Meg Roussos / The BulletinBusiness partners Nate Egdell, left, and Sean Day are hard at work trying to get their new restaurant, bar and music venue, The Capitol, up and running in downtown Bend.

Sometime in January, a nondescript glass door between Patagonia, on the corner of Wall Street and Oregon Avenue in downtown Bend, and Bend Mountain Coffee, just up Oregon Avenue a bit, received an intriguing facelift.

From top to bottom, the door was covered with white paper bearing a navy blue image of an old, vertical theater sign that says “The Capitol.” Below the name were the words “Coming This Summer.”

Sean Day chose the vintage-theater style sign for a reason.

“The Capitol Theatre used to be on the corner of Wall and Greenwood, where the Bank of America building is now,” he says, pointing to the spot just around the corner. It was originally the Carmody Theatre in 1914, and it was renamed the Capitol when “Dutch” Stover took it over in the 1920s.

Day, a bartender at Velvet, found old pictures of the Capitol on the Vintage Bend Facebook group and decided he wanted to bring the old theatre’s look to his new venture, a bar, restaurant and music venue located behind that glass door, in the lower level of the building, under Patagonia, the coffee shop, Bishop’s Barber Shop and Wild Rose Thai restaurant.

Day and his business partner, Nate Edgell, are in the process of turning the space from an unfinished expanse of concrete, raw wood and brick into a sleek but comfortable hangout with large booths for dining, games lining the walls, a boomerang-shaped bar and space for about 300 people to watch a concert. They hope to open by early summer.

“We want people to come to The Capitol not just because there’s a show there,” Day says. “We want them to come eat dinner. We want families in the early evening. We’re trying to do a really high-end venue but at a lower cost.”

Day, 35, grew up in Portland, where he tended bar and played in bands for years and came to admire the city’s variety of quality music venues.

“There are so many cool places to play in Portland that are bars and restaurants and a place to play, not just a place to play music,” he says. “That’s really want I want to do (with The Capitol).”

He and his father were close to buying his own space in Portland, but when that deal fell through, Day traveled for a bit and then ended up in Bend. Soon after landing here, he got a job at Velvet. There, he met Edgell, a ski and snowboard instructor at Mt. Bachelor. He told Edgell about his ideas for a new nightspot in Bend, and the two became business partners.

They looked at a number of potential spaces, but pounced on their current location once they realized that the building’s recent remodel created access for a kitchen ventilation system.

The plan for the space includes a restaurant area and games — pinball machines, arcade games, skeeball — on the east side, under Bishop’s and Bend Mountain Coffee, and a stage on the west side, under Patagonia. The bar will bridge the two halves of The Capitol, and Day says there will be two large TVs that will show “big local sporting events” (including Oregon and Oregon State games), but he emphasizes: “We’re not a sports bar.”

As for the live music, Day says no style is off limits. As a musician, he played alt-rock; later, when he was in the recording business, he got into electronic music, hip-hop and beyond.

“I’ve had a lot of people talk to me about playing here and I’m like, we don’t discriminate,” Day says. “If you play metal you can play here as long as you bring a crowd and you’re not offensive and you’re fun and it’s a lively crowd.

“If I think it’s going to be something the fits well here, come on in,” he says.

Initially, Day and Edgell will handle booking on their own. And they’ve already had discussions with at least one local promoter about working together. Day believes The Capitol will be a place that’s welcoming to both musicians and live-music lovers, and he hopes to host a show at least four nights per week.

“It’s a place I’d want to go see a show. It’s a place I’d want to play a show,” he says. “And being in the scene when I was younger, that’s kind of a big part of it. I know what I’d want to play in. I know where I’d want to see a show. This would be awesome.”

Even when the stage is quiet, though, expect The Capitol to buzz with activity.

“When there’s not a live show, the music’s going to be up maybe a little bit louder than, say, other restaurants. Games are going to be going off. Things will be happening,” Day says. “It’s going to be fun.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0377, bsalmon@bendbulletin.com