1101-1105 Commerce Avenue
Roxy Theater on September 5, 2005.
This building was built as an Oriental-themed theater called the Peekin, which opened in 1925. It was built by a contractor called Val Quoidbach, Sr. for a customer who never paid, leaving Quoidbach with a theater, which he and his wife Gay operated until selling it to W. G. Ripley, who also owned the Columbia Theater and the Kelso Theater across the Cowlitz. By that time, the name had been changed to the Roxy Theater in the 1930s. Ripley remodeled the theater to deemphasize the Oriental architecture and continued to operate it until selling it to the Sterling group in 1945. Sterling focused on the newer Longview Theater and the Roxy closed after the summer of 1946. The "Closed for Summer" sign remained in the box office window for years. The theater was used as a church and a live theater until being sold to Darrell and Doreen DeWitt in 1983. The DeWitt's turned the building into Longview Furniture, enclosing the old stage. Longview Furniture closed in 2001, and the building was remodeled into three venues. The first was the South Pacific Restaurant, opening in July 2001 in the front of the building. In August 2002, the Sky Bar cocktail lounge opened in the middle of the building. In December 2003, the Roxy Special Event Venue opened in the back, with the original stage opened back up for use by live bands. In 2004, the owners reinvented the South Pacific Restaurant into Don Renato's Italian Ristorante & Steak House. The building was taken over by new owners and operated as Kennedy's Night Club, which has since closed.
Related Links:
Roxy Theater at the Puget Sound Theatre Organ Society
Roxy Theater at CinemaTour
Roxy Theater at Cinema Treasures
Roxy Theater at the Cowlitz County Parcel Search with photo as Longview Furniture
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