Dinner and a movie: the classic night out. But what to do with the remains of that Knight’s cowboy steak if you want to walk across the street and see a movie at the Michigan Theater? For reasons ranging from sanitary to olfactory, the theater doesn’t want you to bring that doggy bag into the auditorium with you.

“Of course we’re happy to label and refrigerate leftovers for you,” says Russ Collins, executive director of the Michigan Theater, perplexed that the question would even be asked. “We’re happy to do whatever we can to make our customer’s life easier. Any theater with a customer-oriented, friendly staff would.” And that, of course, goes for the State Theater too, which is owned by the Michigan Theater Foundation.

Collins doesn’t claim that commercial movie houses would provide such a service, but he does go out on a limb and postulate that Hill Auditorium and the rest of the UMS venues would do the same. “Hill has a refrigerator,” he offers. “They have a concession stand in the basement.”

Alas, Jeffrey Kuras, director of University Productions, writes: “I am sorry to be the bearer of unhappy news, but my good friend Russ Collins misspoke–we do not refrigerate leftovers for patrons attending Hill Auditorium, Power Center, Mendelssohn Theatre, and the Arthur Miller Theatre. Unfortunately, there are no refrigerators close by the entrances of the performance halls unlike the concession stand at the entrance of the Michigan Theatre. I am sure that the food-safety experts at the university would be very unhappy with my office if we stored unrefrigerated leftovers.”