Inside the letter room of the theater, Kim searches for the letters she needs to complete the updates for the marquee.
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Zaydee Sanchez
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LAist
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Topline:
The single-screen Gardena Cinema has been owned by the Kim family since 1976, and has always figured out ways to serve its community — even through some very difficult financial times.
Why it matters: This isn’t a story of stylish renovations, or of celebrity filmmaker intervention. This is the story of one family who fell in love with a movie theater and did (and even lost) everything to keep it up and running. Gardena Cinema is one of the last family-run movie theaters in L.A. Gardena Cinema is one of the last family-run movie theaters in L.A.
Why now: After struggling through a pandemic and ill-fated efforts to bring people back through its doors, Gardena Cinema finally hit some recent success after it stopped dealing with first-run releases and pivoted to repertory films. Many nights at this South Bay theater, you can catch a newish — or oldish — classic, from La La Land to Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
#250: As we continue our series "Revival House," How To LA producer Victoria Alejandro is taking us to the South Bay of LA. We're checking out the Gardena Cinema, which pivoted to revival screenings relatively recently. The theater has been owned by the Kim family since 1976, and is now a non-profit run by Judy Kim and a team of 40 volunteers. Kim's saved the cinema from closures a handful of times now, and has also built up an incredible community of folks dedicated to keeping the cinema running.
Revival House: The Gardena Cinema's Fight to Stay Open
#250: As we continue our series "Revival House," How To LA producer Victoria Alejandro is taking us to the South Bay of LA. We're checking out the Gardena Cinema, which pivoted to revival screenings relatively recently. The theater has been owned by the Kim family since 1976, and is now a non-profit run by Judy Kim and a team of 40 volunteers. Kim's saved the cinema from closures a handful of times now, and has also built up an incredible community of folks dedicated to keeping the cinema running.
This isn’t a story of stylish renovations, or of celebrity filmmaker intervention. This is the story of one family who fell in love with a movie theater and did (and even lost) everything to keep it up and running.
The single-screen Gardena Cinema has been owned by the Kim family since 1976, and has always figured out ways to serve its community — even through some very difficult financial times.
After struggling through a pandemic and ill-fated efforts to bring people back through its doors, Gardena Cinema finally hit some success after it stopped dealing with first-run releases and pivoted to repertory films. Many nights at this South Bay theater, you can catch a newish — or oldish — classics like La La Land and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
The Kim family
The Gardena Cinema has always been a movie theater. It opened in 1946 as the Park Theatre, and operated consistently through the years showing first and second run feature films until it went up for sale in the 1970s.
That’s where the Kim family comes in. John and Nancy Kim immigrated from South Korea and had the goal of operating their own business. They dabbled in a few different industries when Nancy found the theater.
“My mom fell in love with it as soon as she came and saw it,” says current Gardena Cinema owner Judy Kim.
It's an incredible space, tucked between a gym and a Superior Grocers on Crenshaw Boulevard. It’s way bigger inside than it looks — at 800 seats, it’s easily one of the biggest theaters in the city. For comparison, The Chinese in Hollywood seats 932.
#250: As we continue our series "Revival House," How To LA producer Victoria Alejandro is taking us to the South Bay of LA and the Gardena Cinema. The theater has been owned by the Kim family since 1976, and is now a non-profit run by Judy Kim and a team of 40 volunteers. Kim has saved the cinema from closures a handful of times now, and has recently pivoted to showing repertory films at the theater.
Listen to the How to LA episode
#250: As we continue our series "Revival House," How To LA producer Victoria Alejandro is taking us to the South Bay of LA and the Gardena Cinema. The theater has been owned by the Kim family since 1976, and is now a non-profit run by Judy Kim and a team of 40 volunteers. Kim has saved the cinema from closures a handful of times now, and has recently pivoted to showing repertory films at the theater.
There are still fireproof window covers in the projection room, a holdover from old film screening safety practices. And there are “cry rooms” upstairs from the 1940s, balcony seating with speakers and a glass window where patrons could sit with a crying baby and not interrupt their viewing experience.
