The marquee at Pikesville’s Next Act Cinema read, “Thank you for the memories” Monday evening.

Inside, for two hours, visitors tossed back $3 shots and polished off the remaining alcohol and food stock — down to the last kernels of popcorn.

The event, advertised on the theater’s Facebook page only a few hours earlier, marked an abrupt final act for the first Black-owned movie theater in Maryland.

Two days earlier, the theater owners posted “with a heavy heart“ that they planned to close Next Act Cinema on Monday.

“For the past seven years, we’ve had the privilege of bringing the magic of movies to Pikesville and creating a space where stories came to life, memories were made, and connections were built,” they wrote in the post.

The social media posts did not include an explanation for the closure and the owners, Anthony Fykes and Robert Wright, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The closing of Next Act Cinema comes as movie houses nationwide face declining box office sales, as moviegoers turn to streaming services and look for ways to trim their entertainment budgets.

The past four years have been brutal for the movie industry because of the pandemic, which got people accustomed to at-home activities. During this time, streaming services edged out box office competition due to convenience and price.

Next Act Cinema occupied the former space of The Pikes movie theater at 921 Reisterstown Road — the marquee on the white brick building still reads “Pikes.” The Baltimore Sun reported that the original Pikes, which opened in 1938, closed in 1984.

That evening at Next Act, a bartender had called some of her regular visitors to alert them of the evening event.

“I’d rather they hear from me that we closed. I don’t want them to come down here and see everything empty,” said the bartender, who declined to be named.

“It’s a loss for the community,” said Jemima Carter, who with her husband were among the few visitors that night.

She visited the theater a few weeks earlier to see “The Six Triple Eight,” a movie about World War II’s only Black Women’s Army Corps. The theater, she said, would play movies the Black community wanted to see, like “The Color Purple” and Beyonce’s Renaissance Tour movie, Carter said.

When local groups like churches wanted to host movie events, they knew they could use the theater, said Daniel Carter, Jemima’s husband. Daniel’s dad would request a movie showing, and the boutique theater would make it happen in less than a week. It would have taken much longer at larger theaters, Daniel said.

“We’re all going to have to go to AMC or Cinemax now,” Jemima said. “You don’t get this kind of service at AMC or other big theater companies.”

Under Next Act Cinema’s last Facebook posts, some users who think the theater may have fallen on hard financial times have suggested fundraisers to save the facility. A local pizza store that planned to close on Christmas was saved after a $60,000 donation from Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, Jemima noted. She wondered: Why can’t someone do that for Next Act Cinema?

That evening, for what was likely the last time, Jemima and Daniel perched in the plush leather seats at the center of the top row of the movie theater — what they called the best spots among the cluster of 40 seats. This time, there were no servers to deliver their order of pretzels, ginger ale and popcorn.

An hour into the event, only a couple handful of people sat in the theater — not nearly enough to polish off the remaining alcohol and popcorn supply.

“Maybe,” Jemima mused, “I should post something on Facebook about this.”