In 2000, United Artists stopped showing movies at 824 W. Lancaster Avenue. The building sat empty after that, and one proposal had it becoming a gym. Today, October 1, 2026, is exactly one hundred years since the Seville Theatre first lit up Lancaster Avenue. Bryn Mawr Film Institute is marking the date tonight with a centennial soiree, which is already full.
The anniversary falls in a year when the blocks around the theater have changed more than they have in a while. Most of the newcomers have opened for breakfast, lunch, and counter service. The one opening still ahead, a 150-plus-seat Italian restaurant due later this month at 915 Lancaster, is the first of the year built mainly for the evening. For a hundred years, evenings on this stretch have mostly belonged to the theater.
The Building That Almost Became a Gym
BMFI describes the Seville as a 1926 Beaux-Arts cinema designed by Philadelphia architect William H. Lee, a protégé of Frank Furness. The building has been through several owners and changes:
- 1926. The Seville opens as a single-screen movie palace on October 1.
- 1946. Operator William Goldman takes over and renames it the Bryn Mawr Theatre.
- By 1979. Operator Budco splits the auditorium into two screens.
- 2000. United Artists stops operating the theater, and the building goes dark.
- December 2004. Juliet Goodfriend and civic partners have rallied around the empty cinema, and the new nonprofit buys it.
- March 12, 2005. BMFI reopens the theater. Goodfriend and Sir Ben Kingsley cut the ribbon. That December, the building is added to the National Register of Historic Places.
- 2006. The $2.5 million Pane Campaign restores the skylight with 400 glass panes. It also pays for offices, classrooms, a café, a new concessions counter, and an elevator. The Hamilton Marquee is first lit in March 2006.
- April 27, 2014. After the $5.5 million Theater Three Challenge pays for two new auditoriums, BMFI dedicates the restored four-theater complex.
Today BMFI runs four auditoriums with 4K laser digital, 70mm, and 35mm projection. It reached its centennial under a new executive director, Scott Fisher. Main Line Today profiled him in April and covered his plans for the organization and the historic building.
The theater's longevity matters to the rest of the block. Between 2000 and 2005, the largest room on this part of Lancaster Avenue had no evening crowd at all. Every restaurant decision on the block since then has been made next to a building that reliably fills seats after 7 p.m.
What BMFI 100 Puts on the Screen This Fall
The centennial program is called BMFI 100. In the institute's words:
"Can you believe that our theater has been showing movies for 100 years? Join us on a year-long journey through that history, presenting key films that played here in their day and celebrating our enduring cinema community."
Before each screening in the series there is a preshow of era-appropriate cartoons, newsreels, and trailers. The newsreel images come courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive in collaboration with The Packard Humanities Institute. A League of Their Own has already screened in the series. Two titles remain on the fall schedule.
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou screens Thursday, October 15, at 7:00. It is a 35mm presentation, followed by a conversation with critic and author Matt Zoller Seitz about his book The Wes Anderson Collection. Silver Linings Playbook follows on Monday, November 23, at 7:15. BMFI's listing for it highlights the Philadelphia-suburbs setting and the Eagles–Cowboys game at the center of the plot.
If you want to know what played here in a given year, BMFI released a free archive on July 13 called 100 Years of Film in Bryn Mawr. It sorts more than 12,000 film entries into year-by-year Letterboxd lists. The series picks its films from that same screening history, so the archive is the best way to guess what might come next. The series page lists only the October and November dates so far.
The Newest Neighbors Keep Daytime Hours
The theater's centennial year brought a run of openings on the blocks to the east and west. Most of them were built around the morning and the lunch hour.
- The Buttery, 836 W. Lancaster Ave. This 82-seat bakery and café opened in June. At the time, the Inquirer reported hours of 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., with the kitchen serving until 3 p.m. and dinner something the owners hoped to add in the fall or winter. The Bryn Mawr page now lists 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, and its menu page is labeled breakfast and lunch. The dinner service the Inquirer described in September was for the original Malvern location.
- Dim Sum Factory, 865 Lancaster Ave. It was first expected in December 2025, and in January the Inquirer pushed the estimate to January or February. By late July, the restaurant's own Bryn Mawr page listed hours and online ordering.
- Flakely Gluten Free, 1007 W. Lancaster Ave. Main Line Today reported the storefront open by February 25. It followed an earlier phase as a Manayunk production kitchen with a takeout window.
- Love & Honey Fried Chicken, 1111 W. Lancaster Ave. Patch reported it opened December 5 and listed daily hours of 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
The Buttery shares its block with long-standing tenants. Its building is part of a pair of mixed-use properties, 834-40 and 860-62 W. Lancaster Avenue, whose tenants also include Carina Sorella, Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, and TCO Fly Shop. That puts a bakery, a boutique, an ice cream shop, and a fly shop within a short walk of the theater's marquee at 824. Most of what is new is busiest well before the 7:00 showtimes.
915 Lancaster Is Being Built for After Dark
Alessandro's Enoteca is planned for 915 W. Lancaster Ave. The space was most recently Il Fiore, which closed in December 2025. It is chef Alex Fiorello's third restaurant, after Alessandro's Wood Fired Italian Grill & Bar in Wayne and Alessandro's Pizzeria in West Chester.
The size sets it apart from the year's other openings. Montco Today, summarizing the Philadelphia Business Journal in June, described a 6,000-square-foot space seating 150 to 175 guests. Plans include a bar, two private rooms, a cocktail lounge, and a raw bar, with some Japanese influence on the menu, including sushi. The same report noted that Pond Lehocky Giordano invested just under $1 million in Fiorello's restaurant group. It was the law firm's first hospitality investment.
The Inquirer's September forecast filled in the kitchen. Fiorello and culinary director Matt Arcomone, whose experience includes Osteria, Vetri, and Palladino's, plan house-made pastas, wood-fired pizzas, live-fire cooking, and dry-aged meats. The paper said the restaurant is intended to have a stronger evening and bar scene than Fiorello's Wayne restaurants.
The opening date has moved. In June, the target was September. As of the Inquirer's September 9 forecast, it was mid-to-late October. The restaurant's own page still reads "Coming soon - October 2026," with no specific day. If it opens on that schedule, 915 Lancaster will have a kitchen planning for the same hours the projection booth works at 824.
Three Dates on the Fall Calendar
The calendar for the rest of the fall is short and specific. The Life Aquatic on Thursday, October 15, is the closest test of whether Alessandro's Enoteca opens on time. If it doesn't, Love & Honey at 1111 W. Lancaster is listed as open until 9 p.m. Dim Sum Factory is closer, and its hours are on its own site.
On Saturday, October 24, from 2 to 4 p.m., Harriton House hosts its Heirloom Apple Tasting & Baking Contest. That leaves time to get back to Lancaster Avenue for an evening showing. On Monday, November 23, Silver Linings Playbook screens at 7:15, three days before Thanksgiving. If Alessandro's Enoteca opens within its October target, that screening will be the first BMFI 100 night with a new dinner room down the block.
Stephanie MacDonald and The MacDonald Team PA work from nearby Ardmore and follow Lancaster Avenue the way residents do, one storefront at a time. If you're wondering how a block's evening life, from a century-old theater to a new 150-seat dining room, figures into what your Bryn Mawr home is worth, ask us for a home value review that takes the street into account.