Kim reminisces about her father using a pole hand to change the letters on the marquee. However, she admits that she lacks the arm strength for such a technique, which led her to invest in a scissor lift.
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Zaydee Sanchez
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Kim updates the marquee letters approximately once a week to reflect the upcoming movies that will be showing at the theater.
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Zaydee Sanchez
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LAist
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People always comment on how nicely preserved the theater is as it was from 1946, and I tell people it's only preserved because my parents never had enough money to upgrade it.
— Judy Kim, owner of Gardena Cinema
Now it's got that vintage hue.
“Now it's cool! It's really cool!,” says Kim. “Now that I have dreams of trying to raise money to make changes, people are like, don't change anything!”
The early days
When theKims bought the theater, they saw an underserved audience in Gardena. There was a drive-in theater nearby in Torrance called the Roadium that played Spanish-language movies every Wednesday, and the place would be packed.
One day, Judy Kim says, her parents decided to change the format of the theater from English speaking second-run movies from Hollywood to second-run Spanish language movies. In the 1970s and the 80s, the Kims named the theater Teatro Variedades — “variety theater” in Spanish — and focused on Spanish-language films and live events with Latino filmmakers and actors. If the Torrance drive-in was ever rained out, or if folks wanted to catch a movie in Spanish on another day of the week, they’d head to the Gardena.
“It was meant to be like a neighborhood theater that was typical in the post-war era,” says Kim. “There was always a neighborhood movie theater that you could walk to from your home, just a few blocks away … all of those theaters are now gone.”
TheKims held on to their theater and in 1995 renamed it the Gardena Cinema. Judy Kim and her brother helped run the theater and neighborhood kids showed up too, offering to clean or help out in other ways in exchange for a movie ticket.
It served as a community hub.
“We were almost kind of like a Boys and Girls Club,” recalls Kim. After the movie, kids “would hang out in the lobby, and we would play video games, or talk about what was cool and what was not and, as an adult at that time, I made sure that all the kids that were here did their homework.”
“I tutored them,” she adds. “I made sure that they were doing OK in school.”
Kim always expected them to go to college.
Trouble sets in
Despite the joy found in the theater, like most teens, Judy Kim wanted to get away from her parents and spread her wings, so to speak. She left for college out east and had dreams of moving to New York and becoming a Broadway producer.
Then the calls started coming — a lot of calls from her parents. Sometimes twice a day, begging her to return to L.A. She didn’t really understand what the urgency was all about, but she came home and found her parents — and the theater’s — finances in disarray.
“I realized that they were under extreme financial hardship, and they were embroiled in lots of legal problems,” she says.
Kim explains that her parents had been defrauded multiple times. The Kims lost their house, their car. To help, Judy Kim went to law school, became a lawyer and dug in to help untangle them. It took almost 15 years to get everything sorted. “We were basically surviving off of, like, 99 cent hamburgers,” she says.
The upside in all of this — and the part of this story that might be the reason Gardena Cinema is still around — is that about five years ago, Kim negotiated the purchase of a parking lot.
It was a big-time play. Gardena is one of very few independent theaters in L.A. with its own parking and, says Kim, “it saved our butt when the pandemic came.”
“Nobody was open and I had this big parking lot that I could show movies outdoors where people could sit in their car, safely, away from other people and watch a movie,” she says. “All they had to do was tune into the FM station that I told them to tune into.”
A bumpy road to recovery
As theaters in the city started welcoming folks back inside, the Kim family then had to navigate another major loss. “That time period is when my mom was fighting cancer,” says Kim. Nancy Kim died in 2022.
An altar of Kim's mother, Nancy Soo Myoung Kim, is placed in the lobby of the theater in remembrance of her beloved mother.
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John and Judy Kim closed the theater and took a few months to grieve. Judy Kim sold her condo and moved in with her father, putting that money towards the cinema.
