Pickwick Theatre owners announce the Copernicus Foundation will operate the Park Ridge landmark

Park Ridge’s 1928-vintage landmark Pickwick Theatre will become a venue for live performances as well as movies through a programming partnership with the nonprofit Copernicus Foundation, theater and foundation leadership announced Friday evening.

News of the arrangement, to be known as Copernicus @ The Pickwick, caps a period of waiting as Park Ridge and Chicagoland residents have wondered who will take over the theater’s operations from its longtime co-owners, who announced their plans to retire last December.

Pickwick co-owners Dino Vlahakis and Dave Loomos will retain their ownership of the building, whose exterior structure is protected as a Park Ridge local landmark and cannot be changed or torn down.

The staff of the Copernicus Center will program the Pickwick’s main theater auditorium, also called Theater One or the big theater, with a focus on live theater and entertainment.

Hubert Cioromski, the chair of the board for the Copernicus Foundation, is president of local real estate company Troy Realty and acts as the property manager for the entire Pickwick building, which includes a number of rented offices and stores.

The back four theaters, which patrons access either through an outdoor walkway or a parking lot that fronts on Summit Avenue, will continue to show movies under longtime General Manager Kathryn Tobias.

Tobias has programmed and run the theater since January, when Vlahakis and Loomos formally stepped back from the business’ daily operations.

Tobias told Pioneer Press she was happy movies would still have a place at the Pickwick and said patrons should continue to expect a family movie theater experience from the smaller theaters.

“We’ll at least have four screens,” she said. “I know they’re not as big or majestic as the big theater, but they do the job.”

Tobias said business at the theater has been good in recent months. She is looking ahead to the release of the Barbie movie as a draw for crowds.

Vlahakis said theatergoers should expect an even split between movies and live entertainment for the first year of the new arrangement. He said he eventually expects live entertainment, including Broadway musical-type shows, to make up the majority of the offerings in Theater One and suggested the Nutcracker ballet and the musical Phantom of the Opera as examples of shows he hoped to bring to the theater.

“The only sad thing is the mega screen will be gone,” Vlahakis said. “We’ll go back to our original screen.”

The Pickwick’s original screen, which Vlahakis said is still there after 85 years, is 40 feet by 24 feet. Vlahakis said he expects that the current seats in Theater One will eventually be replaced with lower-backed seats more suitable for live entertainment.

More extensive food and beverage offerings are also in the works, he said.

“I think we’re going to take the speakeasy and make that a place where people (can) come before the show and after the shows,” he said, referring to a room in the finished basement of the building.

Vlahakis said he hoped the Pickwick’s next chapter would help distinguish Park Ridge, which he said he’s witnessed evolve into a popular suburb for entertainment and dining.

“There’s a big market now for shows outside Chicago,” he said.

The Copernicus Foundation operates the Copernicus Center, which is located in the former Gateway movie theater in Chicago’s Jefferson Park neighborhood, about 10 minutes southeast of Park Ridge. The Copernicus Center hosts a number of local events like the Taste of Polonia festival and musical performances, per its website.

Vlahakis first announced that he and Loomos would be stepping back from operating the theater in December 2022. At the time, Vlahakis said the flow of new movie releases had slowed to the point that it was difficult to sell enough tickets.

The news prompted an outpouring of memories from around Chicagoland and a spike in ticket sales. Vlahakis and Loomos met with a number of inquirers interested in taking over the theater.

Originally, Vlahakis and Loomos had hoped to announce the theater’s new managers in January as they stepped back from day-to-day operations at the Pickwick.

Since they screened their final picture, Gone With the Wind, Jan. 12, Tobias has been programming the theater while Park Ridge Classic Films has continued to occasionally show both well-known and more obscure vintage pictures in Theater One.

The new partnership will officially take effect in mid-September, Vlahakis said.