The El Rey Theatre when it opened on April 15, 1937 as Manteca’s most prominent and tallest commercial building helped create a downtown buzz during The Great Depression.

It burned 38 years later on Aug. 6, 1975 after the screening of “The Towering Inferno”.

For 23 years it then stood as blight in the form of a burned out and boarded up shell within 100 feet of the city’s heart at Yosemite Avenue and Main Street.

And then it rose again much like a Phoenix from the ashes to help strengthen downtown that by 1998 was struggling to compete with new retail centers on the four edges of Manteca.

“It was a big help to downtown,” noted City Manager Karen McLaughlin of the $2.1 million conversion of the El Rey into Kelly Brothers Brewing Co.

The brewery closed on Jan. 31 after a 13-year run. Ironically, it was on the last day that the Manteca Redevelopment Agency was in existence after the state pulled the plug on RDAs up and down California. The $2.1 million financing for the El Rey conversion included a $250,000 RDA loan.

The RDA loan was repaid with interest about a year ahead of the original 10-year deadline.

On Wednesday, McLaughlin said the city would do whatever it could to help expedite getting future restaurant tenant in place.

“Obviously that can’t involve RDA funds,” McLaughlin said.

Instead it could be in the form of efforts to make any city permitting process go as smoothly and quickly as possible.

Kelly Brothers was plagued by an extremely weak -and sometimes - non-existent weekday lunch trade with relatively slow week nights. Weekend business was said to be good.

Partner Joe Kelley had been a longtime advocate of any effort to accelerate the transformation of downtown into a destination for entertainment and dining. He believed more restaurants and entertainment venues would create a synergy to improve the central district’s economic engine.

Kelley also made one of the few efforts among downtown businesses to capitalize on the big draws of Bass Pro Sports and Big League Dreams.

The brewery with its 300 seats made a perfect locale for teams competing in BLD tournaments to dine together in one spot.

Kelley noted in an earlier interview that the biggest weekend they had in years was when they blanketed the Orchard Valley parking lot and nearby fields where cars were parked for the Bass Pro opening in fall of 2008 with flyer advertising the brewery and providing directions. The four-day stretch saw Kelley Brothers packed almost to capacity.