Iconic Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino Applies for Booze Permit as He Gears Up to Reopen Historic Movie Theater

Director Quentin Tarantino receives the Lifetime Achievement Award during the Quentin Tarantino close encounter during the 16th Rome Film Fest 2021 on Oct. 19 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images for RFF)

Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino has filed a permit application to operate a cafe and arcade and serve beer and wine at Los Angeles’s Vista Theatre.

The historic theater, which opened in 1923, shut its doors in March 2020. Tarantino (“Pulp Fiction,” Inglorious Basterds,” “Django Unchained”) bought the theater in 2021 with plans to renovate and reopen it.

Tarantino filed the permit with the city of Los Angeles on March 8, seeking “conditional uses to allow the sale and dispensing of beer & wine for on-site consumption with an existing 12,340 square foot theater, café, and arcade with 370 seats and 12 arcade games,” according to the document.

Tarantino also purchased the New Beverly Cinema in 2007.

The Vista will celebrate its 100th anniversary next year, but Tarantino has yet to announce an opening date for the retro theater. We also don’t yet know which beers and wines will be served — or which arcade games will be available, for that matter.

The single-screen movie theater was originally scheduled to open in December 2021.

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