This building was designed by George McRae and built in 1892-93 as a fruit and vegetable market next door to older ones that had been on the site since the 1860s. Originally a single story building, it was rebuilt with an extra floor in the early twentieth century, and used as a circus venue, a cinema and a theatre. If you look up you will see that the terracotta pediment is decorated with fruits and surprisingly, choko vines. The humble choko has all but disappeared from our vegetable menu. By the 1980s the building had become very rundown. It was restored by Ipoh Garden for the City Council in the early 1990s. The exuberant 1920s interior, imported from the United States, is intended to evoke a romantic courtyard with a ceiling lit to imitate a star studded night sky.
The Capitol reinvents the atmosphere of the 1930s with all its opulence, but incorporates modern elements with style and elegance. The Capitol features an exterior from 1892, when it was the new Belmore market building.

The refurbished Capitol Theatre offers the public a unique theatre experience, as the only atmospheric cinema in the country restored and fully developed to a major lyric theatre and achieves the preservation of a vital piece of Australian theatre and architectural history.