“And then I said to my dad, we’re running out of money.”
The Gardena Cinema reopened with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, expecting it to be a huge hit. But only 10 people showed up to the first screening. Reopening the cinema with first-run movies meant that Kim was actually losing money.
New releases are “loss leaders” for movie theaters. Most of the ticket price is going straight back to the film’s distributor, and contracts mean that new films have to be shown for a certain number of weeks. If a theater isn’t bringing in enough audience members to turn a profit on concessions, theater owners are spending more than they’re making by running a first run film.
“So 2023, I’m running out of money,” says Kim. She says her father was ready to retire and use his “senior citizen card for all the national parks.” Why not sell the theater? Neither Kim nor her brother have children, so “there’s nobody to leave the theater to,” she says.
The theater hit the market, but didn’t sell.
Judy Kim made another last ditch pivot and came up with another plan: “I’m going to set up a nonprofit organization.”
With her father’s blessing, Kim began the process in April of 2023. The theater got official recognition as a nonprofit in July. Between that and the success of summer films like The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Barbie, the Gardena Cinema had a future.
Volunteer 'grandchildren'
Judy Kim was now running a theater and a nonprofit entirely on her own. But, as she learned years earlier, you can’t underestimate the number of people willing to trade work for a free movie. It took months, but Kim now has a team of 40 volunteers who help her run the theater.
“I’ve got a really good core group of people that are very supportive.”
It’s those volunteers who convinced Kim to move away from first-run movies and start programming repertory screenings. Without the strict scheduling and tiny profit margins of a first-run movie, Kim suddenly had a lot more flexibility. If she needed to step away and take care of her father, or just close the theater on a slow night, those options were now on the table.
Movie posters adorn the lobby walls of the Gardena Cinema.
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The Gardena Cinema volunteers are invaluable to the space. They run concessions, clean the theater, sell tickets, run the projector — and this past November, Kim left the theater in their hands entirely to take a trip with her father. “They did a fantastic job … it’s still standing,” she says.
If you care about something, you gotta go the extra mile.
— Conor Holt, a volunteer at the Gardena Theater
Cifen, a local filmmaker, helps organize events in the theater. He put together a singles’ night and a screening of his independent film, Age of Embellished Relic, this past February. He calls the theater a “safe haven.”
Conor Holt makes the drive to Gardena from East Hollywood. A former ArcLight Cinemas employee, he says he cares about making sure cinemas stay open. “If you care about something, you gotta go the extra mile.”
Adela Tobon used to manage a single-screen movie theater in Northern California. A friend told her about the Gardena Cinema and she says, “I just lost it. I’m like, this is exactly where I belong.”
And Bill DeFrance has taken over a lot of John Kim’s duties in the cinema — cutting trailers, ripping tickets at the box office, building the show in the projector.
It’s a family affair for DeFrance too. On Valentine’s Day, he programmed Wild at Heart — his and his wife’s favorite movie. “I programmed it for Valentine’s Day so I could be at the theater and on a date at the same time.”
A sign his daughter made hangs on the side of the ticket booth, and boldly states in red crayon: “NO PRANK CALLS!”
“For a long time, my dad was like, well, we don’t need to leave a legacy. There’s no grandkids,” says Kim. But the volunteers pipe up with a chorus: “We can be your grandchildren!”
Gardena Cinema owner Judy Kim.
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Judy Kim is now planning on leaving an endowment for the theater, so it can continue after she and her family have moved on. And intentional or not, the Gardena Cinema now has a legacy of community building and a fighting spirit.
Keep an eye on the Gardena Cinema’s calendar. You can catch anything from a karaoke party screening of La La Land to Dawn of the Dead in 3D to film festivals featuring shorts from local filmmakers.
Gab Chabrán
covers what's happening in food and culture for LAist.
Published February 6, 2026 3:43 PM
The iconic King Taco sign at the original Cypress Park location, which opened in 1974 and is now being considered for historic-cultural monument designation.
