Violet Crown Cinema

Violet Crown Cinema grew out of a change in Austin's art-house market in 2010. That April, word came that Landmark Theatres would not renew its lease on the Dobie Theatre near the University of Texas, the city's home for independent and art films since the late 1980s, and that a new downtown art house was on the way. Its developer was Bill Banowsky, a former CEO of Landmark and the owner of the Magnolia Theater in Dallas. He billed the project as a boutique cafe cinema that would show the latest art, foreign and independent films while serving bar food and craft cocktails, with free validated parking. The plan placed the theater on the second floor of the AMLI on 2nd apartment building in the downtown Second Street district: 8,000 to 10,000 square feet with four screens, a full-service bar, concession stands, a lounge seating about 100 people and a balcony over Second Street for about 50. Landmark closed the Dobie on August 22, 2010. Violet Crown opened at 434 West Second Street the following spring, on April 29, 2011, according to a Cinema Treasures contributor citing a newspaper report. Cinema Treasures lists it with four stadium-style screens and 183 seats, programmed with independent, documentary and international films. Banowsky then expanded the format beyond Texas. In Santa Fe, Violet Crown opened an 11-screen, 750-seat cinema in the Railyard district on May 1, 2015, mixing independent titles with studio releases and serving restaurant food to recliners; that location's website now carries the name Sky Cinemas Railyard. In Charlottesville, Virginia, he partnered with building owner Dorothy Batten to take over the former Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6 at 200 West Main Street, which Regal had closed in November 2014; it reopened as Violet Crown Charlottesville on October 30, 2015. Austin-based Domiteaux + Baggett Architects, a firm previously associated with the Violet Crown owners, was one of three firms on that conversion. As of October 2026, the company's location selector lists three cinemas: Austin, Charlottesville and Dallas.