Garden Oaks Theater

I saw Saturday Night Fever here in early 1978. I was 8 yrs old. I remember while driving away from the theater late that night, on Shepherd going toward 610, seeing what looked like an old woman laying in the street at the curb. I don’t think anyone else in the car saw this but me.. I never forgot it.

Was the Garden Oaks also known as the Capri for a while in the early 1990’s? I found an article about the Capri with the same address given.

Here are two more interior photos from 1984:

Photo1

Photo2

A look back at the Garden Oaks Theater in Houston from 1998.

Here is a 2009 photo. This is now the Grace Church.

This is a late 1940s photo.

I remember seeing many films here…one memorable night in particular seeing Burt Reynolds in ‘Hooper’ with my dad.
In the early 90’s when this theater was in limbo, i remember going in one afternoon and talking to the old hispanic man who owned it: Al Zarazama. He saw that I really had the passion for the old cinemas, which surprised him, as I was only in my early 20’s then. The big theaters were just killing him and he didn’t know what he wanted to do. He told me that day that I should try to get some investors…and if I did, hed sell the theater to me. I was 23 or 24…it was an impossible dream fro me to even ponder. But I think about that sometimes.

The Garden Oaks Theater is currently under rennovations to bring it back to it’s glory days. Under the NET Church umbrella, our mission is to restore and convert the old Garden Oaks Theater into a cultural center for theater and the arts. Our secondary mission is to become an influential cultural center for performance, training and equipping leadership in the 21st century in central Houston. To complete the mission we will offer a range of classes, productions and events through creating a NET-work called the Christian Cultural Net work that trains and equips, and provides opportunities for quality artist and hosts a plethora of cultural activity and opportunity for the Garden Oaks, Timber oaks, Oaks Forest and The Heights communities as well as the greater Houston area.

Currently, there is asbestos problems in the ceiling of the main theater – once the asbestos abatement is completed the final rennovations will begin with a target to dedicate the building in September of 2006. We welcome anyone that would like to join us in restoring one of Houston’s finest old treasures.

The Garden Oaks was still in operation through the 1990s. The theatre has grown old gracefully and dispite years of neglect, she is still a beauty. The theatre was never split, but a second auditorium was added right off the lobby in a space that was previously used for retail.