Frank Wetzstein, John Kennelly, and Fred Sommerfeld, officers of the Palace Theatre Company, announced plans for a new Main Street movie theater in March 1936.
They purchased two downtown lots formerly occupied by Orange Grocery and Conyne Jewelry. Demolition began in April 1936. The new building provided storefronts on both sides of the theater entrance for Conyne Jewelry and North Dakota Power and Light Company, later part of MDU Resources.
The south-facing ticket office stood behind a 14-by-40-foot entrance lobby. The 48-by-80-foot auditorium seated 650. Although the rear entrance was at street level, the floor sloped toward the recessed stage, providing an unobstructed view from every seat.
Based on similar Minneapolis-area cinemas, the Mandan Theatre was constructed between April and November 1936. Its opening feature was Shirley Temple in Poor Little Rich Girl. A giant neon sign dominated the facade, flashing "Mandan" in black, red, and green with 970 feet of neon tubing and 300 bulbs.
A soundproofed "crying room" in the balcony allowed parents with babies to watch through thick plate-glass windows while listening through a dedicated loudspeaker.
After a $100,000 renovation, the building reopened in November 1974 as the 412-seat Showboat Cinema. Two years later, in an attempt to compete with the Kirkwood Plaza Multiplex and Dakota Theater multi-screen conversion in nearby Bismarck, an adjacent space became the 144-seat Cinema II, sharing ticketing and concessions with the larger primary theater dubbed "Cinema I".
The Showboat's last film screened in December 1986, and it closed early the next year. Owner Jerry Brekke attributed the decline in patronage to the growth of "at home" VHS movie rentals, the movie studios' reduction of available copies of first-run movies, and rural communities impacted by a depressed farm economy. Mid-Continent Theaters leased and remodeled the building, reopening it the following June 1 as the 400-seat Academy Theater. It offered second-run films for 99 cents but closed the following year. Later occupants included a Cici's Pizza buffet franchise which was open for about a year.
The Mandan Remediation Trust and City of Mandan acquired the building in 2004 as part of a downtown groundwater cleanup. In 2007, the city sought redevelopment proposals. Sandi and Scott McFall won the competition, purchased the building for $1, and began a $500,000 conversion into a dinner theater. Mysteria Theater opened in December 2008.
The building was rewired, replumbed, and refurbished with new lighting and sound systems. Waxed walls and glass embedded in the black ceiling created a sparkling canopy. Four original Art Deco fixtures lit the main room, which seated 150 to 180 dinner guests. The sloped auditorium floor became level terraces descending to a 30-foot stage and a fiber-optic curtain formerly used at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
Mysteria offered dinner and live entertainment, now having a complete kitchen and espresso and traditional bars. After its 2011 sale, the Art Deco building inspired a Roaring Twenties themed bar and restaurant under the name Chicago Place. That business closed in March 2012. The building reopened in 2015 as the Strawberry Bar.