News clipping of the opening of Clover Theater. Courtesy of Alabama Department of Archives and History.

They stand together on Fairview at the foot of the Old Cloverdale district. The Capri was built in 1941 and began life as the Clover Theatre, Montgomery’s first neighborhood movie house . Sinclair’s is a highly successful theme restaurant, and it occupies the old Sinclair Service Station structure. About the time the Clover was under construction, the gas station was owned and operated by my father-in-law. In 1983 the single screen Capri, then devoted to “art” films, was raided by the District Attorney for showing obscene material.

And on the left is James Fuller’s Stonehenge, which is ensconced in the old Varon’s Restaurant, one of my favorite eat-out places in the mid-1960s. Who could forget rotund Maurice Varon?

-Charles Humphries

Sinclaire’s restaurant has since closed and sold to a Moe’s BBQ restaurant I believe.

-Cyle Conoly