Boyfriend Goes to Hardware Store, Comes Back With Best Movie Snack Hack

When you sneak food into a cinema, you can't be too picky with presentation, unless you've been to the hardware store.

One man's hack for carrying cinema food has gone viral on TikTok. The creator's girlfriend, Jess Baker-Smith (@jessybakersmith), shared the video of him using a toolbox from a hardware store to carry candy and other movie snacks. Since it was posted, the video has been viewed more than 1.6 million times and has received over 107,000 likes.

"Boyfriend went to [hardware store] B&Q, came back with this and said it's now our cinema snack box," she captioned the video. "£7 absolute bargain as well."

Viewers in the comments were ticked by the hack, with many saying they would adopt the method and praising her boyfriend for his enterprising mind.

"The greenest of flags," @gemmafinch03 wrote.

"This ain't breaking anytime soon," Baker-Smith added in the comments about the toolbox, along with "I didn't know my boyfriend was this clever."

Some cinema employees weighed in, saying they would be confounded if they saw the scene Baker-Smith captured in her video.

"I used to work in a cinema," @dave_mk7 wrote. "If I saw your boyfriend walk in with a toolbox I honestly don't know what I'd do."

Sneaking Snacks Into the Movies: Context Matters

There are differences between the cinema snack culture in the U.K., where Baker-Smith's video originated, and in the U.S.

U.K. cinema chains often allow cold snacks, foods and drinks from outside the theater in their cinemas, making Baker-Smith's operation pretty benign. However, in the U.S., the rules sometimes differ.

A video went viral in 2021 after a woman in the U.S. attempted to sneak a Chipotle bowl into an AMC Theater by putting it down her pants. Though an AMC representative previously told Newsweek that the chain's "'no outside food or drink' policy is enforced at every AMC location," the creator, @t.renns, shared that she used to work at an AMC Theater when she was a teenager—and that she, as an employee, was unable to stop people from sneaking in food.

"We legally can't stop you from bringing food into the movie theater," she said in the video. "If you just say like 'I have to eat' there's literally nothing we can do."

The situation in U.K. movie theaters certainly seems less contested. While we don't know if Baker-Smith's boyfriend got his snacks from the cinema or elsewhere, we definitely know he didn't partake in their packaging. Reusable snack containers are the way to go, at least outside of the U.S.

Newsweek reached out to @jessybakersmith for comment via TikTok.