Plaza Cinema Twin
Kinston Plaza Shopping Center,
Kinston,
NC
28501
Kinston Plaza Shopping Center,
Kinston,
NC
28501
1 person
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Stewart & Everett Theatres opened the Plaza Cinema at Kinston Plaza in 1975, located in the middle of the shopping center then anchored by Woolco, Big Star and A&P (yes, TWO supermarkets!). The theatre was located at the rear of a semi-enclosed corridor featuring small specialty shops. The Plaza Cinema was initially a single screen theatre, which had been built years earlier by another chain but had failed to compete with S&E’s Mall Cinema, Bright Leaf Drive-In and Paramount theatres. The reopened Plaza Cinema replaced the defunct Bright Leaf Drive-In and soon after the Plaza opened the Paramount would close.
The movies that played at the Plaza were not as big hits as those at the Mall Cinema; Disney films and R-rated B-movies were more likely to be shown here. The Plaza Cinema was twinned in the early-1980’s; around the same time the Park Theatre on North Queen Street closed, leaving Stewart & Everett with a monopoly in Kinston. Carmike Cinemas took over in 1986 and kept the Plaza Cinema operating after they shut down the Mall Cinema in 1999.
The Plaza Cinema closed following the opening of the Premiere Cinema 7 on Hill Farm Road in the early-2000’s. Any information regarding this theatre prior to 1975 would be apprecated.
Contributed by
NightHawk1
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Recent comments (view all 2 comments)
Interesting. It reminds me of the Lakewood Center Theatre in Durham that opened in November of 1966,that was anchored by a W.T. Grant’s Department Store and was anchored by two supermarkets too(Winn-Dixie and Kroger!)
Kinston Plaza was built in the mid-1960s and there may have been a theatre there when the shopping center opened. I’m just not aware of who owned the theatre before S&E reopened it in 1975 or what the previous name(s) of the theatre was. I do know that the theatre existed long before 1975.