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Suzanne Levy
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Topline:
Topline: The original King Taco location in Cypress Park is being considered for historic-cultural monument status by the Cultural Heritage Commission, which would recognize its role in transforming Los Angeles' taco landscape and supporting Latino immigrant entrepreneurship.
Why it matters: King Taco helped establish the template for the modern L.A. taqueria — shifting the city's understanding of tacos from the hard-shell, Americanized version to soft tortillas filled with carne asada, carnitas and tacos al pastor. As the late food critic Jonathan Gold noted, King Taco "solidified what we all think of as the modern Los Angeles taco sensibility."
The backstory: Founder Raul Martinez launched King Taco from a converted ice cream truck in 1974, eventually opening the Cypress Park brick-and-mortar location that became the chain's flagship. The business grew to 24 locations across Southern California, becoming a model for immigrant entrepreneurship and establishing key Mexican dishes like tacos al pastor and carnitas as L.A. staples.
What's next: The Cultural Heritage Commission will determine whether King Taco's original location retains sufficient historic integrity and continues to convey its cultural significance. If approved, King Taco would become one of the few designated restaurant landmarks recognizing Latino culinary contributions.
Topline:
Topline: The original King Taco location in Cypress Park is being considered for historic-cultural monument status by the Cultural Heritage Commission, which would recognize its role in transforming Los Angeles' taco landscape and supporting Latino immigrant entrepreneurship.
Why it matters: King Taco helped establish the template for the modern L.A. taqueria — shifting the city's understanding of tacos from the hard-shell, Americanized version to soft tortillas filled with carne asada, carnitas and tacos al pastor. As the late food critic Jonathan Gold noted, King Taco "solidified what we all think of as the modern Los Angeles taco sensibility."
Why now: The nomination comes as part of the city's ongoing effort to recognize Latino cultural landmarks.
The backstory: Founder Raul Martinez launched King Taco from a converted ice cream truck in 1974, eventually opening the Cypress Park brick-and-mortar location that became the chain's flagship. The business grew to 24 locations across Southern California, becoming a model for immigrant entrepreneurship and establishing key Mexican dishes like tacos al pastor and carnitas as L.A. staples.
What's next: The Cultural Heritage Commission will determine whether King Taco's original location retains sufficient historic integrity and continues to convey its cultural significance. If approved, King Taco would become one of the few designated restaurant landmarks recognizing Latino culinary contributions.
Matt Dangelantonio
directs production of LAist's daily newscasts, shaping the radio stories that connect you to SoCal.
Published February 6, 2026 3:36 PM
Yasiel Puig looks on from the dugout during the 2018 World Series. He was found guilty Friday of lying to federal prosecutors about bets he placed on sporting events through an illegal bookmaking operation.
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Harry How
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Topline:
Former Dodger Yasiel Puig was found guilty today of lying to federal investigators about betting on sports through an illegal bookmaking operation.
The backstory: Puig was convicted on one count of obstruction of justice and one count of making false statements. The charges stem from a January 2022 interview he did with federal investigators who were looking into an illegal gambling operation. Federal prosecutors say during the interview, Puig lied about knowing a bookie named Donny Kadokawa, whom Puig texted sports bets to place with the illegal operation. When showed a copy of a cashier's check he used to pay off some of his gambling debt, prosecutors say Puig doubled down and said he didn't know the person who told him to send the money.
How it started: Federal prosecutors said that in May 2019, Puig began placing bets through Kadokawa, who worked for an illegal gambling operation out of Newport Coast. By June, they say he'd racked up nearly $283,000 in gambling debts. That same month, Puig withdrew $200,000 and bought another $200,000 in cashiers checks to pay off his debt so he could get access to gambling websites run by the illegal operation and place his bets himself. Prosecutors say Puig placed 899 bets between July and September of 2019, some of them at MLB ballparks before and after games in which he played. In the process, Puig ran up more debt, this time to the tune of $1 million dollars. He never paid it off.
