Showcase Cinemas Revere

That complex I used as my third location for Showcase Cinemas. First choice Randolph. 2nd choice Patriot Place then Revere. Dedham location was closer in distance than Patriot Place, but they never had a late show on weekends.

Closed after last night’s last shows.

National Amusements will close this theatre and sell it to a developer who plans to replace it with an Amazon distribution warehouse.

https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2020/10/07/amazon-eyes-second-revere-distribution-facility.html

10 out of the 17 screens updated to stadium seating on December 24th, 1999. Showcase Revere and Lawrence cinemas expansions. Fri, Dec 24, 1999 – 57 · The Boston Globe (Boston, Massachusetts) · Newspapers.com

Worth noting about the Revere Showcase, added reclining powered seats in all houses. No instructions anywhere for them so your first time you have to guess how to work them. Also has a 4D motion control seats in 1 house that makes a movie into a ride. Worth trying once.Added an XPLUS house which is an Imax type of system.Has reserve seating so when you buy tickets you choose your seat, trouble is seems like the theaters are always mostly full giving you little choices but often when movie starts there is no crowd. Only place around me showing TMC revivals and also the Rifftrax live shows.

Looks like ALL digital now!

We consider Showcase Revere our “home theater” since it’s only a ¼ mile from our house. I have to say when they began renovating it in 2007 I was worried that it would get too “upscale” for this mostly blue-collar town, but those worries have been unfounded. The revamped food court is better than what they used to have, and Chatters is an absolutely FANTASTIC place to have a quick meal before a movie, most of the time…

Here’s an example- when we went to see Forbidden Kingdom this spring, we had 35 minutes to spare before the show, but wanted real food, so we went to Chatters. We had a very nice waitress and she made sure we had our food and drinks at our table with enough time to down them and still make it to the theater in time for the coming attractions.

Counter that with the following weekend: when we went to see Iron Man, we got there with an hour and 10 minutes to spare. The waitress came, got all huffy when she realized we weren’t ordering from the bar, took our food order, took almost 15 minutes to bring us our drinks, and then never returned to our table. We waited for almost an hour, unable to get the attention of the other waitresses, many of whom were serving customers who had arrived long after we did, before we finally got up and left. We all complained to the main offices and got freebies for a future meal. But that was the ONLY bad experience we had at Chatters, and we’ve been there a number of times.

The Directors Hall’s are nice, but the wait service in those halls leaves a lot to be desired. They clearly don’t want you to order from Chatters, only from the snack bars. And then they bring you just the food, no napkins, no condiments, no straws, unless you ask for them as part of your order, which is kind of silly – you’d think that would be common sense.

The new waiting lounges which opened this past summer where the old snackbars used to be at the end of each hall are nice, but they usually have a news channel on the tv, which isn’t hte best thing, particulary if you’re there with little kids early on a holiday or a weekend morning and the anchors are talking about things that little kids have no interest in. Perhaps they should devote these screens to coming attractions or (shudder) even ScreenVision, which is infinately better than being subjected to the likes of MSNBC at 10 am.

All in all, though, most of the employees are friendly, though they don’t always respond in the best manner (complaints about the Kung Fu Flix series went unanswered one evening when one of the movies was showing in Chinese with NO Subtitles)but they try. Many of the employees recognize us and our friends, and several of the ticket takers and snack bar personnel know we talk them up on our podcast and our site, and always go out of their way to give us good service. So for us, Showcase Revere is a great place to see a show, even if they stick you in one of the smaller theaters.

One practice they now have that gets on my nerves though is that they are leaving the doors to each cinema open during the show; it was quite disconcerting to be watching No Country For Old Men and hearing the music from Sweeney Todd next door wafting in every now and then…I did bring it up to someone, but the practice is still going on, particularly if as I said above you’re in one of the smaller theaters on each end of the far halls…

National Amusements has operated in Revere for 51 years. In 1948, Michael Redstone opened the Revere Drive-In.
The Drive-In remained until the early 1980s, when it was replaced first with a 10-screen movie theater in 1982, then in 1985 with the 14-screen megaplex, which was one of the highest grossing in the Showcase chain. Construction on the new megaplex began in 1999, with stadium-style seating, and it was done in two stages. First, a 10-screen cinema building was built while the 14-screen cineplex remained opened. Construction on a second 10-screen cinema building began after the opening of the first 10. The 14-screen cineplex was demolished to create additional parking. What I hated about the first building was the lobby entrance was in front of the building which faced RT1. You Parked in the back and had to walk around the building, this was great in the winter and when it was raining. I can’t remember when the entrance to the lobby went right thru, both sides, maybe 1985. They just finshed remodeling again, adding Director Halls and Chatters Bar & Grill, a full service restaurant. They have also upgraded their equipment for Digital Projection. After the 1985 upgrade and new theater in 2000, it started the closings of Theater’s in the surrounding citis and towns, they just couldn’t complete with Showcase.

If you know of a theatre that is missing from this site, please add it.

I stopped going to this theater because of the rowdy and mouthy audiences. I had to leave a screening of The Italian Job (remake) because the young women in the front row wouldn’t stop talking. When I tried to “shush” them, they threatened me :–(
The theaters are very similar to the theaters at the Showcase Cinemas in Randolph, MA. The Randolph location is missing from this web site, which is unfortunate because the Randolph multiplex is unique in my experience: thanks to a undersized lot to build on, half the screens are located two stories underground. Once you buy your ticket in the ground floor lobby, half the screens are on the ground floor, and the other half are two escalator rides underground.

Boston Globe Archives reports:
* Summer 1982: opened, the theatre had the top selling engagement for “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas"
* April 4, 1999 the Boston Globe reports that a new 20 screen complex to replace the 14-plex will be built over 1999-2000. It will have 4,515 seats
* 2000 20-plex completed, old theatre demolished

‘National Amusements’ is not really part of this theatre’s name. In newspaper ads, it is ‘Showcase Cinemas Revere’.