When Allyn Roberts converted the Castle Bowl into the short-lived Empire Theatre in 1904, he was bringing a very different kind of entertainment to a neighborhood of saloons, pool halls, little grocery stores, and Chinese markets. As is common even today, little theaters often start on the bad side of town. In the case of the Empire, the sketchy neighborhood could have contributed to its failure to attract enough ticket buyers.
Shooting Pool Here for 100 Years
After the Empire folded, the out-of-town owner sold the building to Morris Abrams, and the contractors who extended credit to Allyn Roberts were repaid. (Thus clearing the way for the Roberts family to be able to return later, their creditors satisfied.)
Abrams was a merchant; he was best known for inexpensive clothing and other dry goods, and the sign above an early store was “Morris Abrams, The Poor Man’s Friend.” He promptly dismantled the theatre and announced he would turn the place into a store.
The other businesses surrounding the old theatre wanted one of the shops to be a “gents finishing” which would no doubt bring drive business toward them, given the clientele. They were mostly saloons, billiard halls, cafes, and small grocery stories.
Abrams disappointed the neighbors, added glass windows to the front of the building, and the old Castle Bowl / Empire Theatre became the new home of California Market. (California Market had been at 16 Church street which is about where Santa Cruz Optimetric is now, at Church and Cedar.)
In 1903, the billiard parlors 264 Pacific, next door to Castle Bowl, invited both Ladies and Gents to come enjoy themselves. So it must have been an entertainment that women were allowd to enjoy, but the fact that they advertised to the Ladies indicates that they needed their business.
Throughout the twentieth century, advertisements indicate that the billiard parlor often included a barbershop as well, and nearly always located near a saloon. “Horn and Bishop” was both a pool hall and a barber shop. In 1909, Ely & Guthrie for many years had been partners in a billiard hall at 264 Pacific in the Stables Building. In 1905, Brunswick billiards was operating next to the Oberon Saloon. In 1908, one of these billiard/barber partnerships soured.
Case Settled
On December 5th attorneys for Joe Fox, a barber running a shop in Ely's billiard parlors, filed a complaint in the Superior Court against T. D. Ely and Doe Filley in an action for damages in the sum of $2,000. In this suit it was alleged that the defendants, Ely and Dilley, entered into a conspiracy to ruin the business of the plaintiff Fox, and that they had evicted him from his shop and taken possession thereof, and that he had suffered damages in the sum of $2,000.
Defendants denied all the allegations made by plaintiff's attorneys, admitted only that they had taken and kept the possession of the shop by reason of the fact that the plaintiff had not paid for the same and held no title thereto, and had not performed the terms of his agreement. Attorneys filed their answer to the complaint.
The plaintiff offered to the defendant Ely to drop his case and all claims against the defendants for possession of the property if the defendants would pay him his actual expenses incurred in court costs and attorneys’ fees, which he said was $21.25. This offer was accepted by Mr. Ely and the case brought to a termination.
A glimpse of billiard parlors of the time (1914) is found in this City Council discussion of raising the age limit on billiard halls. The impulse to regulate of other people’s fun doesn’t seem to have changed much in the last hundred years. It also shows an awareness of the different lives led by city kids and country kids.
Age Limit in Pool Rooms Raised to 18
Rev H. B. Mayo, representing the ministerial union, appeared before the council this morning in support of the contention that the age limit of boys who frequent pool and billiard rooms should be raised by ordinance from the present limit of sixteen years to twenty-one years.
Mr. Mayo said that it was the experience of parents that the environment found in pool rooms for boys in the formative period of their lives was not the best, and that a boy of sixteen years would not therefore be allowed in such places. ...
"We believe that twenty-one years is the proper age limit for boys who frequent pool rooms," said Mr. Mayo; "but we do not desire to have any particular dissension or trouble over the question, and if the council feels at liberty to place the age limit at nineteen years we would be satisfied. …
In answer to Mr. Mayo's arguments Commissioner McPherson made quite a lengthy statement in behalf of the eighteen-year limit. He said:
"I can remember a good many years ago when the ministers of Santa Cruz desired pool rooms to be removed from the saloon influence and disconnected entirely from saloons. This was done, and the sixteen year age limit went into effect.
"The fact that the supervisors of the county have fixed the age limit at twenty-one years has nothing to do with the age limit fixed in the city. Our boys can not play in the streets in the city, nor have they the freedom of play that have in the country districts.
"I believe that the billiard hall keeps boys out of saloons, just as the moving-picture house does. We must remember that not all boys have happy homes, and also that not every father can afford a billiard table. I sold my billiard table to former Mayor George W. Stone, who place it in Hackley hall for the use of the young people of the Unitarian church.
