Two local movie theaters prepare to soon reopen

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) —After being closed for more than a year, two Wilmington movie theaters are hoping to reopen soon.

The Regal Mayfaire & IMAX theater announcing plans to reopen May 7. The Pointe-14 movie theater has not yet made an official announcement of their reopening date, but expects to be open as early as April 23. Businesses surrounding The Pointe-14 are excited to hear the news.

“We hope that we get back the weekend crowd that was here mostly on Saturday’s and some on the Friday’s. I mean that was bringing about 10-15% of our business on the weekends,” said Alban Pelletier, owner of ‘Far From France’. “So, hopefully that going to be back.”

“A lot of our traffic did come from the movie theater, I mean it’s been really helpful with the covid vaccines that the hospitals been doing,” said Maria Chandler, general manager of ‘Which Wich’. “So, I’ve definitely been seeing like a pick up in business whenever they have their vaccination days, and so I think it will be a great increase of business and people coming in and walking around and everything.”

Restaurants believe the theater reopening will be the final step in their return to normalcy.

“Once we moved on to the later phases, we got a lot of our local people back, and its pretty close to back to normal, but I think once that theater’s open, we’re going to be be right back where we were, prior COVID,” said John Monaco, owner of Mr. Bagel Meister.

“I believe the theater reopening is going to be the last stage in things getting really better and back to where they used to be,” said Pelletier.

AMC Classic Wilmington 16 movie theater has already welcomed movie-goers back.  It’s open on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.