Hemet restaurant owner Greg Rich, left, talks with Matt McPherson inside the Odd Fellows Temple in Hemet that is under renovation. McPherson and his friend, Jason Strain, want to convert the building to a restaurant and music club.
Jason Strain and Matt McPherson sat side by side as saxophonists in the Hemet High School jazz band.
Now, years later, they are a duet hoping to reinvent a historic Hemet building and bring soul to downtown.
Strain has his sights set on a summer opening for the Allegro Eatery & Music Venue in the Odd Fellows Temple on Harvard Street.
Strain said downtown really needs something.
"If you live in Hemet, you have to go to Temecula or Riverside to listen to music or have a good meal," he said.
Even though the Hemet residents are longtime friends, their collaboration began only last year and was formed out of separate and symbiotic agendas.
Strain, 34, has worked in the restaurant business and played in bands -- he is a member of three in the San Jacinto Valley -- since he ended his seven-year hitch in the Air Force in 2001. He is the general manager of Romano's Macaroni Grill in Corona and has toyed with opening a place that would combine his two passions.
He had been looking for a building to lease or buy when he reconnected with McPherson, whom he had not seen in 10 years.
McPherson, 34, had become a school teacher in Hemet. He had seen the Odd Fellows building for years "and finally decided to see what it was about."
He learned that the Odd Fellows group was formed in 17th century England when, according to the Odd Fellows Web site, it was odd to find people organized for the purpose of giving aid to those in need and of pursuing projects for the benefit of all mankind.
McPherson said his family practices those tenets. When he discovered last October that the local Odd Fellows lodge was in danger of losing its charter because it was down to three members, he recruited two dozen friends and relatives to join.
"Here's an organization that represents what we have already been doing," McPherson said.
Soon he became the Noble Grand in charge of the Hemet order, which occupies a building that was constructed in 1927. It is in physical decline and is being used only twice a month for meetings. Not long after, McPherson learned that Strain was looking for a building to lease.
McPherson said he had just the place.
The restaurant and jazz club would be built in the 4,000-square-foot downstairs. Odd Fellows members would still meet on the second floor, which could be rented out to groups.
Permits are needed and wiring, plumbing, drywall and the ceiling still must be repaired. Strain said he expects to spend $2 million and is seeking private and corporate investors.
Steve Harding, an assistant city manager and a jazz enthusiast, has said that entertainment would lead any awakening of Hemet's sleepy downtown.
"What a beautiful area it is," Strain said. "It just needs a little TLC to come back."
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