The Rialto Theater Building is located on West 25th Street in the heart of the historic Ohio City district of Cleveland. Constructed in 1919, the Rialto was one of the city’s largest west side cinema and vaudeville venues at the time. The two-story terracotta and brick-clad structure served a variety of subsequent uses, most recently as a popular nightclub that closed its doors in 2005. In the late summer of 2011, Peter and Michael Mitchell of Mitchell’s Ice Cream purchased the building and authorized design studies to transform the building into Mitchell’s central ice cream production facility and corporate offices. The original historic storefronts of the theater were renovated to provide an Ohio City Mitchell’s ice cream outlet, while the original theater space was renovated to provide ice cream production and storage spaces, with a gallery for public tours and observation of the ice cream-making process.

The Rialto Theater’s exterior facades and features were restored in accordance with the National Parks Service guidelines for restoration of historic buildings, and the project has received historic tax credit funding for both the state and federal programs. The General Contractor for the project was RW Clark, who completed construction in the spring of 2014.