Houston’s River Oaks Theatre opened in 1939, and over the next 75 years the elegant art deco movie house passed through as many hands as an artifact in an Indiana Jones picture. Its penultimate owner, Landmark Cinemas, turned it into an art house and repertory venue that occasionally screened controversial films including Pier Paolo Pasolini’s X-rated Marquis de Sade adaptation Salo, which prompted Houston police to charge the manager with violating obscenity laws. (He was acquitted.) River Oaks survived multiple near-closures over lease squabbles and the devastation of COVID-19 before dimming its marquee, seemingly for good, in 2021.
Last fall, though, the theater came roaring back to life under a new owner, Culinary Khancepts, and new artistic director, Robert Saucedo. The 40-year-old from the Houston suburbs fell in love with the place in 2008 while attending a raucous sold-out showing of the cult classic The Room. After graduating from Texas A&M, he worked at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Houston for 13 years. Saucedo drove past River Oaks every day on the way to the Alamo and realized he “would love to be just a small part of the theater’s legacy.”
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River Oaks is owned by Culinary Khancepts, a hospitality group that also owns Leo’s River Oaks steak and seafood restaurant next door.
River Oaks still has three screens, but it is more “intimate,” Saucedo says, having lost “about half of its seats during the remodel” to large, plush chairs. An eclectic menu includes lobster rolls, steak frites, and rigatoni pomodoro. In addition to booking new and obscure indies and evergreen titles like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Fight Club, and The Dark Crystal, River Oaks is creating a community of habitual moviegoers with $20 monthly “Cinema Savant” passes that grant one free movie per day. Saucedo aims to bring the experience of his screening of The Room full circle. “That was one of the first times I’d ever been in a sold-out theater of that size,” he says. “It feels like you’re part of a living organism.” theriveroakstheatre.com
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