Want to own a movie theater? This SLO County landmark is up for sale

The North Coast’s only movie theater, an 81-year-old landmark, is up for sale again.

The Bay Theater in downtown Morro Bay is in a rare category. It’s a single-screen theater showing major releases that’s owned by a family, not a corporation, and that is the family’s only theatrical enterprise.

Loyal fans say they hope that, after the theater at 464 Morro Bay Blvd. sells, it will still be the town’s beloved moviehouse, and that whoever buys it will continue the theater’s tradition of reasonable prices, good food, friendliness, comfortable seating and top-notch films.

It costs $10 to see a movie there.

The Bay’s marquee in recent weeks has touted blockbusters such as “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” and “Oppenheimer,” with “Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part One” showing through Aug. 3 and Disney’s “Haunted Mansion” up next.

Owner Mary Lou Jannopoulos said she put the Bay Theater back on the market now because at 86, she’s ready to retire after nearly a half century of owning the circa-1942 venue.

Why owner pulled the Bay Theater off the market

It’s not the first time Jannopoulos has listed the Bay Theater for sale.

She also did so in March 2021, following a financially disastrous time for many theaters that were forced to close for months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Bay Theater had been closed for nearly a year, “which cost me a lot of money,” she said.

A purchase deal fell through when “they couldn’t come together on terms once they got into escrow,” listing agent Thomas Barket said.

So, Jannopoulos pulled it off the market until July 10, according to Zillow.com, where the listing price is $1.635 million for the 8,810-square-foot building.

“I didn’t want to sell the theater when it wasn’t a profitable time,” she said. “I wanted to make sure it was making money again first, and it is doing that. The people have returned to the theater.”

“I still love working there, but I’ve accomplished what I wanted to do there,” she said.

“I don’t have any real retirement plans for after the Bay Theater sells,” Jannopoulos said by phone July 14. “At this time of my life, it’s not practical to keep it anymore. And I’d like to have a little completely free time, to do what I want to do when I want to do it.”

The history of the Morro Bay theater and its owners

The Bay Theater building was constructed by the U.S. military in 1942 to serve service members based in Morro Bay, according to a 2011 Tribune article.

The historic venue has been family-owned and operated since at least 1975, when Jannopoulos and her then-husband, Jim, took over the business while living in Westlake, the article continued.

They hired a manager, who lived in the apartment upstairs, which would be part of any sale, as would a garage.

She said they also owned San Luis Obispo’s Madonna Plaza Theater for years, and her contractor son Brian Jannopoulos “built the Mission Plaza Cinemas,” also in San Luis Obispo.

The Jannopouloses later moved to San Luis Obispo County, and the Bay Theater became the family business.

Mary Lou Jannopolous said the Bay Theater screens a variety of quality films but avoids the horror genre. She also skips kids’ films because of concerns that they would run up and down the aisles and risk hurting themselves, she said, and because they can create quite a mess.

Decades ago, the Bay Theater was ‘the pits’

When Jannopoulos family bought the Bay Theater, she said, it was in such shabby shape that locals had nicknamed it “The Pit” because of its sticky floors, ugly restrooms, dated concession stand, uncomfortable seating and deteriorated condition.

In the decades since, the Jannopouloses have remodeled, rehabbed and updated the venue, and Mary Lou Jannopoulos is compulsively committed to keeping it clean and tidy.

“Mary Lou has taken fabulous care of the theater,” agent Barket said of the venue he’s frequented since 1969. “She’s always doing little upgrades, either to the décor, the concession stand or upkeep of the theater. … It’s the cleanest theater I’ve ever seen.”

After his family moved to the area when he was 7 years old, he said, “we used to go there two, three, four times a week to see the same thing over and over. One of the first things I saw there was the animated “Gulliver’s Travels.” I think it was free, or a nickel or a dime.”

During the decades that the Jannopouloses have owned the theater, they made a steady series of building improvements.

One of the most visible was exposing the original, trussed wooden ceiling, which resembles the framing of a boat.

They laid new flooring with a swirled, Art Nouveau-style pattern and installed reclining seats.

“We remodeled the lobby and the bathrooms,” Jannopoulos said, with the latter tricky transformation done after Brian Jannopoulos, who did all the remodeling, “figured out how to cut a large utility room in half to make the restrooms larger.”

According to the Bay Theater’s website, “The most recent improvement has been the installation of a state-of-the-art digital projection and sound system. We are proud to be the beneficiaries of Ultra Stereo of San Luis Obispo’s generosity, who donated to us a digital sound processor and an assisted-listening system, which includes not only sound amplification but also closed captioning and visual-narration capabilities.”

As the website full of rave reviews concludes, the Jannopoulos family “has maintained the historical integrity and charm of the building while pursuing their efforts to maintain and improve the physical and technical aspects of this landmark.”

Now, Mary Lou Jannopoulos, and the community her family has served well since 1975, hope the theater and those traditions will continue under a new owner.

Showtimes vary at the Bay Theater. Check details on the website or call 805-772-2444 for a recorded message.