Indie Venue of the Month April 2026: Detroit’s Majestic Theater Center

In 1999, a younger Jack White had the forethought to document a efficiency at his native bowling alley in Detroit. During the present, he and a group of native musician associates, calling themselves Jack White and the Bricks (White, Brendan Benson, Ben Blackwell and Kevin Peyok), stood on the riser over a number of lanes at the iconic Garden Bowl and performed Bob Dylan and ? & the Mysterians covers — together with a group of just-released and yet-to-be-released White Stripes songs.

The band performed on lanes 11 to 14, remembers David Zaineawhose household has owned the Garden Bowl for 80 years, “and it was packed.”

In 2013, White turned the raucous recording right into a limited-edition vinyl for his label Third Man Records’ unique vault sequence titled Jack White and The Bricks: Live On the Garden Bowl. In between early renditions of tracks that would not be heard till later White Stripes albums, listeners can hear the crack of bowling balls connecting with pins at the again of the lane.

White could also be one of the most profitable artists to play the Garden Bowl, however he was removed from the just one. Originally opened in 1913 and bought by Albert Zainea In 1946, The Garden Bowl is the oldest repeatedly operating bowling alley in the US As the mid-century bowling craze, which noticed 35 bowling alleys open inside two miles of midtown Detroit in the Sixties, died down, the Zainea household launched “Rock-N-Bowl” — permitting bands to play straight over the lanes.

“A lot of bands don’t like playing it,” David, the grandson of Albert Zainea, jokes. “They can see the bowling balls coming at them. But some of them love it.” The Rock-N-Bowl reveals can maintain an viewers of simply over 100 individuals, and the sound, David provides, is surprisingly good because of the low ceilings and acoustic tiles.

The Garden Bowl is one of 4 areas that make up the independently owned Majestic Theater Center at present. After immigrating from the Middle East to the United States in 1907, Albert Zainea moved to Grand Rapids, Mich., and began a sweet retailer at the age of 15, based on the as-told-to historical past assortment “Words and Wisdom from Papa Joe” by Albert’s son and David’s father, Joseph “Papa Joe” Zainea. Albert went on to open a grocery retailer, a dairy farm and creamery, and a slaughterhouse earlier than shopping for the Garden Bowl. In 1984, Albert bought the Majestic Theater subsequent door to the bowling alley.

The Majestic, which first opened in 1915, was the first theater designed by legendary architect C. Howard Crane (Detroit Opera House, Fillmore Detroit, Fox Theaters in Michigan and Missouri), who designed it in an Italian fashion. Almost 20 years later, the metropolis determined to increase Woodward Avenue and the theater misplaced 35 toes from the entrance of the constructing together with its balcony seating. At that point, its terracotta facade was recreated to its present Art Deco fashion.

The Majestic went bankrupt in the Nineteen Fifties and have become a church, then a pictures studio, David tells Billboard. The pictures studio “really hacked it up,” he says. “It was in neglect. We put a lot of money into that building. The roof was gone. It was leaking. The ornate plaster — what we could afford, we fixed up.”

The bowling alley and the theater have been separate buildings “and we punched a hole in there to make it cool. It’s four rooms of fun,” he provides.

Since the Zainea household renovated it, the Majestic has hosted reveals by artists together with The Black Keys, Sheryl Crow, Laufey, drake, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Post Malone, Patti Smith, St Vincent, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Zach Bryan and wilco.

But the household wasn’t accomplished opening up venues. In the early Nineties, there was a void in the Detroit live performance house; there was the Garden Bowl and theaters over 1,000-capacity, however not a lot in between, David says. So a number of years after relaunching the 1,100-capacity Majestic, the Zaineas determined they wanted to make higher use of the advanced they created and turned the second ground of bowling lanes right into a 750-capacity membership. “It started as a pool club because it was called the Magic Stick,” David says.

“I start booking bands there. I’m like, ‘Wow, this is another avenue of income,'” David continues. “We needed a smaller venue because local bands didn’t want to play in the theater because it was too large.”

Bands like The Shins, Queens of the Stone Age, The Hives and The Black Keys took over the stage, in addition to reveals from Wilco, Buddy Guy, The Wolves, Foster the People, Rüfüs du Sol, Car Seat Headrest, George Clinton and, of course, The White Stripes.

The Magic Stick ultimately turned a staple of the neighborhood. Locals would stumble in on any given evening to see whoever was taking part in, and the venue efficiently taped into the storage rock scene that exploded from the mid-Nineties to the 2010s. “Things go through a cycle, but we hit it with the garage rock and I’ve got to give it to my staff,” David says. “They saw the opportunity for that genre of music to play.”

In 2017, Third Man Records launched one other Vault bundle with a recording of The White Stripes’ Aug. 18, 2000, efficiency at what the label known as “Detroit’s venerable Magic Stick.” David says he nonetheless has a duplicate of the verify that he used to pay the band hanging in his workplace and remembers at the very least one different acoustic set White performed at the Garden Bowl.

“When Jack got really successful, he wanted to bowling alley in his house in Nashville,” says David. “I had some old foul-lights [these indicate when a bowler has crossed the line onto the lane] and bowling equipment and I just gave it to him. “He sent me a plaque of the album cover.”

David might be the first to confess that operating the bowling alley was lots totally different than operating a live performance venue.

“When I first got into the [concert] business, I didn’t know what I was doing. I booked Warren Zevon. I was the promoter, the loader, the backstage provider and I pulled it off but the tour manager wasn’t very happy with me,” David says, including that Zevon “was sober and I didn’t have enough coffee and he was pissed. “I made an urn of coffee and brought it back there because we owned a restaurant at that time.”

When the tour supervisor instructed David they wanted to settle the present and David stated he did not know the way, the tour supervisor pulled him apart and taught the new theater proprietor methods to shut one out. “He gave me a lesson I’ll never forget,” says David. “Then I told him, ‘We’re losing money on it!’” (AEG is now the unique booker for the Majestic Theatre.)

After 80 years and three generations (David’s brother, Joe Zainea runs the constructing’s restaurant, Sgt. Pepperonis Pizzeria and Deli), the household has thought-about promoting the music venues, which carry much more threat than the financially secure bowling alley. But they’ve by no means felt they got a good provide. “I’m not going to give it away. And I still like doing what I do,” David says. “We’re an anchor on that little block and we feed these other smaller businesses and it makes me happy to do that. From the bartenders to the stagehands to the sound guys, everybody gets a little piece of it. And I hope that never changes.”

At the very least, the constructing’s facade won’t ever change. In 2008, after years of lobbying by Elder “Papa Joe” Zainea (who handed away earlier this 12 months at 93), the iconic artwork deco facade of the Majestic Theater was added to the National Register of Historic Places. However, the household remains to be in a position to make modifications to different components of the constructing and unveiled $1 million in renovations, together with a brand new marquee, in 2019.

“We’ve been there for 80 years. We adapt to what the community needs and then we persevere,” says David. “You don’t get rich in small venues, but I don’t care. I’m happy with where I sit at the table.”