Cinépolis (and a Mall) in Downtown Juarez

Have you been to Juarez lately?

Don’t lie to me. You have not. If you’ve crossed the border at all, you only went to the Kentucky Club, and while the K Club is nice, you might as well have gone to Taco Bell.

They’re building a mall in downtown Juarez. It takes the space from behind the gymnasium to right up to the cathedral on dieciseis. So far only one tenant has opened its doors. It’s Cinépolis, a movie theater like Cinemark.

What’s a movie in a theater cost in the U.S. these days? Ten, fifteen bucks? I don’t know, I watch them on disc from Netflix, or the Sunday Matinee at my favorite website. But I figure you take a date to a theater, you’re out thirty or forty bucks by the time you spring for soft drinks and a fifty five gallon drum of popcorn.

Surge pricing (weekends) at Cinépolis is 38 pesos, about $2.25. For two and a quarter, you could leave after the credits and not feel like you got ripped off. And right now, they’ve got a special, 38 pesos for two people. For that, you could just go wash your hands in the bathroom and still feel that you got your money’s worth.

Sort of.

But get this: reserved seating. Your ticket comes with a seat assignment. Mind blown.

Workmen are toiling furiously to fix up the rest of the storefronts, and I can’t tell you how excited I am to have a retail mall open in downtown Juarez. Okay, I’ll tell you. Not very. But it’s coming, and I reckon there’s nothing I can do about it.

Except, maybe, escape to the movies.

8 comments

  1. I pay a $1,75 on Monday and Wednesday at Cinemark. Otherwise it’s only five bucks to watch first run films. Even the theaters with food and drinks is only $7,50 A ticket. So there is something wrong out that way as far as pricing.

    1. I’m confused about what Robert Clark says he paid. Why does he use commas to separate dollars (?) and cents (?)? Which Cinemark is he talking about?

  2. The problem with going to Juarez is not the going part. It’s the coming back part. All the lipstick in the world world won’t pretty up that pig. It’s the issue our leaders love to ignore.

  3. And, supposedly, we pay either higher tolls to cross at Stanton Street and Ysleta bridges in order to supplement the federal budget for more agents to man the lanes. Rarely do you see more than about half of the lanes open, however. Meanwhile, the so-called “ReadyLanes” do seem to move faster, but it costs extra money – over and above the cost of a passport – in order to obtain the necessary “ReadyDocuments.” I have long said that we should do the same as Mexico, and move our roadblock from the bridges themselves, to those other roadblocks along all major highways. Let traffic on I-10, US54, US62, and anywhere else be delayed. The border between El Paso and Cd. Juarez should be open, as it was many, many years ago, to encourage business and social interactions between us and our neighbors and families across the line.

    1. I agree with everything you’ve said. There is a time when all of the lanes are open. Early Sunday morning when there’s no traffic. That’s when the agents pick up their overtime.

  4. l haven’t been to Juarez in eons because they do things that are very strange to what we El Pasoans are accustomed to. For example, they build bigger ballparks that only coast a fraction of the price. They even build these the ballparks to make money instead of losing money. They create movie theaters and other businesses with only a fraction (if even that much) of freebie tax incentives. They’re very strange indeed.

  5. they dont allow corn syrup in coca cola jarritos fanta or wink. nor do they allow for cows on legit ranches receive steroids or hormones. mexico is way smarter than us.

  6. Been there twice already to watch a movie. Pop corn, soda, ice cream at affordable prices. Even though sometimes the movies are in Spanish i still enjoy it. Sometimes they are also in English with Spanish wordings.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *