The Zem Zem Shrine Club sits on West 38th Street in Millcreek, and it is, depending on the night, either a wedding hall, a charity circus staging ground, or a room full of men in fezzes eating prime rib. Sometimes all three apply to the same organization.
Zem Zem is an Aladdin-style Shrine temple, part of the broader Shriners International fraternal organization — the folks who drive the little cars in parades and fund children’s hospitals. The Erie chapter has been operating since 1895, which means they’ve been doing their thing in this city longer than most Erie institutions people actually talk about. The current clubhouse off 38th is a sprawling, low-slung complex that you’d drive past forty times without stopping, which is the entire point of writing about it.
What makes Zem Zem interesting to people who aren’t Shriners is that the club opens its doors to the public more than you’d expect. The ballroom — a wide, slightly time-capsule-feeling space with the kind of carpeting that hasn’t been fashionable since the Clinton administration — hosts public dinners, fish fries, and ticketed events throughout the year. Friday night fish fries during Lent are genuinely well-attended by non-members who just want breaded haddock and a cold beer in a room where nobody’s going to bother them. Prices are what you’d call honest: most plates run under fifteen dollars, and the portions are not shy.
The Shrine Circus, which Zem Zem organizes and which comes to town annually, is its own separate event — usually held at Erie Insurance Arena in the fall — but it draws real crowds and the proceeds go to the Shriners Hospitals network. That part is worth knowing even if you’re not planning to attend.
If you have a wedding, a retirement party, or a fundraiser to plan, the rental options here are legitimately affordable compared to the fancier venues along the bayfront. The ballroom holds a few hundred people comfortably, there’s ample parking (a genuine luxury in Erie event planning), and the staff have been running events long enough that they’ve seen every possible thing go sideways at a party and know how to handle it.
The neighborhood around 38th Street is suburban Millcreek — unremarkable in the best way, close to everything, easy to get to from almost any part of the county. The club itself doesn’t have much curb appeal; the sign is modest and the exterior is brick in the way that most things built in the 1970s are brick. None of that is the point.
The point is that Erie has a functioning Shrine temple with a ballroom and a fish fry, and most people who’ve lived here for years have no idea. It’s the kind of place that makes you realize how many parallel social universes are running quietly alongside the Erie you think you know. The Shriners have their own world — their own calendar, their own rituals, their own way of doing a Friday night — and they’re not particularly interested in explaining it to you. They’ll just hand you a plate of fish and pour you a Yuengling and let you work it out yourself.
Check their calendar online or call ahead before showing up; public events aren’t always widely advertised, and the schedule shifts seasonally. But if you catch a dinner night, it’s worth the trip.
