have room service. This theater has seat service.

It’s innovative, but it’s not new.

Providence theatergoers may remember the three-screen Castle Cinema on Chalkstone Avenue, which closed in 2004. It, too, offered plush, oversized chairs and food and drink seat service. But it did not offer a parking lot, which may have been a factor in its demise.

Cinema de Lux is part of the massive 1.3-million-square-foot Patriot Place development being created around Gillette Stadium by the Kraft family, owners of the Patriots. The project involves more than 70 retail stores and restaurants, a hotel, a sports-medicine center and a 500-seat live entertainment venue, which is also owned by National Amusements. The new entertainment venue, located adjacent to the new movie complex, is set to open on Aug. 16, with a performance by Al Jarreau.

The movie complex includes acres of parking.

“We’re hoping people will come as a family. Some will go to the game and some will watch a movie.”

Movies, Redstone said, are meant to be a public viewing experience, not a private one; and an experience that fosters discussion about it afterward.

“We give you a venue to do that.”

That’s a change in the cinema industry, which Redstone said not long ago was all about efficiency, selling tickets and concessions, and making way for the next audience.

“Now we’re giving the audience a reason to stay, ”Redstone said. “When I started in this business, I was competing against other movie theaters. Then I was competing against home entertainment. Now we’re just competing with time.”

brourke@projo.com