Granada Theater

Phil Isley Enterprises opened the Granada Theater on Lower Greenville Avenue on January 16, 1946, its first theater in Dallas, with Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce. Raymond F. Smith designed the 950-seat house with Art Deco detailing, a tower of changing neon lights and auditorium murals of film genres crowned by a "film goddess" standing over a reel of film. The Granada ran benefit screenings, church services and children's matinees with yo-yo contests, and had a soundproof cry room for nursing mothers.

Nearly twenty years in, Isley sold the Granada and 12 other theaters to John H. Rowley for $1.5 million, and the house passed to United Artists. Outside the Central Zone, where the newest films opened, it struggled. UA tried it as an art house after a hit run of The Producers, but in February 1975 a sublessee, Guild Art Theater, switched it to hardcore pornography. Police raided it in the first week, 1,400 people signed a petition, and after more raids, fines, discount runs and a return to adult films, the last operators walked away on January 13, 1977.

John Carruth reopened it that year as a 600-seat music hall with an extended stage, opening with Kenny Rogers, but it did not last. On April 20, 1978, Movie Inc. moved its Edison repertory and cult film club there from the 309-seat Coronet. Operator Bill Neal's last show was The Tingler on Halloween night 1986, and a 2,000-signature "Save the Granada" petition followed. John Appleton and Keith McKeague then removed the seats, terraced the floor and reopened it as the Granada Cinema 'n' Drafthouse, serving beer with second-run movies.

Brian Schultz took over and formed Granada Entertainment, which used Granada revenue to open a second location in the former UA Prestonwood Creek. The Granada closed as a cinema at the end of March 2001; the theater's history blames competition from the new Angelika. According to the theater's history, Schultz's circuit became the Studio Movie Grill dine-in chain. New operators turned the Granada into a concert hall that has booked Bob Dylan and Dolly Parton, and Dallas Observer readers named it the city's best live music venue in 2015. Current owners Mike Schoder and Julia Garton also rent it for events, including film screenings.