BAR HARBOR – At Reel Pizza Cinerama, customers can get a pint of beer and a slice of pie, then settle into their favorite recliner to eat, drink and watch a film in surround sound. Owners Chris Vincenty and Lisa Burton say first-time customers aren’t sure what to make of the entertainment hybrid – yet they invariably like it.

“This type of small-time theater really is the heart of a community,” Vincenty said. “I know most of my customers either by name or by face. That’s part of the whole formula here – it’s like going to someone’s house.”

In fact, the concept has been so successful that Vincenty proposed razing his 80-seat dinner theater to build a $360,000 new home financed by members of his loyal audience. The two-story building would house dual screens capable of seating 220 total patrons, a spacious kitchen and gallery space for local visual artists.

The only problem is that theaters technically are illegal in Bar Harbor.

The town’s zoning ordinance excludes all theaters from downtown because of the great amount of parking they require. So, Vincenty has classified his business as a restaurant since its 1995 opening.

He meets the zoning ordinance’s definition of a restaurant – “an establishment whose principal business is the sale of food and beverages in a ready-to-consume state” – because the on-site and takeout pizza sales account for slightly more than half of Reel Pizza’s total revenue, according to prior planning board decisions.

“We’re not one idea, we’re a hybrid. There’s no category for what we do,” Vincenty said. “I’m not trying to get around the ordinances, I’m trying to work within this system.”

Municipal officials have time and again assured Vincenty that Reel Pizza may call itself a restaurant. Since he opend, Vincenty has acquired two building permits from the town, as well as a liquor license, which cannot be granted to theaters.

“I decided that it would conform to a restaurant with entertainment, and I still feel that’s legitimate,” said code enforcement officer Bob Sharkey.

But Betty Jean Morison, owner of the Criterion Theatre, appealed the planning board’s conditional approval of Vincenty’s building project last December on the basis that Reel Pizza Cinerama is not a restaurant, but a movie theater – defined as “a fully enclosed building used for display or presentation to the public of films, plays or other kinds of performances.”

For nearly two years, Vincenty has put off his construction project, waiting for Bar Harbor’s appeals board to address Morison’s complaints, and waiting for the neighboring Congregational Church’s congregation to vote on a proposed land transfer that would eliminate his parking problems.

Both matters have been tabled in recent months. On Sunday, Dec. 10, the church is scheduled to decide on Vincenty’s offer to swap about 2,000 square feet of their lot for the same amount of his. The Bar Harbor appeals board will reconsider Reel Pizza’s building permit Tuesday, Dec. 12.

“I’m up against the wall here,” he said. “If construction doesn’t begin this month, I’ll have to put it off for another year. At this point, I have to have smooth sailing to get the project done so I can open again next summer.”

Morison, who spends winters in New Orleans, could not be reached for comment. However, the Criterion Theatre asserted its viewpoint with a recent paid advertisement in a local weekly newspaper. The Criterion’s local lawyer, Eileen McGlinchey Fahey, would not comment on the reasoning behind purchasing such an advertisement.

“Since it was founded in 1995, Reel Pizza Cinerama has operated as a movie theater in every way,” it reads. “Its selling of pizza and snacks, cola, beer and wines along with its showing films should not be allowed to justify its classification as a restaurant.”

The Criterion, established in 1932, predates the town’s zoning regulations, and thus, had a legal monopoly on cinema in Bar Harbor – until Reel Pizza was founded.

“It’s very possible we will beforced to close if Reel Pizza Cinerama is allowed to remodel as a twin cinema,” reads the advertisement. “That is not a threat or a plea for sympathy. It’s reality.”

But according to Vincenty, who spent 14 years working for Morison as a projectionist, janitor and all-around manager at the Criterion, the two theaters can coexist.

“The business is busting at the seams – it’s ridiculous,” Vincenty said. “The mere fact that my business has grown shows that the market is wide open here. When people come from a place with 70 screens in a 10-minute vicinity, they expect choice,” he said.

Reel Pizza turned away more than 60 people at a second-run showing of the popular film “Chicken Run” last summer after the show sold out in just ten minutes. Even during the slower winter season, Reel Pizza sold out about half the time, Vincenty said.

The historic Criterion Theater has a single screen and shows one movie per night – primarily studio blockbusters – throughout the summer tourist season. The classic Art Deco auditorium can seat nearly 900 people, according to Vincenty.

“The Criterion Theatre was, and is, a place to get away from the modern harsh world and luxuriate among her velvet curtains, romantic loge [box seating] and the grace of times gone by,” he said.

Reel Pizza, on the other hand, has positioned itself as an intimate art-house theater, showing lesser-known films to small crowds nearly year-round. It shows occasional hit movies, but as second-run films, six to eight months after their national release, Vincenty said.

The seating is nontraditional, ranging from overstuffed couches and aluminum TV tables to booths. It’s personality won’t change with the new building, Vincenty said.

“The idea isn’t that I want to be more mainstream, it’s so I can expand on my eclectic spread,” he said.

But in the advertisement, an open letter to Bar Harbor citizens, the Criterion claims Reel Pizza is a direct and unfair competition.

“We were the first north of Portland and possibly the first in Maine to show films other than mainstream movies,” it reads.

“Competition is one thing. We’ve always had it, even before Reel Pizza opened, as does any business selling entertainment in a tourist area. Unfair competition resulting from the failure to enforce a zoning ordinance is another,” it reads.

Presently, Reel Pizza is closed in anticipation of construction. But regardless of whether its expansion is approved, the restaurant-cum-theater will reopen this spring.

“It’s hard with these twists and turns. Every time I think I’ve got it nailed down, something else comes up,” Vincenty said with a sigh. “I’m just trying to make a living. I’ve got my hopes and dreams, and I just want to pursue them and be left alone.”