WHEN Shandon Easton bought the Little Theatre a year and a half ago he knew that audio and visual technology were his speciality.

He transformed the aging theatre into a state of the art digital cinema making it Bermuda's only high definition 3-D movie theatre.

His vision didn't stop there and he continued on his quest to perfect the moviegoing experience in Bermuda.

After extensive renovations to improve the theatre inside and out the cinema doors have reopened and Little Theatre has changed its name to Speciality Cinema and Grill.

Mr. Easton owns Speciality Cinema and Grill along with his wife Giovanna and his father-in-law Pietro Di Vuolo. Mr. Di Vuolo and Mrs. Easton also own the award-winning restaurant Speciality Inn on South Shore Road in Smith's.

Their goal is to serve people the freshest food for the best price and to give people in Bermuda a movie going experience unlike anything they have ever experienced on the island.

The two have combined to bring Speciality Inn's food and service together with Little Theatre's high quality digital screen and sound.

For people who love going to a high quality cinema this can best be described as a dream come true.

Mrs. Easton and Mr. Di Vuolo spoke with Mid-Ocean News about opening a new Speciality Inn restaurant right in the heart of the city of Hamilton and about some of the changes to the theatre.

"Our prices are still great," said Mrs. Easton. "At Speciality Inn our motto is good service, good price and good food and that's what we've brought with us to the Specialty Cinema and Grill.

"The reason we changed the name from Little Theatre to Specialty Cinema and Grill was we wanted the public to know about the change. Little Theatre was the perfect name because it was a little theatre, but we added speciality because it is special.

"It's digital, we've upgraded it and we've made it special. We also wanted the name to correspond to the restaurant because we are one identity now."

Mrs. Easton saidt the family-run business Speciality Inn had always wanted to have a presence in town, adding: "Speciality Inn has been a family business for a long time and when my Dad's partner left five years ago I joined my Dad at Speciality Inn.

"With the success of Speciality Inn we always had the thought of coming into Hamilton and with my husband Shandon's dream of owning a theatre, we bought the cinema and always said 'Why don't we put Speciality in town'? It took a while to get through the plans but it was worth it and we've had a lot of positive feedback. Speciality Inn is a family environment and I am seeing a lot of our regular customers coming into our town restaurant now. The only difference is we don't have wait staff for sit-down service but there is a seating area.

"We also have a coffee and juice bar at our town location which we don't have at our South Shore location. People looking for healthy foods should stop by the juice bar. We make great juices and protein shakes and we only use fresh fruit. The coffee bar is a great hang-out place for people to have a fresh tasty pastry and good cup of coffee."

Another bonus to the Speciality Cinema and Grill is that people looking for fresh pastries and baked products need look no further.

"The pastries are all freshly made on the premises as are the breads and all our food," said Mrs. Easton. "Everything you see and order here is made fresh daily or fresh on the spot.

"We bring fresh sushi from our South Shore location, we have fresh salads, sandwiches. You name it. We are open seven days a week for breakfast, lunch and dinner at our town location. Monday to Thursday.

"We are open from 7 am until 10 pm. Friday we are open from 7 am to 11 pm. Saturday we are open from 9 am until 11 pm and Sunday we are open from 1 pm until 10 pm. We have a full menu for breakfast lunch and dinner that people can eat at our seating area or take out with them. In the movie theatre people are allowed to take nachos, hot dogs and pizzas as well as drinks and popcorn and candy."

Mrs. Easton said one very noticeable change patrons of the old Little Theatre will be immediately aware of is the fact access to the business is now more streamlined.

"Whereas before people could enter and exit through both the Queen Street and Church Street entrances, now Church Street is the only entrance people use," she said.

"People then exit through a Queen Street exit.

"To reduce flow we encourage people to go through the exit at the back of the theatre where they will exit on the Queen Street side.

"There are also new bathrooms at the cinema. They are no longer at the front like the old theatre, now everything is in the back."

Mrs. Easton said Speciality Cinema and Grill is available to be booked for kids parties and corporate events and noted as there is a digital projector companies can show PowerPoint presentations on as well as other computer software programs.

"We are emphasising kids parties," said Mrs. Easton. "For instance next weekend I have two parties. For the parties we have trays of pizza and they have the whole theatre to themselves to watch a movie.

Speciality Cinema and Grill is the perfect family environment for family functions. For people that want to have business meetings we have the digital projector and we serve our fresh coffee and fresh pastries made by chefs on the premises. That service is from 8 am until 1 pm.

"They have to be finished so we can accommodate our 2:30 pm movie."

Mr. Easton also owns Unique Audio which does high end home theatre installations as well as car and boat installations for superior sound.

He has spoken with Mid-Ocean News previously about his top notch digital theatre and said: "I started it for the love of it all.

"I've always been into high-end entertainment... Watch the clarity when you see the digital movie. Digital distribution is going to take old 35 mm film prints right out. Film prints are a thing of the past and digital is the wave of the future."

For more information contact Speciality Cinema and Grill or look for movie listings in the newspaper or online.