Merced’s newly-renovated Mainzer Theater set to reopen next week, starting with restaurant

The Mainzer Theater — a Valley art deco jewel that’s held court on downtown Merced’s West Main and N streets since the 1930s, is about to rise again.

After being shuttered for more than a decade and undergoing a thorough multi-million dollar renovation, the Mainzer is scheduled to reopen Aug. 19 as family friendly entertainment venue.

According to Robin Donovan, managing director of the Mainzer, El Capitan Hotel and Tioga Apartments, the theater’s restaurant will be the first part to open to the public.

Plans for the theater were in the works long before the coronavirus pandemic hit. As a result, Donovan said plans have shifted in order to accommodate COVID-19 restrictions. That means tables for patrons will be set up outside of the restaurant.

Patrons will order food inside the restaurant and be given a number to place on their table where the food will be served to the diners. They will be allowed inside to access the self-serve beer system and will be provided with a sanitized cup for use with the tap handles.

The restaurant will offer brunch on Saturday and Sunday. “It’s very much a approachable comfort food. So one of the really cool things that we have is our farm breakfast pizza,” Donavan said.

The pizza comes topped with items like cheese, bacon, sausage, and an egg. A breakfast burrito will also be on the brunch menu, as well as a breakfast burger topped with an egg.

“Our chef has come up with some really great, different types of dishes than your normal brunches,” Donovan said.

Some parts of the venue, such as the stage, cinema and games won’t be available to patrons on Aug. 19 — but will be accessible at a later date.

“Still we think it will be very enjoyable for families, for college students, for business folks, whomever happen to be coming into the area of downtown we’re very excited to offer this venue,” she said.

The stage theater located on the main level of the venue has been renovated to accommodate different types of events, with time and effort being taken to restore the wooden stage to its original grandeur, said Barbara Piagari, former director of sales and marketing for the Mainzer, Tioga and El Capitan Hotel.

“The majority of what we’re looking at (booking) right now is music but it also could be magicians or it could be comedians, all sorts of different things that we can look at,” she said.

Piagari said the venue’s second floor cinema has been turned into a smaller, more trendy theater to allow for events such as lectures and film festivals.

A virtual grand opening fundraiser event will be held from 2:30 to 3 p.m. Aug. 19, on Facebook Live. The Facebook event is open to the public and Mainzer will donate $5 to the Boys & Girls Club or Merced County, for each person who logs on to view the grand opening, up to a $5,000 maximum. Information about the fundraiser can be found on the Mainzer website.

San Francisco-based Joie de Vivre Hotels, the company behind the upgrades to the Mainzer, is also heading up renovations to downtown’s historic El Capitan Hotel.

Theater history

According to a 2015 column written by local historian Sarah Lim, the location where the Mainzer sits at the northeast corner of Main and N streets was the site of the original Merced Theatre — long before the Mainzer.

It was built in 1920 at a cost of $35,000 and was owned by Charles H. Douglass and his brother-in-law Francis Egan.

In the style of Roman Corinthian architecture, it was designed by theater architect A. W. Cornelius of San Francisco and built with bricks and a stucco finish.

The elegant state-of-the-art theater opened March 4, 1920 with an operetta. It became the best venue in town for both motion pictures and live entertainment as it was equipped with a 70-by-32-foot stage and 1,200 seats.

After running the theater for a little over two years, Douglass and Egan sold the theater to a San Francisco syndicate headed by E. R. Emmick, Michael Naify and R. H. McNeil for $84,000.

This is the same company (later known as the Golden State Theatre and Realty Corp.) that built the new Merced Theatre at J Street (now MLK Jr. Way) on the other end of Main Street in 1931.

The original Merced Theatre stood at this former tent site for a good 16 years until it burned to the ground in December 1936. By then, it had already been renamed the Strand Theatre.

The Golden State Theatre and Realty Corp. built the new Strand Theatre in 1937 to replace the one destroyed by fire and opened it on Feb. 11, 1938. The new Strand Theatre was eventually renamed the Mainzer.

Over the years, the Mainzer has hosted many local and national acts, including Woodstock giant Richie Havens.

This story was originally published August 14, 2020 at 7:42 AM.