When the South San Francisco Opera House -- as it was originally known -- opened in 1888, the Bayview was a community of shipyard workers, butchers, and tradespeople living south of the city's established neighborhoods. The opera house served as their cultural venue, hosting performances, community meetings, and social events. Its survival through the 1906 earthquake and fire, which destroyed much of San Francisco, made it one of the few 19th-century cultural buildings to remain intact. The name change to Bayview Opera House reflected the neighborhood's evolving identity.

During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard brought thousands of workers to the neighborhood, many of them African Americans from the South who came for defense industry jobs. The Bayview-Hunters Point district became one of San Francisco's most vibrant Black communities, and the opera house served as a gathering place for cultural events and community organizing. After the war, the shipyard's closure left the neighborhood economically stranded, and decades of disinvestment followed. The opera house persisted through it all, often barely funded, kept alive by community volunteers and local artists who refused to let it close.

The 2014-2016 renovation restored the building's structural integrity and updated its facilities while preserving its historic character. The theater continues to host performances, art exhibitions, community meetings, and cultural events that reflect the neighborhood's diversity. In a district that has faced environmental contamination from the former shipyard, persistent poverty, and the pressures of gentrification, the Bayview Opera House represents something stubborn and essential: a community's refusal to be defined solely by its challenges. The oldest theater in San Francisco still has its lights on.