Bantam, CT

Yesterday we drove up to Bantam. It is in the "Hidden Corner" in northwest Connecticut, about an hour and a half drive or so. It's up where we've taken photos of the covered bridge, Kent Falls and all the statues in the town of Kent...up that way. Litchfield County is littered with these little towns with fairs, markets, antique stores, all sorts of interesting things to see. It's a GREAT drive in the spring or fall. So pretty. It's grey and dark and cold in the winter. (The whole state is covered in snow as you can see from the sign I snapped from the window of the car.)  So, why did we go yesterday? For lunch and a movie of course.  

Here's a random longhorn we saw on the side of the road coming into Bantam:

First up? Lunch. We pulled in about 1:00 or so and made a bee line for this place: Wood's Pit BBQ & Mexican Cafe. You're skeptical, right? You should be. I was too. BBQ and Mexican Cafe??  I know...I  know.  But I had read about the owner and was intrigued. In 1981 Woodie packed up a tent, sleeping bag and $300 and took off on his motorcycle for Phoenix.  He set up camp behind this little Mexican Restaurant and learned to cook there. He came back to CT and opened a Mexican restaurant a few years later. Then he got the hankering for BBQ and went to the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida for a little BBQ pit training.  And so was born Wood's Pit BBQ & Mexican Cafe. Yes, you're right, he never came to Texas for BBQ, but I was willing to give a try anyway.  I've only had BBQ a few places up here and none of them have been any good. 

It's a little whole in the wall place as you can imagine.  The menu is hilarious! You can see it on-line I think. They have everything from pizza, to seafood, to BBQ to Mexican...there's even denoted vegan items....something you would NEVER see in a Sonny Bryans.  We both went BBQ. I went pulled pork sandwich with sweet potato fries and David went with the beef and pork platter with baked beans and baked sweet potato. When it finally came out, it looked pretty good. I dumped the little container of cole slaw on top of my sandwich and took a bite.  It was REALLY GOOD! Juicy, smokey....YUM! I gave David a bite and he agreed.  The pulled pork was to die for...the beef, not so much. He could have used a few months learning to make a real Texas brisket! There's nothing like it! ;) But if we ever get a hankering for BBQ again (ha...what it is about smoked meats that makes you start talking like that......hankering is the only word for it) we will head back that way. (I'm curious about the Mexican food now that I've tried the BBQ!)

Then we went to the real reason for the trip: The Bantam Cinema. I had read about this place in Yankee Magazine. The article was about the Top 5 Theatres in New England.  This didn't make the list, but it did make the 5 Honorable Mentions. It was opened in 1927 and is Connecticut's oldest continuously operated movie house. They show two movies. When I originally looked it up a few weeks ago, they were one of the few playing 127 Hours, a movie we had both been wanting to see. Today, however, they weren't so we opted to see Rabbit Hole, the Nicole Kidman Oscar nominated film. Here's what it looked like from the outside:

David ran across the street and took the photo while I stood there freezing...where were my gloves for goodness sake? Don't I know where I live yet?

I know what you are thinking....it's no Gold Class Theatre! (This a photo I took from their website.) This is how people see movies in Dallas:

Here in New England, they march to a beat of a different drum. The theatres here make a Top 5 list because they are old or quirky. We prefer to watch movies in a barn on small-screen with stadium seats like this:

Hey, we've got cup holders!