Opened: July 14, 1978 as the Valley Projection Theatre with "Crazy House" (aka "House in Nightmare Park"). The building is on the northeast corner of Olive and Lincoln St. Thanks to Ron Strong for the photo from his Bijou Memories page about the venue.
Seating: About 35
The venue was a screening room at Valley Projection Services, a firm operated by Jason Dru and a partner. They also sold and serviced projectors as well as offering film printing services. Ron Strong notes that since their screening room was under-utilized, they decided to open it as a public theatre.
Programs were always single feature, initially on 16mm. After a closure for several months in the fall of 1978, they reopened in December as the Coffee Cinema with 35mm projection and serving coffee and donuts.
A January 1979 ad for the Coffee.
Closing: January 29, 1979. Ron reports finding an article in the June 17, 1979 issue of the L.A. Times quoting co-owner Jason Dru as saying the theatre would reopen soon. It didn't happen.
Status: The building is still there, now with other tenants.
More information: Thanks Ron! See his Bijou Memories page about the Coffee. He's evidently the only one who has done any research on this peculiar venue.
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I'm the only one to do research on this little dive, because I was probably their only customer.
ReplyDeleteHe was a super 8 specialist too as I remember.
ReplyDeleteThat's right. He had 8mm and Super 8 Sound print of quite a few films, full length features (4 reels) as I recall. I don't believe any of them were legal (I.E. Star Wars, De Laurentis's King Kong and others)
Delete