The Cerrito Theater's Second Act Turns 20 This Fall

In 1966 the theater on San Pablo Avenue was sold to a family who later used it to store furniture. Forty years later, on November 1, 2006, the curtain went up again and the first film was Casablanca.

Sunday, November 1 marks twenty years since that night. The reopening rescued the theater, but the arrangement that keeps it open today came later, in 2018, when the building was sold with conditions attached to the deed. Those conditions run until the late 2110s.

Four Decades Dark, Four Years Back

The Cerrito opened on Christmas Day 1937. According to the Friends of the Cerrito Theater, the architect was William B. David, and the building was designed as a neighborhood house with an Art Deco lobby and matching fittings. Murals of mythological and dancing figures frame the proscenium. Nobody has yet confirmed who painted them.

The dark years and the rescue went like this:

1. 1963. Movie listings for the Cerrito stop appearing in the newspapers.
2. 1966. The building is sold to the Kiefer family and later used for furniture storage.
3. 2001. The theater comes back on the market.
4. February 2002. Residents form the Friends of the Cerrito Theater.
5. May 3, 2002. About 3,000 people come to a community open house.
6. June 2002. The City and its Redevelopment Agency vote to buy the building.
7. November 1, 2006. The theater reopens with Casablanca.

Money for the reopening came from three places: Redevelopment Agency financing, investment from the operator, and fundraising by the Friends and the community. That fundraising paid to restore historic interior features. When the doors opened in 2006, the City owned the building.

The Rescue Needed a Second Rescue

City ownership turned out to be shaky. The first operator, Speakeasy, closed the theater in 2009. Rialto Cinemas took over and began screening films on July 15 of that year.

A bigger change came from Sacramento. California dissolved local redevelopment agencies and ordered them to sell their assets, and the Cerrito was one of those assets. In 2018 the Friends wrote that the city "needs to sell the theater because the state of California put local redevelopment agencies out of business several years ago and told them to sell their assets, the theater being one."

The building that 3,000 neighbors had lined up to save in 2002 now had to go to a buyer. Without conditions, the next owner could have used it for anything.

What the 2018 Deed Actually Says

The buyer was the operator already in the building. Rialto bought the theater through a related company, Great Falls Entertainment, for $790,000. The Friends' account explains how the price was set. It reflected the repair and maintenance work Rialto had committed to, along with two promises written into the deed. Rialto agreed to:

Operate the theater as either a cinema or performance space for 99 years

Preserve the historic elements for 99 years

The Friends wrote that these restrictions lowered the theater's market value, and that lower value was part of what set the $790,000 price. The promise not to turn the theater into something else was built into the sale price.

At first the Friends worried that the preservation language was too weak. The historic elements in question were the marquee, the Art Deco glass, the murals and the original interior paint. They also wanted someone to oversee renovation work. Those concerns were settled when Rialto agreed that any changes would follow the U.S. Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, the same standards used on historic buildings across the country.

Some older pages online still say the City owns the theater. That stopped being true with the 2018 sale. A Mercury News profile from November 2025 also describes Rialto as the owner.

A Private Owner That Programs Like a Town Hall

That 2025 Mercury News piece was titled "As others disappear, this independent theater still thrives in the Bay Area." In it, Rialto director Ky J. Boyd described the company as a set of individual movie houses, each programmed for its own community rather than run like a chain. He also told the Mercury News, "I am an extremely lucky and fortunate man. I get to earn a living doing what I love."

The El Cerrito house has two screens. Cinema Treasures lists 278 seats in total. It is the Rialto location with a full kitchen. The Mercury News reported that a hot meal can be delivered to your seat, from loaded nachos and quesadillas to burgers and pizza, and Boyd said the menu is chosen so everything can be eaten in the dark. The Friends also note an elevator, wheelchair seating, and captioning and audio-description services for deaf and blind patrons. Co-general manager Paola Jimenez told the paper she grew up going to the Cerrito and can't imagine working anywhere else.

The deed requires the building to stay a cinema or performance space. It doesn't require a schedule this generous, and the fall calendar goes well beyond the minimum.

The Anniversary Season, Date by Date

These dates come from Rialto's Cerrito schedule, its special events page and the El Cerrito Historical Society. The theater's pages are live and can change, so check showtimes before you go.

Little Shop of Horrors screens Thursday, October 29 at 6 p.m. on Rialto's own schedule. The Friends' homepage lists it for October 30, so confirm with the theater before you go.

The anniversary evening on November 9 tells the rescue story directly. The Historical Society will cover how the cinema was saved, restored and rebuilt. It will also screen The Last Pictures Shows, a new documentary by Rustin Thompson about film lovers preserving theaters across the West. The Friends say this event replaces their usual November classic.

Running alongside the films, Rialto's special events schedule includes National Theatre Live and Met Opera broadcasts. The lineup includes The Misanthrope and Macbeth, followed in December by Samson et Dalila and The Magic Flute. That puts the building's "performance space" use to work too.

Before the Show, a Walk Along the Greenway

The Historical Society's next event after the anniversary covers another piece of El Cerrito that volunteers rebuilt. On Sunday, November 15, from 10 to 11 a.m., a free walk starts on the Ohlone Greenway at Fairmount Avenue, across from El Cerrito Plaza BART. It follows the flat two-mile route to Del Norte BART.

The Society says that in the early 1990s, El Cerrito's stretch of the Greenway had exactly one tree, and someone cut it down. The guides are Steve Price, who organized the volunteers and led the planting, and Steve Batchelder, the city's consulting arborist at the time. They'll tell the story of each block, including what the Society calls the mysterious Dinosaur Forest. The two stories have a lot in common. In both cases, residents organized to bring back a public space that had been allowed to go bare.

If you'd like to eat before a matinee, there's a new option near the Greenway's south end. Richmondside reported that Cafe Buenos Aires opened an El Cerrito location at 6401 Fairmount Ave., serving Argentine empanadas along with other food and drinks. It took over the space where Sweet Potatoes Up Beet Cafe used to be.

The 99-year terms in the 2018 deed keep the Cerrito a cinema or performance space until the late 2110s. The free family matinees at 10 a.m. on December 6, 13 and 20 are the easiest way to see the building those terms protect.

If you own a home with history of its own, in El Cerrito or anywhere in the East Bay, Teri Carlisle & Alexandra Dierkx would be glad to talk about how to present that character with the care it deserves. Request a complimentary home valuation, and we'll start with what makes your house worth preserving.