In March of 1927, an article in the Clinton Eye announced “New Lee Theater Opens Next Week.” The theater was the project of Lee Jones, who had bought the Crancer Hardware building and turned it into a “modern, comfortable playhouse.”
The Lee had all the grandeur of movie palaces back in the day: a huge stage topped with a decorative arch, velour curtains and a silver-sheet screen, two stories high. There were 560 seats on the first floor and a balcony with 265 seats, with floor lights at intervals at the end of the rows, “just like they are in large cities.”
But by the time Mike Etters’ family moved to Clinton, in the 1970s, the grandeur that was New Lee Theater was gone with the wind.
“It was a recreation center,” Mike recalled.
People still line up outside the building, at 109 Washington, but instead of buying tickets for a show, they are waiting for Mike to cook breakfast, which is served all day. Only the masks of tragedy and comedy on the outside of the building hint at its past, reflecting the smiles on the faces of the customers when the restaurant doors open and the smell of sausage and biscuits wafts out.
“We have people waiting here at 5 a.m.,” Mike said. “I get here at 4:30 a.m. to get my gravy made and my biscuits in the oven.”
Mike has run the restaurants in Clinton for almost 50 years, since he was a senior at CMSU. He chose to honor the building’s theatrical past by putting up framed posters from old movies, including the films first shown at the Lee, which opened at the end of the silent movie era, Mike said.
“I got to reading about the history of the business,” Mike said. “I wanted the theme to be old movies.”
Kansas City entrepreneur Lee Jones put $50,000 into buying and renovating the space into a movie theater. He told the Clinton Eye reporter that he had started in the theater business showing one-reelers on 16 mm film. To accompany the silent films Jones first showed at the Lee, he bought and had a Robert Morton organ installed at a cost of $9,000. It was made by the same person who made the organ in the Mormon Temple, he told the Clinton Eye reporter. The theater’s organ was three times faster than a church organ “so all kinds of dance music can be played.”
Mike has kept up the pace of cooking orders for customers for 27 years at Square 109, which he runs with his son, Kevin. But it was his daughter who originally decided to run a restaurant in the old theater building, he said. Mike was running a family diner called Uchi’s, formerly Wiley’s Fine Foods, where China House is now. He first leased it when was a senior at CMSU, majoring in marketing. But not wanting a career where you are on the road most of the week, he stayed in food service after he graduated in 1978.
“It wasn’t my life’s ambition to own a restaurant,” Mike said. “It’s a hard job, with no weekends off, and it’s hard to find help. But Clinton grows on you.”
“It’s been an interesting life.”
Mike was born in Berlin, Germany, where his father, Bill Etters, was in the Army. The family moved to California when Mike was 3 years old, then to Blue Springs, Missouri, when Mike was 11, when his father got a corporate job in the Kansas City area. The family came to Clinton when Bill Etters bought a restaurant on Hwy. 7, the Windmill.
The Lee Theater building, in the meantime, had gone through several incarnations, including a family restaurant and clothing stores. It was when the last business, a Mexican restaurant, was departing that Mike’s daughter decided to go into the restaurant business. Mike kept Uchi’s until 2006, when the Elks Club building collapsed, then decided to move operations over to Square 109.
He has had Square 109 for 17 years. His daughter works there part-time.
“We have grandkids involved now,” he said.
When the New Lee Theater opened in 1927, it was at the end of the silent movie era, he said. That was the year that the first part-talking movie, “The Jazz Singer,” with Al Jolson, was released.
Mike framed a poster found in the building of “The Road to Ruin,” with Helen Foster, a 1928 film that was billed as “not suitable for children.” He also has a poster from the post-World War I film, “The Blue Eagle,” with George O’Brien and Janet Gaynor.
Mike has put up photographs of more recognizable stars, including the Marx Brothers, Doris Day, Steve McQueen and Liza Minnelli. He also has posters of the 1951 film,“A Streetcar Named Desire,” and “The Godfather,” which came out in 1972. Both starred Marlon Brando.
“A lot of people don’t know it’s the same actor,” he said.
Mike said it’s also hard for his customers to imagine the restaurant when it was a theater. The giant screen was probably on the back wall of the restaurant, because the basement floor is deeper at that end of the building, which is 130 by 38 feet, and had a 30-foot ceiling. The second floor is now used for storage.
“When people see the photograph of when it was a theater, they can’t believe it was that big,” he said.
The Lee, which was billed as “Where the Cool Breezes Blow” had a large cooling system in the basement. The floor, which was made of edge-grain pine, probably sloped down to the screen, Mike said.
According to the 1927 article, the theater planned to offer matinees every afternoon, as well as evening shows. Mike used to serve dinner at Square 109, but has shortened the hours the restaurant is open, and now closes at 2 p.m.
“I got tired of working 70 hours a week,” he explained. “Now I work 50 hours a week.”
Square 109 is known for its breakfasts, and people asked for breakfast even when they came in at night, Mike said.
“I typically go through 40 dozen eggs, 600 pieces of bacon and 6 gallons of sausage gravy,” he said.
His father owned the Windmill Restaurant on Hwy.7 until the mid-1990s, when the highway expanded and took the parking lot. The Windmill took a hiatus between Christmas and March, Mike said, because it relied on the lake crowd that stopped on weekends. Bill Etters passed away in 2001, and Mike’s mother, Helga, who was born in Berlin, in 2012.
“It’s now a fireworks store,” Mike said of the Windmill.
The exterior of Square 109 underwent a facelift in the 1960s, Mike said, but retained its art-deco appearance. By the 1970s, when his family moved to town, the Crest movie theater was still open —it’s now the Heartland Community Theater— but the Lee was history.
Old theaters often have ghosts, but none linger from the days when shades of silent movie stars flickered on the walls of his restaurant, Mike said
But stars from the golden age of cinema still smile down on his customers.
