The Danbarry Dollar Savers location in Eastgate closed in December.

The Danbarry Dollar Savers location in Eastgate closed in December.
By Kelly Doran
Sun staff

Danbarry Dollar Savers has closed their Eastgate location after about ten years of showing second-run films there.

The Danbarry location at Eastgate was still using film, but the movie industry stopped putting movies on film, so the theater either needed to upgrade or leave, said Aaron Bates, general manager of operations.

Jungle Jim’s International Market owns the Danbarry location, along with the rest of the mall and the Fuji Steak House across the street, said Phill Adams, Jungle Jim’s director of development.

Danbarry had a disagreement with Jungle Jim’s over who should pay for the upgrades, Bates said, and Danbarry did not feel it made sense to put that much money into a building that they did not own.

Jungle Jim’s was not asked to do the upgrades for Danbarry and would not have done them because Danbarry was running the theater, Adams said. It was inevitable that Danbarry would close if upgrades were not done.

Danbarry was going month-to-month on rent, Adams said. When it got close to the end of Danbarry’s time there, Jungle Jim’s was letting Danbarry go day-to-day on rent so Danbarry could stay as long as possible, he said.

Jungle Jim’s does have a new tenant for the Danbarry location, but Adams could not disclose the name yet.

“It’ll be good for the area, it’ll be nice,” Adams said of the new tenant.

Danbarry has no plans to open a new location at this time, Bates said. Danbarry has five other locations: Middletown, Turfway, Chillicothe, Cincinnati Mills, Huber Heights and South Dayton.

All of Danbarry’s other locations are already on digital and Danbarry owns all the locations except the Turfway location.