We knew it was coming, but we're still weren't ready when the news came down. SFist's beloved Coronet Theater is closing its doors forever this Sunday, in preparation for demolition by the owner of the property, The Institute on Aging.

We spoke to our friend Gary Meyer, owner of the Balboa Theater and SFist's go-to pundit on all things Movie Theater. He concedes that the economic pressures that impelled United Artists to divest themselves of this property (and apparently, they're on the way to ridding themselves of all of their San Francisco theaters) were inavoidable. He pointed out that it's impossible for UA to compete with the 800-lb gorilla of the Metroplex. He estimates that the Coronet has a weekly operating expense of $15-20,000, and, even though "we all like to have all this nostalgia and talk about how much we want to see movies in that kind of environment, but not enough of us put their money where their mouth is." (At which point we broke in "But we did!" Gary had to inform us that our occasional 10 bucks wasn't enough to keep the Coronet going.)

Coronet Photo from the Save Our Theaters (yes, the prop L people, but it's a nice picture) website