When she first bought the North Bend Theater in 2006, Cindy Walker looked at the staff — mostly college and high school students — and felt invigorated.
“If these kids can run a movie theater,” she said she thought to herself, “so can I.”
Four years later, Walker still owns the 59-year-old theater, and she said it has as much left in the tank as the youths who sold its popcorn back then.
“It’s an icon out here,” she said. “There’s room for improvement and tweaks, but it is a product of the community.”
Running a theater is not easy, particularly in the midst of a small town, a struggling economy and an era where Netflix and Redbox are household names.
“It’s not day-to-day, but it’s quarter-to-quarter,” she said.
The learning curve is steep. Both she and her husband were stockbrokers and knew nothing about running a theater. Then, they bought one.
Sometimes, the shows go on with the front rows roped off because of flooding. The biggest challenge is keeping the theater vibrant, if not dry.
That goes beyond picking one movie over another.
The theater hosts events for several schools, Relay For Life, the Northwest Railway Museum, Encompass, and for birthday parties for children and adults. A film festival comes to town the first week of December.
The movie theater has become more than just a theater, Walker said. It’s a gathering place for the community.
She plans to add more seats and a beer-and-wine bar to part of the building’s upstairs.
King County has awarded the theater, a county historic landmark, a 4Culture grant to help restore the building, and Walker said she wants to apply for a matching grant next year, too. The 4Culture website showed that more than 10 Snoqualmie Valley landmarks have received similar grants during the past five years.
The $7,000 grant was approved at the end of spring.
“It’s a great property,” said Flo Lentz, at the preservation program of 4Culture, the cultural services agency for the county. “The project ranked quite high in public benefit.”
The project entails structural analysis of the building.
Still, a recession is a recession and not everyone has money to spend at the movies every day.
“You’re not going to get rich running a theater,” Walker said.
Nevertheless, she said she has faith that the community will keep supporting its largest screen, and the screen’s owner.
Buying the theater was an investment in North Bend as much as it was a business, Walker said. Having purchased an Emerald City Smoothie franchise and two pieces of property, she considers herself “fully invested in North Bend.”
That investment, she said, will someday come to an end. Someone owned the theater before she did and someone will own it after.
“I’m not thinking of selling,” she said. “But that day will come. I’m not going to own it for 30 years.”
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