Hampton Bays Regal movie theater officially shut down Thursday, January29 continuing a trend of movie theaters in small towns closing due to a lack of finances. They aired the last screening that day at 7:45 p.m. The movie screened was Greenland: Migration.
The theater originally opened December 19, 1997 on 119 W Montauk Hwy and carries many memories for the customers of Regal. This was a staple to Hampton Bays and was where people would bring their children, families, loved ones, friends, and partners.
Many members of the community have fond memories of time spent at the theater. Hampton Bays sophomore, Emely Carrillo shared some of her key memories and said, “A lot of warm memories were made and I became close with a lot of my friends there…My favorite movie was “The Minecraft Movie” because I had gotten close with one of my best friends.”
Hampton Bays Sophomore Lilka Domingo shared, “’Megan’ was my favorite movie that was aired there.”
The workers greatly miss the theater and enjoyed time there with their coworkers. Hampton Bays High School senior Sarah Chami spoke of her experience with her coworkers. “The staff that I worked with was a real class of characters.” She greatly enjoyed working there since she wants to pursue a career in animation. “My favorite part was I really love film and media and I’m going into animation so working at the movies and working with showing films and animation was really interesting.”
The future tenets and what the theater will be changed into are still unknown but the people of Hampton Bays have many ideas on what they would like to replace the theater. Carrillo said, “I hope they put a Chick-Fil-A or a Chipotle.”
Others, such as Chami said, “I hope it is replaced with some family space since we do not have a lot of things in Hampton Bays.”
Domingo added to that idea and said, “I hope an arcade or a bowling rink.”
