Burien Theater

630 S.W. 153rd Street,
Burien, WA 98166

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The Burien Theater, in the suburb of Burien, Washington, south of Seattle, was a modest, unremarkable building with a glassy lobby facade comparable to a branch savings bank. The theater opened in 1957 and closed in the early 1970s about the time that the much larger and chain-affiliated (Sterling Recreation Organization) Lewis & Clark Theater, a few miles east of Burien, converted from a single screen to a multiplex.

The Burien was popular with youngsters for its Saturday triple features of low-budget monster movies. It also played a number of Jerry Lewis double features and American International Pictures such as the Beach Party series. The last bill I saw there was "Billy Jack" playing with "Celebration at Big Sur."

The theater building reopened from 1975 to 1979 as "Big Bob’s Pipe Dream," a theme restaurant showcasing a 1918 Mighty Wurlitzer pipe organ previously installed at the Coliseum Theater in Seattle.

The former Burien Theater building is now a family restaurant called Bison Creek Pizza.

Contributed by John Dodd

Recent comments (view all 3 comments)

kencmcintyre
kencmcintyre on July 6, 2007 at 4:49 pm

Here is the PSTOS page regarding the Burien:
http://tinyurl.com/29ulqz

mcmanussj
mcmanussj on January 20, 2012 at 12:40 pm

There was a burien theater when my famley moved to burien in about 1955. It was in an old wooden building that was a church at one time. I think I saw Old yeller there. We were all excited about the plans for the new building that was built about a year later. During my younger years me and my brothers had a great time going to there to see Disney films Annett beach movies, and Elvis movies. I remember Bob Anderson was the owner.

mcmanussj
mcmanussj on January 26, 2012 at 3:30 pm

There was also the Hi-Line theater on 1st Ave south. It was just a big quansit hut with a really plain lobby. It had a pond with a fish that looked like trout in it. We were just there for the movie anyway.

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