After swinging open a secret door hidden behind a grandfather clock, I wove my way through the ornately furnished Palace Theater into one of the venue’s many hidden rooms. Surrounded by a dozen curious onlookers, illusionist Kevin Blake asked five people to choose a number from 1 to 70. I picked 32, but somehow, he already knew that. 

He pulled out his wallet and removed a lottery ticket dated from weeks ago, featuring the very numbers the crowd supplied. 

It was one of dozens of stunning tricks at the Palace Theater last week during a night dubbed Secret Magic, which turned the sprawling underground North Beach venue into a veritable Magic Castle, with a group of world-class magicians spread throughout the venue performing close-up tricks for a crowd dressed to the nines in boas and gowns (Plus, since this is San Francisco after all, a casual Giants hat here and there).

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Perhaps best known as the former site of the immersive period theater piece Speakeasy, the Palace Theater has become a hotbed for magic over the past few years, with Blake holding a residency on the main stage since 2021.

Revelers attend Secret Magic in San Francisco, on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. 

To enter the Palace Theater, an underground venue in North Beach, you must pass through a clock shop, as seen on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026, in San Francisco.

Luigi Anzivino entertains revelers at Secret Magic, a magic show and speakeasy event in the Palace Theater, an underground venue in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. 

“The whole reason we’re here is we know something is impossible, but we also know it’s inevitable,” he said, before pulling off a trick where a member of the audience mixed up a Rubik’s Cube, then Blake presented a second cube with identically arranged colors.

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The magic was phenomenal that night, but the venue itself is the real showstopper. The space, whose history was well-documented by the North Beach Beat and Found SF, originally housed a Russian Orthodox cathedral, until it was destroyed in the........

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