What's next: Puig faces up to 20 years in prison if given the maximum sentence.
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President Donald Trump's harsh immigration tactics are taking a political hit as new polls show a majority of Americans feel federal agents have "gone too far" in enforcing immigration laws. And it's not just Democrats who are concerned, but also independent voters who are expected to play a major role in the upcoming midterm elections.
Why it matters: After months of aggressive enforcement, Trump's signature issue that twice got him elected is now turning into a liability ahead of this year's midterm elections.
The context: The outcry over what many saw as militant tactics hit a fever pitch after the second fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by immigration officers in Minnesota.
What the numbers say: A new NPR/Marist poll shows that six in 10 Americans disapprove of the job federal immigration agents are doing. Even typically loyal Republican supporters have called on the Trump administration to make changes and rebuild trust with law enforcement.
It's not just Democrats who are concerned, but also independent voters who are expected to play a major role in the upcoming midterm elections.
"The base loves it, but it's an issue for the independent voters who decide elections in this country," said Alex Conant, a veteran Republican strategist. "Independents want a strong border and they want to deport criminals, but they're really uneasy with having masked federal agents going around in neighborhoods, deporting anyone that they see — as the Democrats are portraying it."
After months of aggressive enforcement, Trump's signature issue that twice got him elected is now turning into a liability ahead of this year's midterm elections.
The outcry over what many saw as militant tactics hit a fever pitch after the second fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by immigration officers in Minnesota.
A new NPR/Marist poll shows that six in 10 Americans disapprove of the job federal immigration agents are doing.
Even typically loyal Republican supporters have called on the Trump administration to make changes and rebuild trust with law enforcement.
"They, being the White House, need to recalibrate on what needs to be done to make sure that that respect is going to be re-instilled," Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told conservative radio host Mark Davis.
Trump shook up the leadership of the Minneapolis operation, and directed his team to withdraw 700 federal officers.
"I learned that, maybe we can use a little bit of a softer touch," Trump said in an interview with NBC's Tom Llamas. "But you still have to be tough. We're dealing with really hard criminals."
It's a bit unclear what a "softer touch" actually means.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt largely defended the administration's enforcement efforts Thursday and pointed to different polling — from a Harvard/Harris survey — that she said showed support for their "deportation agenda."
"Nearly eight in 10 Americans say criminal illegal aliens should be deported," she said. "A solid majority also support deporting all illegal aliens, regardless of additional crimes."
She also said the administration is now prioritizing criminals who are in the country illegally.
Theresa Cardinal Brown, who worked on immigration policy under two presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said there may be an "operational pause" as the administration retools its efforts, both from a policy standpoint and a public relations standpoint.
"Operationally, you're not really thinking about politics as you're putting together an operation, said Brown, now a member of the Council on National Security and Immigration. "But politics comes into everything, right?"
She points to the announcement that body cameras would be deployed to federal immigration officers in Minneapolis, noting that while video can uncover when officers are doing something wrong, body cameras can also vindicate officers when they have done the right thing.
"I do think that probably the administration is thinking, 'Well, if we had body cam footage of our own, we could put our own perspective on it,' " she said.
Trump has a big incentive to get a handle on this crisis — and to do so quickly.
Conant, who previously worked on Marco Rubio's 2016 presidential campaign, said Trump has left an opening for Democrats to sound more reasonable on immigration ahead of the midterms.
"If he loses the immigration issue as a political winner, it's a real political problem," Conant said, "not just for Trump, but Republicans more broadly."
Super Bowl brings spotlight ahead of LA28 Olympics
By Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman | KQED
Published February 6, 2026 1:00 PM
Team Japan scores a point against Team Panama during the NFL Flag International Championship at Moscone Center in San Francisco on Tuesday.
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Beth LaBerge
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KQED
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Topline:
The sport is set to make its Olympic debut at the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, and NFL players will be allowed to take part.
