Golf Glen Theatre Closes

posted by Paul Fortini on February 9, 2006 at 4:38 am

NILES, IL — Village Theatres has closed the Golf Glen Theatre in Niles, IL. The final day was February 2, 2006. The Golf Glen was a typically bland early-to-mid 1980s creation. Theatres of this type, once widespread form the late 1970s to the early 1990s, fell quickly out of favor with audiences who wanted a return to some ambiance and wider screens.

Village may have feared, and rightly so, the new cinemas which Kerasotes is constructing at the nearby Golf Mill shopping center. Also, attendance was quite low at this theatre, probably because Village doesn’t advertise most of its theatres in the paper (except for the Lincoln Village Theatre). Village has, however re-activated its website, www.villagetheatres.com.

Such a non-descript theatre might not warrant an entry here except for two reasons:

1) It was probably the last theatre built for Essaness Theatres prior to that chain’s takeover by Plitt (which incidentally, to my knowledge, leaves only two former Essaness Theatres still showing movies in the Chicagoland Area — the Lake and the Davis).

2) It probably had more owner/operators in its 23 year span than any other. Essaness, Plitt, Cineplex-Odeon, Loews-Cineplex, and Village all operated it at one time or another.