Bear Town Cinema 6

This theatre was built in the early 1970’s as the Southgate Cinema 1 & 2, possibly Eastern North Carolina’s first twin indoor cinema. The owner was Gordon Parrott of the Gordon’s Foodland supermarket chain. One of the Foodlands was next door to the Southgate Cinema (last time I was in New Bern it was a Piggly Wiggly), and Mr. Parrott also owned the Midway Drive-In on Old Cherry Point Road near another one of his Foodland stores. The Southgate was expanded to six screens about 1988-1989. I lived in New Bern from 1990 to 1995 and the Southgate was the larger of New Bern’s two cinemas (the Neuse Boulevard Cinema, then operated by Carmike Cinemas, had only three screens). I spent many hours watching movies at both theatres when I lived there. The Southgate was one of only two theatres in eastern North Carolina to show the NC-17 rated film “Showgirls” (the other was the UA Litchfield 4 in Goldsboro). I am surprised to learn that this theatre has been closed and reopened, as it was the best cinema in town.

This theater, which had briefly closed in April of 2011, has reopened and is now the Bear Town Cinema 6: http://www.newbernsj.com/news/cinema-97919-bear-midnight.html.