This past week marked the 40th anniversary of Garden Grove’s long forgotten Westbrook Twin.
Opened on July 3, 1973, the 800 seat Westbrook Twin was typical of the quick build, “no frills”, design, which was prevalent throughout the 1970’s. Serving as more of a territory place holder for the Edwards chain, than true movie going draw, the theatre never experienced a great deal of success and quickly lost ground to a new generation of multiplexes; resorting to discount bookings by the close of the 1980’s. In a less than politically correct fashion, Edwards cited the area’s “oriental” demographic as the root cause for the Westbrook’s lackluster box office take and shuttered the venue on October 25, 1990.
In the spring of 1991, a group of Vietnamese-American entrepreneurs sought to make better use of the site’s close proximity to Little Saigon, as a Vietnamese/Chinese/French language venue, and sublet the theatre from Edwards. Rebranded the Thu Do Cinema, the theatre managed to hang on for another few years, before shutting down for good, circa 1996.
Abandoning any further use as a cinema, the facility was gutted and subdivided for office space shortly after closing. Today, the former “All New and Beautiful” Westbrook Twin serves as the home to a collection of doctors’ offices and auto insurance outlets.
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