Aptos Twin Cinema

The address for the Aptos twin is 122 Rancho Del Mar Center, Aptos, Ca. 95003.

From age 10 to 21, I grew up in Aptos. Most of my moviegoing was at the Capitola Theatre and 41st Ave. Playhouse in Capitola, or the Rio and Del Mar in Santa Cruz. However, we did occasionally go to the Aptos Twin. Somewhere I remember reading that this theatre was built in 1961, certainly the architecture of the Rancho del Mar shopping center would support this, but that would put the Aptos Twin in the catagory of an extrememly early twin cinema. It is located in one corner of the shopping center in a building which contains offices and retail space as well. The lobby is long and narrow, and the two auditoriums open off of it in opposite directions. The interior was very plain. Someone had painted a mural of a 1930s era Mickey Mouse on one lobby wall, and there was a large collage of photo cutouts of various movie subjects on the wall adjacent. The auditoriums were constructed of cement block, and draped with olive colored pleated fabric, with matching curtains which were still used when I last went there in the mid-Eighties. I'm not sure about the smaller auditorium, but the larger had a carpeted thrust stage in front of the curtain, with a few steps leading up to it.
For much of its life, the Aptos Twin was a United Artists operation. Its original marquee sign tower, which stood out in the parking lot, was a classic piece of Sixties signage. It was "trimmed-down" and made more generic in the 1990s, and the United Artists logo applied to it, as well as new reader boards and letters. The sign remains much the same today, but with the United Artists logo gone and "Aptos Cinemas" replacing it in red Broadway font.

The operators of the Santa Cruz based Nickelodeon & Del Mar cinemas will soon be re-opening the Aptos Twin.

The Aptos Cinemas is now listed on the Nickelodeon website.