QUEENS — It's dinner and a movie.
Buffalo Wild Wings, the popular barbecue chain, is slated to open a massive location at the former Forest Hills Theatre soon, the restaurant announced.
The new location, at 107-16 71st Ave. — between Austin Street and Queens Boulevard — will measure around 10,000 square feet, which is about 40 percent larger than a typical Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant, said James Bitzonis, president of Four M Capital, LLC, the group launching the restaurant.
The grand opening of the two-story Forest Hills location, which will have a takeout section on the ground floor, is scheduled for July 15.
It will also “feature over 72 HD TVs and two monster projection screens” and have satellite sports programming that will broadcast a variety of sport events, Bitzonis said.
The restaurant will not interfere with the building’s classic features, Bitzonis said, and it “will pay homage to the theater and Forest Hills” by displaying memorabilia, including photos and jerseys representing local sports teams.
The company is in the process of receiving a number of historical photos showing the building and the neighborhood. “We are enlarging them and framing them,” he said.
Overall, there will be about 100 pieces of memorabilia displayed at the restaurant.
The theater, which opened in 1921, showed movies for seven decades, before being sold to a local developer in 1998, according to Cinema Treasures, an online guide to movie theaters.
A Duane Reade opened there a year later with the theater’s facade restored. The original building behind the facade, according to the website, was demolished for construction of the drugstore. Part of the building also became home to Staples, which closed in October 2012.
“We will provide a great atmosphere for all ages,” Bitzonis said.
Aside from a location at JFK, the Forest Hills restaurant will be the chain’s first location in Queens, Bitzonis said.
