Standees isn’t quite ready for its close-up

Standees takes its name from AMC founder and multiplex visionary Stan Durwood — Stan D., if you need to think about it. There are a couple of other meanings at play, too: a reference to the cardboard cutouts that theater owners have long used to promote upcoming films in their lobbies, and the archaic fire-code-busting notion of “standing room only” moviegoers. The name is well-intentioned but awkward. And so is the venue.

This recent addition to the Prairie Village foodscape is a neighborhood miniplex with delusions of multiplex grandeur. It’s a very comfortable movie theater. It’s also an impressive-looking bar. And it’s a full-service restaurant — one that isn’t ready to compete in the same league with this suburb’s other dining rooms.

The two-month-old Standees works best simply as a place to see a movie. With just three screens, it doesn’t boast wide variety, but the programming purposely avoids the stuff most likely to attract texting teens or screaming children. The seats are ample and exceptionally forgiving, and each is equipped with a tray that’s more than adequate for an appetizer or a dessert — the target clientele being a crowd that would prefer a warm green-apple tart and a vodka tonic over a box of Dots to tide them over during, say, The Lone Ranger.

Food and movies go back a long way, of course. During the Depression, popcorn and candy and soda — sold at a high markup — helped save plenty of theaters. Eventually came those other staples: stale hot dogs, gooey nachos, froufrou lattes. There is a concession counter at Standees, offering popcorn and de rigueur candy such as Junior Mints. But it’s tucked well into the back, away from a dining room that echoes other dining spots within the same shopping district, including (upscale) Café Provence and Tavern in the Village.

Unlike the similarly outfitted screening rooms that have popped up in AMC theaters and at the counter-centric Alamo Drafthouse, Standees isn’t really set up for its patrons to shove moules frites into their mouths while the opening credits roll. No, this place is designed for its clients to sup in the dining room, then have dessert or a cocktail during the film.

“Or you can sit in the dining room after the film and talk about the movie over an appetizer or dessert,” suggests the restaurant’s publicist, Justin Scott. “You don’t really want to have a full dinner inside the theater.” He’s right. Those trays aren’t maneuverable enough to support entrées, even in the Styrofoam boxes they’re packed into for those who insist on trying to go full meal in the dark.

The movie experience requires a certain decorum, and I’ve never liked the dine-in trend at local cinemas. A kid with a frank one row over is one thing. But even Red 2 doesn’t deserve to be seen among people noisily gnawing hunks of chicken Veronique and looking for someone to bring out another Heineken.

Besides, having tasted the chicken Veronique at Standees, I can’t imagine wanting to eat it again in the dining room or in the darkened movie auditorium. The pan-seared chicken breast, dressed with sautéed green grapes, is as salty as day-old movie popcorn.

I don’t blame the restaurant’s chef, Greg Pickardt. He was hired after much of the menu had been created by a consultant, one who was big on ideas but not on execution. I’m thinking, for instance, of the steamed Prince Edward mussels I tried, served in a white porcelain bowl in a tasteless milky broth (it needed Pernod) and heaped with a jumble of crispy shoestring frites drowned in the same boring broth. I asked for a cocktail fork to pry open the moules, and the server looked at me as though I was speaking French in a film without subtitles. Standees didn’t need a culinary consultant, but it could use a translator.

The more exotic the dish, the more spectacular the failure. Case in point: a pretty but fragile duck confit, stingily wrapped in neon-yellow turmeric soy paper. The duck I sampled may have been slow-braised, as the menu claims, but there was so little of it in the roll that its cooking time was irrelevant.

On the other hand, I tasted a beautifully prepared pan-roasted halibut, light and flaky and lolling on a puddle of sweet-potato puree. The steak burger is the MGM Studios version of a hamburger: a house-ground blend of Kansas chuck and short rib tucked into a pillowy brioche bun. And the meatballs — house-ground smoked brisket and burnt ends — work very well. That’s because they’re simple: good and meaty and lightly glazed with a sugary but delicious barbecue sauce.

A so-called chop of Iowa Duroc pork needs to be redefined on the menu. It may have started off as a pork chop in its uncooked state, but after a thorough pummeling, a heavy crusting of panko crumbs and a dousing in hot oil, what arrived at the table was an old-fashioned, dry-as-a-bone Midwest pork tenderloin. It would be fine for a state fair, but it’s a little trashy for this sleekly conceived concept.

Meaty things dominate the Standees menu; vegetarians have to cobble meals together from the five side dishes or settle on a grilled vegetable sandwich or a portobello burger.

Standees is surely the only restaurant in the metro serving that Victorian-era dessert called “Floating Island”: custard and a soft-poached meringue. I prefer the Boston cream pie, which folds a thick British custard between layers of fluffy génoise cake. It looks like the most elegant Hostess Ding Dong ever.

The dessert that succeeds in the dining room as well as in the auditorium is the ice-cream sundae, which is heavily drizzled with dark- and white-chocolate caramel sauces and whipped cream, and sprinkled with candied peanuts and caramel corn. It combines the best components of the classic movie concession stand. Just don’t wipe your hands on the seat. This is Prairie Village, not a dollar theater.