Is the Balboa Theater, turning 100, the most San Francisco place?

When the New Balboa Theater opened in the outer Outer Richmond District in 1926, the cinema might as well have been operating in the Farallon Islands.

Market Street had a wealth of new movie palaces, and Balboa Street between 37th and 38th avenues was still marked by empty lots and lit by gas street lamps. But the cinema-building Levin family believed in this isolated foggy outpost, hiring the Cliff House and Fairmont Hotel architects to design an 800-seat neighborhood theater. 

Bigger and less remote west-of-Masonic movie theaters — the Coronet and Alexandria included — have long since shuttered. But the Balboa abides, through a combination of hard work, neighborhood support, a wild and perfect film mix (“Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure,” “Fruitvale Station” and “The Fugitive” all playing in the next week) and one of the most fascinating retail ecosystems in the city.

I’m a Balboa regular, and still register surprise after traveling 40 blocks into the Richmond and finding a cinema here. There’s no subway, the bus lines are slow and there are few nearby guidebook destinations. The Balboa has endured on vibes. It survives, I’m convinced, because it’s the most San Francisco place in San Francisco.

At the 100th anniversary of the theater — that date passed in February, but the Balboa is celebrating for a week starting Monday April 13 with free movies on April 19 — I became obsessed with the concoction of factors that got us here. A truly special mix of nearby restaurants, a lobby that doubles as a museum and a mystical dive bar across the street with its own enduring history.

But the answer for its longevity can be traced back to the theater’s first days, more than a year before “The Jazz Singer” debuted as the first “talkie” picture with synchronized dialogue.

The Chronicle had no coverage of the Balboa until the day it opened. Other 1920s cinemas including the Castro and the opulent Fox Theatre received days of stories before they premiered, and Hollywood celebrities arriving by train. The Balboa received one paragraph on page 19.

“Samuel H. Levin will open his New Balboa Theater in the Outer Richmond District tonight with fitting ceremonies,” the Chronicle announced on Feb. 27, 1926, “a news reel and a ‘Felix the Cat’ cartoon will be included.”

But the months that followed told a better story. Electric lighting was installed in May of that year, the Chronicle reported. Two more major city developers built commercial structures, including in the empty lot next to the Balboa. By the end of the year the Chronicle was writing about “considerable improvement” on the block, including an array of new eateries.

That’s how I found the block when I made my first visit to the Balboa in 2018. Then-Chronicle columnist Heather Knight and I were looking for a place to screen a San Francisco movie for the followers of our new Total SF project, and we struck out or were priced out of larger cinemas. 

Walking inside the Balboa I immediately fell in love. The cavernous lobby, filled with Playland-at-the-Beach amusement park memorabilia and a “Robotron” arcade game, was a colorful museum-like experience that was perfect for post-movie conversation. 

There were local beers and It’s It ice cream sandwiches on the menu. The eclectic movie schedule — an even split of new releases, classics and cult wild cards — was curated in part by a chalkboard outside the theater encouraging neighborhood recommendations. We screened “So I Married an Axe Murderer” to a sold out crowd, and followed with at least 15 more S.F. movies. What struck me each time is how, in a black box that’s meant to transport you to another place, I still felt like I was in San Francisco.

The factors that contribute to this came to me slowly. The Balboa has been run by just three groups: The Levin family had it for 75 years, then Landmark Theatres founder Gary Meyer rescued the theater for a decade, before CinemaSF’s Adam Bergeron and Jaimi Holker took over management in 2011.

The foggy isolation, which I assumed would be a negative, actually adds to the mystique. When the mist rolls in, the neon of the vertical marquee blade — spelling “B-A-L-B-O-A” in red letters that emerge from top to bottom — is even more of a beacon.

“Fog is good,” Meyer told the Chronicle’s Sam Whiting in 2003. “If it gets really sunny, people want to be outside.”

So are the retail surroundings. Balboa Street manages to feel like a small New England coastal town — the boulevard still hosts a bait shop and archery store — while carrying the most cosmopolitan collection of restaurants in the city. Within two blocks of the theater there’s a trendy bagel shop, dim sum, a white tablecloth Italian restaurant, sushi, Shanghainese cuisine, a bohemian coffee shop, Vietnamese and a cash-only Mexican place with my favorite carne asada in the city. 

But the symbiotic relationship — the Venom to Balboa’s Eddie Brock — is Hockey Haven, an across-the-street dive bar founded in 1949, and the greatest spontaneous after-party location in the history of movies.

I’ve led colorful mobs across the street a dozen times, and the stoic bartending staff never blinks an eye, whether we’re bringing moviegoers dressed as nuns from a “Sister Act” revival or an already half-in-the-bag crowd after a presentation of the 2015 fever dream disaster film “San Andreas.” 

The worst thing about the Balboa are the theaters themselves. The cinema was twinned after a 1978 fire, and the two resulting screens are narrow, with shotgun sightlines. If you’re watching a quieter screening, you might hear sound from the action movie next door. 

But somehow that’s its own advantage. The laughs and scares stay in the room. The more intimate screens are perfect for filmmaker interviews or unamplified preshow entertainment. (I’ve run trivia contests there without a microphone.) And for movies that require audience participation, the imperfect setup makes the crowd seem like part of the show. 

Balboa programming can be gloriously random. “The Room” director Tommy Wiseau has appeared in person at the theater for more than 25 screenings. “Remembering Playland at the Beach,” a hyper-local 2010 documentary about the seaside amusement park, was held over 20 weeks. The theater’s biggest annual event is Godzillafest. All while showing the biggest family blockbusters for the children of the district. (Yes, “Super Mario Galaxy” plays three times today.) 

Magical things happen at the Balboa. When we hosted “Axe Murderer” we invited Jek Cunningham, the Rod Stewart-playing bagpiper from the film who revealed during a pre-show interview that he had never seen the movie with a crowd. When he appeared on screen the entire theater turned toward Cunningham and gave him a standing ovation.

Another time we screened “The Towering Inferno,” and the neighborhood’s San Francisco Fire Department house showed up in uniform. Once we double-booked a bagpipe player, and six-time cable car bell-ringing champion. They spontaneously played a bagpipe/bell duet that brought the house down: the most San Francisco moment I’ve ever seen, in the most S.F. movie theater.

What’s the future? I’m not sure. The independent movie theater business is harder than ever. But the Balboa’s chain, now CinemaSFBay, recently secured non-profit status, giving it the best chance to continue in the age of straight-to-streaming films.

Not sold? See it for yourself as soon as possible. On a foggy day when the neon looks especially mysterious. The Balboa’s survival in the far-flung Outer Richmond makes even less sense in the current cinema landscape. But I wouldn’t bet against another century.