You have tickets.

Excellent.

You know what time the show starts.

Even better.

You've arranged who's driving.

Remarkable organisational progress.

Then, usually about three hours before you're supposed to leave, somebody asks:

“Are we eating before?”

Ah.

Nobody thought about that.

Dinner Before The Show Sounds Sensible

And generally it is.

You sit down.

Have something nice.

Talk to each other.

Then stroll into the theatre feeling like the sort of sophisticated people who regularly organise evenings properly.

Except there's a problem.

The show starts at 7.30pm.

So dinner needs to be early.

And at 5.15pm somebody inevitably says:

“I'm not really hungry yet.”

This person will be starving at 8.47pm.

We guarantee it.

Leaving Dinner Until Afterwards Is Much More Exciting

This is the optimistic option.

“We'll get something when we come out.”

Of course we will.

What time does it finish?

Nobody knows.

Will there be somewhere nearby still serving what we actually want?

Nobody checked.

Will somebody suggest a takeaway on the way home?

Almost certainly.

And this is how a carefully planned cultural evening ends with four adults sitting in a car at 10.45pm passing chips around.

To be fair, we've had worse nights.

October Gives Us Plenty Of Opportunities To Test It

Peterborough has a busy run of evening entertainment coming up.

The Key Theatre's October programme includes theatre, comedy, music, dance and jazz, while Peterborough Cathedral has evening concerts including The Music of Whitney on 8 October, The Music of Tim Burton, Danny Elfman & Beyond on 9 October, Elvis by Candlelight on 24 October, and Scouting for Girls on 30 October. Peterborough Cathedral

Which means there should be plenty of people asking the same question:

Where are we eating?

And we'd like to turn that into something helpful.

Because “Near The Theatre” Isn't Quite Enough

This is where recommendations often go wrong.

Someone asks where to eat before a show and gets told about a brilliant restaurant.

Great.

But can you comfortably eat there and make a 7.30pm curtain?

Can you park?

Do you need to book?

Is it somewhere for a full dinner or somewhere you can get fed quickly?

Could you go afterwards instead?

That's the information you actually need.

Nobody wants to spend dessert checking their watch every forty seconds.

“We've got loads of time.”

Five minutes later:

“Can we get the bill please?”

Thirty seconds later:

“Sorry, could we possibly get the bill?”

And then Dad is standing by the door wearing his coat while everybody else is still seated.

Perhaps We Need A Pre-Show Food Trail?

This could become genuinely useful if you are planning this sort of night out.

Not merely a list of restaurants near venues.

We want combinations that actually work.

Dinner + Key Theatre.

Quick bite + Cathedral concert.

Drinks + comedy.

Coffee and cake + afternoon performance.

And, importantly:

somewhere still feeding you when the show finishes.

That's a Taste Trail.

The event gives you the reason to leave the house.

The food turns it into the whole evening.

Your Turn Solve This One For Us

If you've been to the Key Theatre, Cathedral or another Peterborough venue recently, where did you eat?

Tell us in the comments:

Venue + food stop + before or after.

Even better, tell us whether you'd do the same combination again.

Because we'd like to build a proper Peterborough eat-before-the-show guide from people who've actually tried it.

And there is one final question we need settled.

Dinner before the show or food afterwards?

Choose carefully. We're judging you.LOL

Post your comments below