The Paper Wing Theatre & Supper Club is a rare space in Monterey County, in that it combines a restaurant and a stage in one venue.
“It’s a perfect date night,” says LJ Brewer of Paper Wing, who happens to be an experienced chef and has been with the theater from its very beginning in 1992. “Especially for one of the first couple of dates, you’re going to impress a girl to death.”
The tradition of combining dining with entertainment dates back at least to the Renaissance. Supper clubs featuring big bands and dance were common in the U.S. through the first half of the 20th century. One of the first theaters to offer the package was Barksdale Theatre in Richmond, Virginia.
But Paper Wing, which was founded by Koly McBride, Brewer’s wife, does it differently. The dinner is served before the show in a separate dining room, not concurrently. The bar and theater are located in an adjacent room (meaning non-dinner guests are welcome as well at the performance).
Another original idea is to offer a different menu inspired by each performance. For A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, an Edwardian dinner is served—a vegan chateaubriand, chicken thighs with cranberry and orange glaze served on top of stuffing with slivered almonds, whipped potatoes, with some familiar touches like rich mac and cheese. For an upcoming run of Heathers, they adopt a high school cafeteria style. And for Evil Dead—coming in June—the menu turns to campsite fare. Think hot dogs, baked beans and roasted marshmallows. Fortunately, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is not on the theater’s near-term calendar.
All dinners come with appropriate decor, from elegant china and chandeliers, to camping gear. The food is prepared onsite and served buffet style.
“We try to provide value for the $79 ticket,” Brewer notes of the combined dinner-and-show price. “For people who return three times to the buffet, the value is huge.”
The dining room can fit 45 guests, and the tables are typically small community tables, allowing theater-goers to connect over the meal. There are other fun features, including a soft serve ice cream machine and a salad bar that doubles as a vegan sushi bar.
“It’s very important to us that we have one entree that is completely vegan,” Brewer says, recalling the moment he went vegan because he “fell in love with a cat.”
Sushi Chef Jose Brava also prepares vegan rolls to go—not just on show nights, but five days a week through the ticket box window. Both dinner pre-show and sushi to-go have been successful, Brewer observes, adding “We are sold out most of the nights.”
Another example of Paper Wing’s comingling fun and food are regular drag brunches. How could chicken and waffles, Champagne and drag queens entertaining each table not be a perfect culinary-performance combination?
Brewer began his foodservice career while he was young, bussing tables. Eventually he worked his way up to chef.
He and McBride met at her former theater in Salinas after he saw a casting call in the Weekly that promised, “No previous acting experience needed.” He came for the audition and remained in the local theater world. Paper Wing moved and then it moved again, arriving in its Cannery Row location—with an onsite kitchen—in January 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Brewer’s cooking experience once again came in handy, and the kitchen enabled the theater to get through the pandemic closures; restaurants were able to keep serving meals to-go, even while the stage was shuttered.
The couple at first wanted to offer an old-school dinner theater experience, reminiscent of the white tablecloth era. But preferences have changed. Paper Wing went more casual—at least when it comes to dining.
“We want to give people a world-class experience,” Brewer says. “We want people to say: ‘We went to Cannery Row, we saw the best aquarium in the world, and had dinner-and-a-show where both talent and food was amazing.’”
Paper Wing Theatre & Supper Club, 711 Cannery Row, Suite I (upstairs), Monterey. 905-5684, paperwing.com.