Amid the devastation of downtown Pacific Palisades caused by this week’s firestorm, the Bay Theater has emerged relatively unscathed.
While nearby buildings were reduced to ash, developer Rick Caruso, who owns the Palisades Village retail-restaurant-residential complex that includes the movie theater, confirmed in an email to The Times on Thursday, “The theater is fine.” Palisades Village sustained damage in the fire but remains standing.
Netflix operates the five-screen luxury theater and uses it as a showcase for its original theatrical films, often in exclusive engagements, along with curated classic movies. The theater’s design pays homage to the original Bay Theatre, which operated just a few blocks away from 1949 until its closure in 1978, after which it was repurposed as a hardware store.
Mexican theater chain Cinépolis opened the current location of the Bay Theater in late 2018 as a dine-in theater with a full bar and specialized kitchen to cater to the area’s affluent community.
“The Bay is one of those rare places that’s modern but also feels like a throwback experience of your local Main Street cinema,” Scott Stuber, then-head of global films at Netflix, said in a statement when the streaming giant took over the theater in 2021.
Netflix also operates the historic Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, which like the Bay, remains temporarily closed due to the fires.
Times deputy editor Matt Brennan contributed to this report.
