Roxy Cinema
82 Longmarket Street,
Cape Town
8001
82 Longmarket Street,
Cape Town
8001
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Additional Info
Previous Names: Roxy Bio-Cafe
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The Roxy Bio-Cafe opened circa mid-1930’s and was situated in the basement of Atlantic House on Longmarket Street across the road from the Forum/Royal Cinema, in Cape Town.
It was typical of Cape Town’s Bio-Cafe’s which served refreshments to patrons at their seats during continuous performances.
The Roxy Cinema was Cape Town’s longest surviving cinema of the Bio-cafe era. It closed in 1995.
Contributed by
M van der Leer
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Recent comments (view all 1 comments)
The Roxy showed double-features, it had a long passage-way entrance off Longmarket Street which had glass display areas on either side, allowing the cinema to display many one-sheet posters. The program was changed twice-weekly with shows running Monday-Wednesday and Thursday-Saturday. From memory the cinema was closed on Sundays, as were most entertainment venues during the 1970’s in South Africa. The basement had no rake, so all seats were level, my memory suggests there were around 400 seats with an aisle running down the centre. At the front left side of the cinema was a small area you could buy food and drink, this was after all one of the early tea-room cinemas where the row in front of you had a formica panel on it from which you could eat and drink. Smoking was allowed in the cinema! I recall watching Blade Runner there and literally having to try to part the smoke by waving my hands in front of my face to see the screen. Heaven knows how many people developed lung problems from that! The cinema was not particularly clean or friendly but it was one of the few locations in Cape Town where you could see double-features of recent first-run movies.