"On account of these reasons I believe the council should be reasonable in approaching the subject, and I therefore favor an eighteen-year age limit.
Mayor Drullard asserted that he was unqualifiably back of Mr. McPherson in his ideas and said:
"If a poolroom is not fit for a boy of eighteen years of age, it should be suppressed entirely."
The council then voted on Mr. McPhersons amendment to Mr. Howe's motion, placing the age limit at nineteen years, the amendment placing the age limit at eighteen years….
Notices in the paper indicate that Duncan McPherson had leased a building to a pool hall in the neighborhood a few years earlier.
In addition to the saloons and billiard halls, this block was the home of a popular and successful livery, Bonner Stables. The area was also home to chinese shops and restaurants. These businesses did not tend to advertise, so they are harder to find. The Quond di Long store was at 254 Pacific, a building that was torn down when Cathcart was cut through in the 1940s. And in 1906 Sun Chong Co shop was just north of where the Bowl would be built. I’ll say more about the Bonner Stables and the Chinese shops later.
The old Castle Bowl/ Empire theatre was a grocery store until 1919, then a real estate office, and then a jewelry store. Through the 1930s, 40s and 50s it was divided in half and numbered 270 and 272 Pacific. One side was usually a cafe and the other was a pool hall/barber shop.
When prohibition came in 1920, a some saloons converted into billiard halls, since they already were dry. When prohibition ended in 1933, the licenses were changed and billiards and beer were reunited on this block between Cathcart and Elm. Also of note, Sam Thornburg served the first legal beer here.
No Key Used on Local Restaurant for Last 6 Years
Sam's Lunch 272 Pacific Ave known as "The Big Little Business," was first to serve beer in Santa Cruz, securing a big supply from BECKS truck at 3 am April 7. Our service to patrons is ALWAYS FIRST in our minds, no matter whether it is for a meal or a bottle of beer or a chicken dinner.
SAM'S LUNCH--THE RESTAURANT THAT NEVER CLOSES.
The owners of the pool hall came and went over the years. For a while it was Chaplin’s or Chapmans, and until the late 40s it was Norene’s. Throughout this time, the barber shop that was co-located with it was owned by the same man, Henry Molares, for 37 years, beginning in 1933. He was active in the Barber’s Union, and in 1947, he ran for city council.
Henry Molares Comes from a Pioneer Family
Henry J. Molares, who is a candidate for city commissioner in the May 6 city election, has been a resident of Santa Cruz all the 55 years of his life.
He was born in a residence at the corner of North Branciforte and Water street.
His family has been located in Santa Cruz for 170 years. His grandfather, Batista Molares, a French Canadian, lived in Doyle Gulch and owned all the property in that area. His grandmother, Juana Castor, came here from Mexico.
Molares is the fourth generation of the Santa Cruz family. He has operated the Molaries Barber shop at 272 Pacific avenue for the past 27 years and has been a barber for 37 years. He lives at 373 Broadway.
Henry Molares: there must be more to his story than the fact that in that election he received the fewest votes of twelve candidates. He died in 1962.
In 1935 Sam’s became the Owl Lunch, and it operated 1941 It was Joe’s Lunch for a while and then the franchise for proto-fast food Pronto Pups and then the popular Ensley’s Cafe.
In the mid-50s, the pool hall had been re-named a “Sports Center,” and it went out of business in 1958. Bud’s Cafe opened in 1958, and then Bud’s Card room the next year. Soon after that, the Salvation Army Thrift store moved in, signaling the decline, as it does, of any neighborhood.
The Trade Winds import moved in by 1960 and in 1964 they announced they were closing because the building was about to be “demolished” and the store had nowhere else to move. But, in a subsequent ad, Trade Winds announced they were moving next door--which happened to be the old SC Bowl. Whatever was going on with the SC Bowl in 1964, things had changed so much that an import store could use part of the premises. The Trade Winds moved away in 1970.
The demolition of the old Castle Bowl, built in 1903, did not make the papers. But there was a lot of demotion that summer. All remnants of original “downtown”—Front street from Water to Soquel—were being bulldozed and redeveloped into the malls, and banks, and parking lots we know and love today. So the demolition of a well-worn commercial building at the bad end of Pacific wasn’t that important. At the time, probably nobody alive remembered a little bowling alley, or a theatre there. But it was this demolition that made it possible for Randall Kane to build the beautiful Atrium in the nightclub he built ten years later.
Next: Why is the Catalyst bigger on the inside?
Finest Turnouts at the Bonner Stables. Varieties of Entertainments at the Rough End of Pacific, Part 6.
Finest Turnouts at the Bonner Stables. Varieties of Entertainments at the Rough End of Pacific, Part 6.
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