Over at James Sherritt’s blog, we learn that the Ridge Theatre will close permanently on December 23. Yeah, that Ridge: fantastic popcorn. Great flicks during the film festival. The best marquee in the Lower Mainland.
Here’s the official announcement.
Update: And yet the Ridge stubbornly insists on doing things like making popcorn and showing movies. The “official announcement” link above now leads to an error page. What’s the scoop? See the comments below.
As far as I know it isn’t really closing down, it will reopen under new management.
Ianiv, thanks for the note. Passing by The Ridge the other day I noticed it was still open. So I’ve done some searching online and, from what I can tell, here’s what’s happening.
I heard or read that the owner of The Ridge bought The Park on Cambie a few months ago and that he intended to refit it modelled on The Ridge. I also see that Fifth Avenue, The Park and The Ridge have been collected under the moniker of Festival Cinemas (http://www.festivalcinemas.ca/), and on that website FAQs I read that:
“The Park, Fifth Avenue and Ridge Cinemas are now independently owned and operated by Festival Cinemas. Festival Cinemas started with the Ridge Theatre in 1978 and has operated the Vancouver East Cinema, Varsity Theatre, Starlight Cinema, Park Theatre, and Fifth Avenue Cinemas. Leonard Schein (the president of Festival Cinemas) also started the Vancouver International Film Festival. Now, Festival Cinemas operates the Fifth Avenue Cinemas, the Park Theatre and starting December 25, The Ridge Theatre.”
So we seem to have a new kingpin of indy, interesting movies in Vancouver. The Ridge website splash page now reads, “Sorry, this site is now closed” and the announcement, which appeared on the same site, now leads to a 404 error. Myself, I’m sorry for the causing any confusion.
To sum up, it seems The Ridge has been rolled into the new Festival Cinemas, which is owned by the fellow who owned The Ridge and we’ll have to wait and see what the effect is on the movies and the popcorn. I can report that as of December 19th The Ridge has new seats and the same great popcorn.
There were two items on this by Pieta Woolley in the Georgia Straight:
The Ridge still the Ridge, Nov. 24 2005
Fergoodnesssakes. The Ridge is NOT closing, Dec. 1 2005
I also had something about it in my blog.
It is pretty weird that the old owners haven’t given the domain name ridgetheatre.com to the new owners; I mean, what are they going to do with it?
Current listings for the Ridge (as well as Fifth Avenue and the Park) are at festivalcinemas.ca (as well as CinemaClock.com.