This past weekend, we noted that Two Boots was ending its 18-year run renting movies.
Two Boots Video closed in the fall of 2008, with a much smaller rental collection merging next door in the pizzeria. (And their great Pioneer Theater RIP'd in November 2008. The video space and Pioneer Theater are now part of the Upright Citizens Brigade.)
Meanwhile, as the posters on the pizzeria's doors on Avenue A and East Third Street promise, the Pioneer Jr. is on the way … dubbed as "The world's smallest screening room."
We reached out to Two Boots owner Phil Hartman for more details.
"We had 18 great years at Two Boots Video and stubbornly kept the little nook going way longer than we ever envisioned — even though barely anyone rents DVDs anymore," Hartman told us via email.
Now it's time to transition to something else.
"We're putting a big screen in that little space, with a cool table made from a refurbished Two Boots sign, and probably about seven stools, so that folks can screen films while eating pizza and drinking pitchers of beer," said Hartman, who added that they're putting in a beer tap on the counter. "It will be a mini-tribute to The Pioneer Theater and a way for us to keep our love of movies alive."
He hopes that the Pioneer Jr. will be up and running before Dec. 25.
In other Two Boots movie-related news, the Saint Nic pizza makes its annual appearance starting on Dec. 19.
As Hartman said, it's a tribute to Nicolas Cage, "the saint of overheated movie acting."
Previously on EV Grieve:
Two Boots is getting out of the video rental business on Avenue A
