What you didn’t know about Santikos

Santikos owned and operated the movie theater company – now called the Santikos Entertainment Co.. – from the mid-1950s until his death in 2014.

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Three months ago, the Santikos Theaters purchased 17 cinemas from a New Orleans-based operator, an acquisition that nearly tripled the number of theaters it operates and expanded its presence beyond Texas for the first time in its more than 100-year history. It will be the eighth largest theater chain in North America.

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To tell this story, we used a 2011 Express-News profile on John Santikos. We also combed through an interview given by John Santikos to Institute of Texas Cultures in 2001.

Humble beginnings

John Santikos inherited the movie chain from his father, Louis Santikos, who immigrated to Waco from Athens, Greece, in the early 1900s. He was only 19 years old and arrived in Texas with his uncle by accident.

The ship he was on was originally supposed to go to New York but was diverted to France. They took the next ship to America, via Panama.

Company legend has it that Louis was working at a grocery store in Waco when he noticed a long line at the Rex Theater across the street. He is said to have saved his money and purchased the property in 1911.

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Seven years later, San Antonio businessmen invited him to enter the theater business in the Alamo City.

In 1923, Louis built the Palace Theater across the street from the Alamo. The theater was lavish, according to Hearst newspaper archives. Think velvet flooring, a spiral staircase and a hand-painted domed roof. It has been called “San Antonio’s million dollar theater.”

The family fled the Greek civil war

Louis’ stay in San Antonio did not last much longer. At age 34, he returned to Greece in 1924, married and had three children. He later sold most of his business in San Antonio and became a film distributor in his home state.

Shortly after the end of World War II, the family – including John, his older sister Kiki and his younger brother Dean – fled the Greek Civil War and returned to San Antonio. Louis re-entered the theater world and opened the Olmos Theater on San Pedro Avenue.

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John Santikos barely spoke English

At 19, John was barely able to speak English when he enrolled at St. Mary’s University, where he later earned a business degree.

“I used a dictionary,” he told the Express-News in 2011. “Amazingly, in my first semester of college, I got all A’s.”

Santikos couldn’t show “Star Wars,” so he bought the theater that did it

John began learning the theater business when his father opened the Olmos location. His father returned to Greece with his wife and made John operational director of the channel in the mid-1950s.

Under John, Santikos Theaters opened and renovated more than a dozen movie theaters across the city. Santikos opened San Antonio’s first multiplex in 1968: the four-screen Century South Theater, which was rebuilt as the Mayan Palace Theater.

When was the first “Star Wars” movie debuted in 1977, the California company that owns the Wonder Theater at Wonderland Mall outbid Santikos for the screening rights. Stunned at not being able to show the film, John bought the cinema.

John Santikos sold everything once and regretted it

At the peak of his career in 1987, John risked everything and sold out every movie theater in San Antonio to go into real estate.

At the time, Santikos owned all the theaters in town.

“It was so scary that I decided to sell everything,” John told the Institute of Texas Cultures in 2002.

He later said he came to regret the sale. At the time, the state was experiencing a housing crash.

John bought them all out in 2001 after Regal Cinemas filed for bankruptcy protection. He went on to open three movie theaters, including the Palladium, the massive 19-screen multiplex on the northwest side. It is built with Greek accents and is a tribute to John’s Greek heritage.

John told the Institute of Texas Cultures that he was never motivated by money in the theater world. Instead, he simply wanted to give San Antonio residents “a nice place to go” and “be happy.”

“It’s what makes my life worth living,” John said.