Not to make you more anxious about it, but I have a story you’re not going to like:
Back in uni, several years ago, I went to the movie theater with a couple friends. Being the broke ass students we were, we didn’t buy anything to eat or drink while watching the movie.
Anyway, we were searching for our seats when all of a sudden we saw an abandoned tray with a popcorn and soda, completely untouched, so we took it.
I had told the story about the abandoned tray in the movies a couple times since as a nice thing that happened to me. Until last month, when I was telling the story to my wife and her parents, and they said “what if the owner went to the bathroom before the movie started”.
That’s when I realized that me and my friends didn’t find the tray, but rather someone possibly went to the bathroom only to come back to their seat and find their food/drinks stolen.
Big oof, that’s most likely what happened. If someone goes alone there’s not much they can do if they end up having to go after they already bought their drink and snacks. When I worked at a theatre some people would leave their snacks with me temporarily when I worked at the booth where we accepted tickets to let people in, so for anyone who likes to go to movies solo, that’s usually a good option. That or you can find someone seated nearby in the theatre and ask them to let people know that the snacks you’re leaving at your seat are claimed and not abandoned. Or bring a note to put with your snacks as a last ditch effort.