Comments (0) Best Corporate Movie Theater - 2006

Embarcadero Center Cinema

It has five screens and is part of Landmark Theatres (which is owned by the Samuel Goldwyn Co.), but the Embarcadero Center Cinema is anything but a sterile multiplex. First, there's the location: the top level of an outdoor mall, an open-air skyway far removed from the downtown bustle of the street. If you go on a weekend, you'll be practically alone, and being alone at a mall is one of the pleasures of the modern age, when a whole area devoted to buying and selling is doing neither. Then there are all the theater's entrances, many of which are nowhere near the ticket counter, implying that payment is a matter of choice between gentlemen. Since it's a Landmark theater, the movies are all independent or nearly that, the crowd is quiet and respectful, the clerks are sufficiently geeked out, and the snack bar serves good coffee and espresso. Best of all, the center offers free nighttime and weekend parking — who else does that?