Why it matters: With 20 million players, flag football is one of the world’s fastest-growing sports and a growth area for the NFL and its international counterpart, the International Federation of American Football.
Why now: As the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots get ready to push, tackle and elbow their way to victory in Super Bowl LX, the NFL has been showcasing the contactless version of the sport leading up to the big game on Sunday in Santa Clara.
The context: The NFL has ramped up efforts to support flag football in 15 countries, including Australia, Spain and Brazil, where the league is growing its reach with on-the-road NFL games next season. Flag football is also making inroads in the U.S. In December, all 32 NFL clubs voted to invest a collective $32 million to develop and launch a professional flag football league.
As the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots get ready to push, tackle and elbow their way to victory in Super Bowl LX, the NFL has been showcasing the contactless version of the sport leading up to the big game Sunday in Santa Clara.
With 20 million players, flag football is one of the world’s fastest-growing sports and a growth area for the NFL and its international counterpart, the International Federation of American Football. It’s set to make its Olympic debut at the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, and NFL players will be allowed to take part.
The NFL, which has invested heavily to expand flag football in the U.S. and abroad, planned no less than seven unique flag football-related events this week in the Bay Area, from the Pro Bowl Games to an under-13 international championship.
Beth Spicer, a middle-school student from Ireland, traveled to San Francisco to represent Ireland in that match Wednesday — the first time the co-ed tournament was held during a Super Bowl week, according to the NFL.
“I only learned how to throw a ball four months ago, and I just fell in love with it,” she said. “It’s not really like any other games. You’re getting tagged at the hips, so you have to move them. It’s unique, but it’s really good.”
Back home, the most popular sports include Gaelic football, hurling and soccer, according to the Ireland team’s head coach, Rob Cooper. He said the flag football program at his school got underway after the NFL reached out, offering free training and equipment.
“ We took it up, and the kids have loved every moment of it since then,” Cooper said. “I have no doubt that flag football, especially in Ireland, will continue to grow massively over the next couple of years.”
Flag football is a less gear-intensive version of traditional tackle football. Instead of physical confrontations, players must strip a length of fabric dangling from either side of a ball carrier’s waist to stop their forward progress.
The lack of contact means players aren’t required to wear helmets or pads, and in the version set to be played at the Olympics, the games are shorter, faster and have only five players per side, instead of 11.
The NFL started its first international flag football program in Mexico in 2000, according to Afia Law, who heads international flag football development for the league.
“ It’s all about creating access to the game for young adults and girls, regardless of the country you are in, regardless of your background, creating an opportunity for you to access the game,” Law said.
The NFL has ramped up efforts to support flag football in 15 countries, including Australia, Spain and Brazil, where the league is growing its reach with on-the-road NFL games next season.
Law said flag football’s Olympic debut will be “absolutely huge.”
“We’ve had people that are passionate about this game playing around the world for so long, and now we finally get to see them on the world stage playing in the game that they’re fantastic at,” Law said.
Kodie Fuller, an NFL and IFAF flag football ambassador from Australia, is excited that her sport is getting international recognition at the Olympics. She grew up playing traditional tackle football but transitioned to playing flag football three years ago.
“ As I got a little bit older, not taking hits every weekend definitely felt a lot nicer on my body,” Fuller said.
Now an Olympic hopeful herself, the 29-year-old said the Olympic debut will encourage more young athletes, especially young women, to get into the sport.
“We can sell the Olympic dream to all of them, because it is a very real possibility now,” she said.
Flag football is also making inroads in the U.S. In December, all 32 NFL clubs voted to invest a collective $32 million to develop and launch a professional flag football league.
Last spring, the Atlantic East Conference launched the first-ever NCAA women’s flag football season. Since the 2023-2024 school year, flag football has been a statewide-sanctioned sport for high school girls in California, although not for boys.
Watching the under-13 international flag football tournament at Moscone Center on Wednesday, Fuller said her “jaw was on the floor.”
“The talent that is coming through is out of this world,” she said.
