Movie theater in Hampton’s Peninsula Town Center goes dark — again

Like every good movie that’s had a remake, the movie theater at Peninsula Town Center in Hampton has undergone several iterations throughout the past 14 years.

The latest, EVO Entertainment, abruptly closed its doors on June 17. Attempts to reach the Austin, Texas-based management group via its website, phone and email were not successful.

The movie theater first opened in June 2010 as CineBistro, a concept developed by a Birmingham, Alabama-based theater company. In addition to eight movie theaters featuring 40-inch leather seats with swing-away dining tables, the roughly 50,000-square-foot building also housed a bistro, bar and nine-lane bowling alley. Moviegoers enjoyed an upscale menu that included salmon and steak, wine and cocktails. At the time, the venue was only open to people over 21 years old after 8 p.m.

CineBistro’s then executive director, Fred Meyers, said in a 2010 Daily Press story about the opening that the theater was taking the age-old dinner and a movie to “new heights.” Seven years later, in July 2017, the complex was under new management and renamed Peninsula Movie Bistro.