The Adelphi, named after the two brothers who built the theater in 1917 ("adelphoi" is Greek for "brothers"), was designed by local architect J.E.O. Pridmore. The theater stood on Clark Street at Estes Avenue in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood. The theater was originally part of the Ascher Brothers circuit.

In the 1930s, the Adelphi received an Art Deco remodeling. The theater was modernized during the 1940s and again in the 1950s. It began to show second-run features starting in the late 1960s, and closed briefly in the early 1980s, after several years screening Spanish movies.

In the mid 1980s, the Adelphi reopened as the North Shore Theater, but was again known as the Adelphi when it began to show East Indian films and became the premiere venue for Bollywood features in the Chicagoland area, despite its down-on-the-heels appearance both inside and out.

The Adelphi closed in January 2002. Sadly, the still-viable theater was demolished in January 2006.

- Contributed by Bryan Krefft to CinemaTreasures.org