The Celebrated Cinegrill Theater Returns to the Hollywood Roosevelt

The lights may be bright in Tinseltown, but sometimes celebrated entertainment venues, even those destinations with the most dazzling neon signs and starriest histories, can fade away.

And, occasionally, come back.

That's the welcome news from the Hollywood Roosevelt, which is reviving its famous Cinegrill Theater, with a few changes and updates, as summer 2022 concludes.

The cabaret-cool stage, which first debuted in 1936 and hosted a parade of high-wattage guests over the decades, shuttered in the early 2000s.

But longtime fans will remember it as a place for superb songcraft, quippy comedy, and tony nights out on Hollywood Boulevard, a snug bastion of dressy elegance and stylish sips.

Now those glam sips and gussied-up nights are back, though in a new location at the hotel: The former Roosevelt Theater, though entering this space will take a bit of foreknowledge. Arriving guests will want to locate a "hidden" bookcase, which isn't an actual bookcase at all but rather a passage into the plushly picturesque place.

Hint: The bookcase may be found in the hotel's lower lobby area.

In addition to luxe libations, a menu featuring "supper club-inspired fare" will keep those enjoying live magic, comedy, and music from growing peckish.

Let's add "movies" to that luminous line-up, too, since the Cinegrill is reopening with a "Classic Cinema Nights" series on Sept. 21, with a true Hollywood gem up first: "Casablanca."

"Hosting this series of classic movies is a privilege I never imagined. As a professor, I would talk to my students about how this extraordinary hotel harbored the first Academy Awards and what that meant to the history of the seventh art," said José Ignacio Cuenca, film critic and host of Classic Cinema Nights at Cinegrill Theater.

"My goal, above all, is not only to have the audience enjoy the screenings, but also to invite them to be an active part of the soirée by participating in an open conversation about the films in the most iconic setting."

"We have put together a lineup of unforgettable movies of all genres, understanding that classics are precisely the films that never age."

"Psycho," "Frankenstein," and "Some Like It Hot" are all on the autumn roster at the new Cinegrill. You can find more film-fun details on Thrillist, which shared word of the reopening on Sept. 19.

It's a fitting and flourish-filled return for a theater found inside a hotel that hosted the first-ever Academy Awards, back in 1929 (just a few years before the Cinegrill was born).

And if you're wondering what became of the former Cinegrill space? It now serves as a banquet/restaurant facility within the hotel.

For information on the Cinegrill's newest act, and how to get tickets to the new cinema series, visit this site now.