"[10] Eventual expansion to four viewing rooms with separate screens was not enough to compete successfully with the new multiplex theaters built elsewhere in Portland in the 1980s.

[12] Unlike typical first-run theaters, Laurelhurst serves food such as pizza, wraps, and salads, and local microbrewed beer.

In May 1938, for example, ceremonies at the Laurelhurst honored two children selected to be "prince" and "princess" representing the Buckman–Albina district in the annual Junior Portland Rose Festival.

[19] In 1947, an armed robber entered the Laurelhurst lobby during a late-evening show and forced the theater manager and another employee to give him $150.

[22] In 1958, the theater suffered unspecified damage from smoke and water during a fire that destroyed a nearby plywood sales plant.

[23] Burglars caused more than $1,300 in damage to the Laurelhurst in 1967, when they tried and failed to gain access to the main contents of the theatre's safe by using explosives.