The Troc’s modern era began in 1979, when Pang’s father, Stephen Pang, purchased the theater and operated it as a Chinese-themed cinema, showing martial-arts movies and other cultural offerings, as well as renting it out to fine arts organizations, like the Pennsylvania Opera Theater, who likely presented the first-ever operas at the venue originally known as an opera house. Nightlife impresario Rick Blatstein opened the venue as a rock club in 1986, and brothers David and Stephen Simons (the latter now a restaurateur partner in Royal Boucherie and Cantina Los Caballitos, among other Philly eateries) took it over in 1991.