‘Mean Girls’ pop-up dinner is Wednesday at The Lawrence

For your Wednesday entertainment this week, how about something a little different? Instead of going to dinner and a movie, how about dinner and a show? That’s what’s happening with the Stolen Goods Mean Girls Pop-Up at The Lawrence in Midtown complementing “Mean Girls – The Musical” at the Fox Theatre across the street.

Chefs Amanda Hardee and Melanie Forehand have created a menu inspired by the both the musical and the Lindsay Lohan movie that inspired it. You’ll find menu items such as the “Gretchen ‘Fetch’ Burger,” “Don’t be a Jerk Spicy Chicken Pasta,” and “Regina George Low Carb Cheese Fries.”

The pop-up is all about unity and inclusion and aims to prove via American fusion dishes that all flavors can get along with dishes. They promise that “You CAN sit with us” if you make a reservation. 

The “Where Dinner is the Movie” concept was coined by Quynh “Q” Trinh from WeSukiSuki and the EAV Qommunity pop-up community as part of her Eatavision initiative that that began in the spring of 2021. Eatavision saw chefs recreate the food seen in movies such as “Ratatouille” and “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” through multi-course tasting menus.

Later in 2021, Lino Yi, who will be opening his TKO brick and mortar this summer, continued the movie-inspired trend with his movie night pop-up that had him serving dishes inspired by or taken from movies including “How to Train Your Dragon” roll, “Face Hugger Scotch Egg,” and the “Godzilla Burger.” 

Popular pop-up chef Dave Mouche’s Jackalope has put his spin on the concept with his ongoing Monday movie nights at Bookhouse Pub. In the last few weeks, he has created customized menus inspired by movies such as “My Cousin Vinny,” “The Big Lebowski,” “Rush Hour” and “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.”

Mouche confirms that creating movie inspired pop-ups takes creativity, flexibility, and marketing: “The challenging part is trying to fit the concept of the movie, have the dish make sense to the customer, and be profitable changing dishes each week. It’s pretty much spinning plates. Picking the movie, getting advertisement up, making a menu and then shopping for that menu and preparing everything 2-3 hours before the shift starts.”  

You can find the details for this week’s movie pop-ups as well as all the other pop-ups around the city on the Punk Foodie pop-up section of the How Do You Atlanta? event calendar.