In addition to locations in Arvada and Littleton, the Elvis Cinemas movie theater company opened a third theater at Tiffany Plaza in the TJ area.
Photo by Rebecca Holt
Whether you want to see a family film like G-Force, a true story drama like Julie and Julia, a scary horror movie like Paranormal Activity, or even all three, everyone – TJ Spartan or not – should visit the new Elvis Location at Hampden and Tamarac in the Tiffany Plaza.
Opening a Littleton location (6014 S. Kipling Pkwy.) in July 2000, a second-run movie theater named Silver Cinemas was such a success, the theater opened an Arvada location (5157 W. 64th Ave.) in 2006, changing their name to something more recognizable: Elvis Cinemas. “The real story is that we took letters from the existing sign at the Littleton and rearranged them (The word Elvis contains five of the letters in Silver)” said Elvis Cinemas’ District Manager, Wayne Hamilton. In 2006, Elvis Cinemas decided to open a third location, and in March of 2009 they bought the theater in Tiffany Plaza (7400 E. Hampden Ave.). Being located next to Whole Foods, Elvis Cinemas’ Tiffany Plaza location is only one and a half miles from Thomas Jefferson High School.
“Our theaters have been doing well and we are always on the lookout for new locations to open in. It takes a special set of circumstances to be a good fit for us, including location, rent, condition of the building, and the amount of remodeling we would need to do. The previous theater company in this location was trying to move out and the conditions were good for us,” said Hamilton. When they took over in March, Elvis Cinemas immediately got to work on remodeling, some of which included painting the walls purple and black (their color scheme), installing new carpet, and turning a vacant concession stand in the back into employee offices. Even though it took them until May, the theater has a cleaner and friendlier ambiance. “While most customers were surprised by these sudden changes, the surprise became overwhelmingly positive once they saw that the theater was a better experience,” said Hamilton.
Although Elvis Cinemas has three locations, each one is unique in its own way. The Arvada location, being the biggest of the three theaters, does the best business and usually does extremely well with action movies and thrillers. The new Tiffany Plaza location, however, seems to be similar to Littleton, and has huge audiences mainly for family films. In fact, Disney Pixar’s latest family film, Up, has done such great business the Arvada location is still showing it. “Generally speaking, we do the bulk of our business on the weekends, with Saturday being the busiest. Holidays are also very busy for us,” Hamilton said.
Since they are a second-run movie theater company, Elvis Cinemas gets movies after most regular – first-run theaters – are through showing them. Most of these movies attract a fairly large audience, staying at the theater until their popularity gradually decreases, some of which even continue to show after they have been released on DVD/Blu-Ray.
“Elvis Cinemas has been very fortunate to have been successful at all three locations, never having to close any,” said Hamilton. While they do not plan on opening any more locations at this time, General Manager Tom Schell says, “The Tiffany Plaza location is a new branch of an existing company and this IS NOT the same theater it was before. Elvis Cinemas is a great place to come and see a movie for under $10, so come visit us.”
