Bristol Riverside Theatre

This renovated theater has a website at www.brtstage.org

My grandmother worked selling tickets at the Bristol Theater in the early 1970s when they showed porn. As she used to say “Well, the money’s clean.”

The Bristol Theatre opened on February 9, 1938. It replaced the old Riverside Theatre which was closed following a fire in the mid 30s. The theatre was built by the Soblosky’s under the Grand Amusement Company which also operated the Grand Theatre in Bristol. The architect was T. R. Remer who was associated with Hoffman-Henon of Philadelphia. The theatre’s capacity was more like 850, not the 302 that’s listed above. When the theatre opened in 1938, it became the Paramount, Columbia and Republic film exhibitor in Bristol with a few sub-runs from the Grand Theatre.

I attended this theatre from 1950 until the early 60s. The first film I saw here was “King Solomon’s Mines”, a M-G-M film that normally would have played the Grand. But around 1950, film distribution arrangements changed, and a few M-G-M titles played the Bristol, this being one of them. During the 50s, the Bristol Theatre became the principal theatre in town as the Grand slipped into oblivion. In 1966, the theatre became the Bristol Art Theatre showing porn for another 18 years. It closed and was again resurrected as the Bristol Riverside Dinner Theatre which has been very successful.