Pine Theater

Joe Vogel on November 17, 2012 at 1:20 pm

Here is an an updated link to the 1941 Boxoffice article with three photos of the Pine Theatre’s original interior.

Oniko on June 17, 2011 at 9:35 pm

Hi this is Oniko Mehrabi, we would love to see any pictures of the theater please post them. You are also welcome to send me a email. Joe we have never seen any interior photos. To open the theater again everthing had to be to current building code so we feel to many things had to changed but it’s hard to tell. THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE FOR ALL THE PHOTOS POSTED! I’m happy to see Cinema treasures updated, let me know how I can be of help. Also we are now a 2 screen and I hope you will all like the look. Thank you thank you Cinema Treasures

lostmemory on June 29, 2009 at 7:25 pm

That photo is circa 1939.

lostmemory on June 29, 2009 at 5:53 pm

I don’t know what the current seating is but the Pine Theater is listed in 1955 with 400 seats. Maybe the owner of the Pine can give us an update on the current seating.

lostmemory on September 10, 2008 at 6:27 pm

Status should be open. This is an August 2008 photo.

kencmcintyre on December 28, 2007 at 4:08 pm

Here is a shortcut to a photo from the theater website:
http://tinyurl.com/3683bu

lostmemory on February 27, 2007 at 8:40 am

According to this article, the Pine Theater opened in 1938 and closed in 1971.

“New owners to refurbish Pine Theater

January 18, 2007
Associated Press

PRINEVILLE, Ore. — The old Pine Theater is going to be revived by new owners who say they plan to refurbish it and begin showing movies again.

The theater was purchased recently by a Prineville couple, Oniko and Ali Mehrabi.

Oniko Mehrabi said that she and her husband plan to operate the theater as a “McMenamins-style” business, with a restaurant or cafe alongside third- and fourth-run movies.

The theater should have a new marquee in a few weeks, but there is no set timeline on renovating the interior, she said.

“We don’t have definite architectural plans at the moment,” she said. “The biggest thing was acquiring it and knowing that our biggest plan was opening it as a movie theater.”

The purchase and renovation plans are expected to boost downtown development as Crook County’s population continues to grow.

“It should be good for the downtown — I think it will only be a good thing for the city,” said Cathy Lane, whose husband and father-in-law have owned Prineville Men’s Wear, across Main Street from the Pine Theater, for 57 years.

Mehrabi has experience with running a business in Prineville. She and her husband moved from Portland about a year ago, and she opened Main Street Fashions, a clothing store.

But she eventually decided she did not want to spend so much time away from her son, Michael, now 2. Ali Mehrabi works in Redmond.

They hope to run the business as a family, with assistance from other relatives, but will probably also hire some outside help.

The Pine Theater opened in 1938 and was owned by Ken Piercy, who also operated the Lyric Theater across the street, said Steve Lent, a historian with the Bowman Memorial Museum. The Lyric Theater closed in 1966 after a fire in its building, and the Pine Theater closed in 1971.

“It’s been pretty much empty since then,” Lent said. “Commercially, it hasn’t been used much since that time.”

The Mehrabis bought the property a few months ago from Prineville lawyer Jim Van Voorhees.

Prineville Mayor Mike Wendel said he often went to the Pine as a high school student, and saw the original “Star Wars” there.

“I’m excited to see somebody trying to renovate the old Pine Theater,” he said. “It’s one of the long-standing buildings in town, and the Pine Theater out front with the neon lights and everything is something that’s been part of Prineville for a long time.”

Local teenagers welcomed news that downtown Prineville could have a movie theater in the near future.

“That would be awesome,” Shaylynn Curtis, 17, said. “It just gives us something to do”.