Ribbon-cutting held for Broad Theater
SOUDERTON >> In his younger days, Souderton Borough Council President Brian Goshow remembers going to the Broad Theater “pretty much every Friday night.”
After being dropped off by his parents, he watched the movie, then skateboarded to a fast food restaurant before being picked up by his parents to go back home.
“This place made me and a whole lot of other people Soudertonians and it sat empty for a long, long time. My kids didn’t get to take advantage of that,” Goshow said at a July 29 ribbon cutting for the reopened theater.
“I’m really, really excited about how this place again is going to breed a whole nother generation of Soudertonians,” Goshow said. “This is the epicenter of what’s happening in Souderton.”
“The Broad Theatre opened July 1, 1922, with 700 seats for movies and vaudeville acts,” according to information on the Cinema Treasury website.
It closed in 2004, the site says.
Current owners Kyle Hoff and Charles Crown bought the building in 2018 and renovated it before reopening in November 2020 as a threescreen theater showing firstrun, independent and classic movies.
The theater lobby also has a Free Will Brewing taproom with more than 15 different beers, IPAs and ales.
At the ribbon-cutting, Crown thanked all the people involved in the renovation work.
“It’s amazing. We could not have done it without all the different people that had a hand in this, and the pride that they took in being a part of this,” he said.
“Black Widow” is the movie that has had the most total ticket sales at the Broad Theater since it reopened, Hoff said. The highest attendance for a single showing of a movie was 99 people at a “Space Jam 2” screening, he said.
“Ever since Memorial Day, ticket sales and concession sales have been increasing steadily. In fact, from the month of May to the month of June, we saw a 33 percent increase in ticket sales,” Hoff said, “so I think the community and our customers are coming out and supporting us and we are deeply grateful and very thankful for that.”
Following the ribbon-cutting, a grand opening was held, including raffles, $2 popcorn specials, theater tours, a video of Hoff and Crown talking about their vision for the reopened theater and trailers of upcoming movies. Special bottle pours were available from the Free Will Brewing taproom.
The theater’s website, which includes showtimes and through which tickets may be purchased, is broadtheater.com.
“October and November, there’s a lot of big, big blockbuster releases,” Hoff said, adding to “stay tuned.”