The following article was meant for a local news site. After getting it about 95% completed, finding the last few details I needed to wrap it up was proving quite difficult. My editor told me not to worry, it’s an historical piece with no absolute deadline, I could turn it in whenever it was ready.
That was about two-and-a-half years ago. Haven’t looked at it since.
This never-finished project has always gnawed at me, to the point that its failure has pretty much killed my freelance career — it’s now close to three years since my last byline. I mean, why start something new when I couldn’t finish my last project, right?
Thank you, Depression.
So I’m finally exorcising this demon by posting the piece here. I now consider this job completed, and maybe now I can give myself permission to move on.
So please, enjoy this history of the long-shuttered Rio Theatre in Rodeo, CA. (BTW, I’ve done no further research in the years since, so I’ve no idea of any updates regarding the site’s current occupant.)
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The smallish oil refinery town of Rodeo, on the San Pablo Bay about 20 miles north of Oakland, followed the arc of most suburbs during the early to mid 20th century. Thriving local industry (oil refining, in this case) brought a prosperous middle-class, which in turn spawned a blossoming downtown.
Along with grocers, shops, and services, the town had its center of entertainment — the Art-Deco-inspired Rio Theatre, opened in 1941. The Rio would host many larger-than-life characters over the decades, whether on the big screen during Hollywood’s heyday, or live on the stage during its brief run as an unlikely music venue. Even today, a larger-than-life character looms over its current incarnation as a church, bringing controversy along with him.
By 1940, Rodeo was outgrowing its then-current movie house, the aptly-named Rodeo Theatre, built in 1920 with a capacity of only 200. The new Rio, just a block away, more than doubled that and offered patrons modern amenities including spacious stadium-style seating, loge boxes, and an extra-large screen.
For three decades, the Rio offered the people of Rodeo first-run movies, jackpot drawings, giveaways, and even free turkeys on Thanksgiving. But two modern conveniences would spell the end of the Rio as a movie house — freeways and television.
By 1960, Interstate 80 was completed through the East Bay, completely bypassing Rodeo’s downtown and its main drag, US Highway 40. Traffic through town plummeted.
Also by the 1960’s, the new technology of television was eating away at the traditional movie theater fan-base. According to the US Census Bureau, weekly movie attendance dropped from a peak of 90 million in 1946 to only 40 million by 1960.
Declining attendance and a fading downtown took their tolls, and by 1972, the Rio had shown its last film and had shuttered.
A few years later, a local kid named Peter Van Kleef landed in town and, literally, took the stage.
Trained as a carpenter, Van Kleef kicked around the world with little money, taking gigs on oil tankers to make ends meet. With no other prospects, he and a group of friends pooled their money and by 1975 reopened the old theater. Not knowing what they were doing or how much work it would take, they quickly discovered running movies in a theatre was indeed a losing proposition.
Until inspiration struck on New Year’s Eve, 1975. Van Kleef and his buddies threw themselves a party that included a couple of bands, a bunch of beer, and a few hundred of their closest friends. They knew they had found something. So they again shut down the theater, sunk more money into remodeling it as a music hall, and reopened on October 16, 1976 with a concert featuring The Sons of Champlin and Norton Buffalo.
Over the next several years, this rundown former movie theater in an even more rundown town not close to anything would host several of the biggest names in local rock music — bands like Huey Lewis and the News, Eddie Money, the Greg Kihn Band, Sheila E., Moby Grape, and Y&T.
One of the more unique acts to pass through the Rio during its short life as a music club had an even shorter life as a band. Reconstruction, a jazz/rock/soul/funk fusion band, never existed outside of 1979, but they managed a couple of gigs at the Rio during their brief lifespan. One of their members was a guitarist from a little outfit called the Grateful Dead named Jerry Garcia.
And Rodeo would become the unlikely first home of a burgeoning new music scene in the East Bay — punk rock. Local promoter Wes Robinson, who would later make Ruthie’s Inn in Berkeley a major draw for national punk and hard rock acts, found the Rio to be a receptive early adopter of a scene that, at the time, was contained mostly to San Francisco.
But the Rio lost money from the start, and saddled with thousands of dollars of debt, Van Kleef closed it for good as a music venue in November 1980.
But he would find success as a club owner later in life. In 2004 he opened Cafe Van Kleef in Oakland’s Uptown, spurring revival of that district. He became known as “the godfather of Uptown”, and after his passing in September 2015, the mayor proclaimed “Peter Van Kleef Day.” And within a couple of years, the block of Telegraph Avenue where Cafe Van Kleef sits was renamed Peter Van Kleef Way.
Cafe Van Kleef, with some brief exceptions during the pandemic, remains open to this day.
Also standing to this day is the Rio Theater building. Although it no longer showcases movie stars or music performers, fans still attend events here. Today it’s a congregation of the Iglesia La Luz Del Mundo (“The Light of the World”) church, whose facebook page for this location was created in 2015.
Founded in 1926 in Mexico, the church has been led by three successive generations, who are considered apostles by their worshippers, and whose birthdays are considered religious holidays. The ruling family has received criticism for their lavish lifestyles and accumulations of property and wealth.
Its current leader, Naasón Joaquín García, the grandson of the church’s founder, pled guilty to child molestation charges in June 2022, and is serving a 16-year prison term.
