Shuttered Covington moviehouse to become a 'movie tavern,' theater operator says

With the posh Theatres at Canal Place remodeled, reopened and rededicated to serving dinner along with the movies it shows, local theater operator George Solomon is turning his attention northward, to the old, shuttered Holiday Square Cinema 12 multiplex in Covington.

Solomon's Southern Theatres -- whose New Orleans-area holdings include Slidell's Grand Theatre, in addition to the tony Canal Place operation -- has taken over ownership of the Covington theater and has begun converting it into a more populist "movie tavern," which will serve chicken wings, hamburgers and other bar-type food to its movie patrons.
"I would like to think we'd start construction in late August, early September, maybe have it ready by Thanksgiving," Solomon said Wednesday afternoon (July 7). "It's not a lot of heavy construction. A lot of it is cosmetic."
Construction gear is already on-site at the theater, along North U.S. 190 just above Interstate 12, as crews remove mold that accumulated as the building sat vacant for nearly two years. "They just basically turned the lights off and left," Solomon said of the previous operators.
All of the old projection equipment will be junked, including the Holiday 12's old IMAX equipment, and new gear -- probably all-digital -- will be installed in its place, as was done at Canal Place, Solomon said.