Barrington Square Theaters

(December 10, 1979, Northwest Herald) Six-screen movie complex opens in Hoffman Friday by Thomas J. Moore, Herald business writer

The Northwest suburbs will have six new movie theaters — all under one roof — by the end of the week when the Barrington Square 6 Theatres in Hoffman Estates opens Friday. The six-screen movie complex in the Barrington Square Mall at Higgins and Barrington roads will bring to nine the number of new movie houses opened locally this year. Two of the others are at Woodfield Shopping Center in Schaumburg and one at Randhurst Shopping Center in Mount Prospect. THE BARRINGTON Square operation is owned by American Multi Cinema of Kansas City, Mo., and is the firm’s second entry in the Chicago area movie market. The company also owns the Ogden 6 Theatres in Naperville. American opened the first multi-auditorium theater in the country in Kansas City in July 1962. It operates 526 theaters in 78 cities now, including two in Buffalo and Toledo with eight separate auditoriums each. The company’s Hoffman Estates and Naperville theaters offer the most screens under one roof in the Chicago area, with six each. The Barrington Square 6 Theatres are of varying sizes, according to manager Paul Kalas. The smallest seats 250 persons while the largest contains 375 seats. Kalas said the theater complex is capable of showing the same movie in two adjoining theaters using the same copy of the film. He said the projector system is set up to run the same film with only a 30 second-time lag between what the viewers see on the separate screens. THE OPENING of the theater complex also will increase the number of commercial movie screens in Hoffman Estates to nine, but Kalas said he thinks the market is sufficient to support them all. The Century theater in the village has three auditoriums. Kalas said he expects Barrington Square to draw from Schaumburg, which has its own four-theater complex as well as Hoffman Estates and Hanover Park. The Tradewinds Cinemas in Hanover Park has two screens. He said Barrington Square will also draw customers from areas north and west of Hoffman Estates where there are fewer theaters. Kalas said the six theaters here will be competing for the same first run movies that the other nearby theaters want. Barrington Square 6 Theatres' main attraction, aside from the greater choice it can offer, is that it will try to match or beat the lowest admission and concession prices among competing theaters, Kalas said. He said the regular admission price will be $3 for adults and students and $1.50 for children. During the grand opening Friday and Saturday, everyone will be admitted for the regular children’s price, he said.

This opened on December 14th, 1979. Grand opening ad posted here.

We used to “do the cruise” through the parking lot in the 80’s. If you wanted to show off your car or run into some cool people, this was the place to be. Movies were only $1.00. And it didn’t matter what was playing. It was mostly a makeout spot. Then we’d go to Garibaldi’s or McDonalds racing in shopping carts and acting like the inmature teens that we were. You just don’t see kids acting like that anymore. I’m so glad to have been a part of that history. I have some wonderful and wild memories of good ol' Barrington Square.

Here is a June 1982 ad from the Daily Herald:
http://tinyurl.com/pvg3mv

The record store was Flip Side (next door to Garibaldi’s Pizza). I worked at Flip Side in the late ‘80s and did my share of hanging out in Barrington Square.

This and the Ogden 6, which is still open, were the Chicagoland Area’s first 6-screen multiplexes. They were also AMC’s first inroads into the area. I once dated someone from this area and we would stop at Garibaldi’s, which was in the same mall.

Sometime during the 1980s, this theatre showed a mix of first and second run films. The admission charge for the first run films was cheaper than what Plitt/Cineplex-Odious (I mean Cineplex-Odeon) charged.

Can’t belive they had to demolish it. I had a lot of memories of it when I was younger. I saw at least twenty movies there or more. This used to be such a busy shoping center, but now it’s so empty. At least there is AMC Theaters down the street on Barrington Road. More expensive though.