Stage & Arts

‘Truman Show’ actor, comic, playwright and veteran Minneapolis restaurateur Joe Minjares dies at 79

He formerly owned Pepitos and the Parkway Theater.

By Rohan Preston

The Minnesota Star Tribune

July 24, 2025 at 1:48AM

Joe Minjares owned and renovated the Parkway Theater next door to Pepitos, which the family owned for 46 years starting in 1971. (Marlin Levison/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Joe Minjares, a stand-up comic, playwright, Minneapolis restaurateur and Hollywood character actor whose credits included “The Truman Show” and “Roseanne,” died Monday at M Health Fairview University of Minnesota Medical Center, according to longtime publicist and family friend Martin Keller.

Minjares was 79 and had been hospitalized for pneumonia and longstanding lung-related issues.

Lizz Winstead, co-creator of “The Daily Show,” did several stand-up comedy tours with Minjares in the 1980s and ’90s, including working with him in Los Angeles. She credits him with providing a space for innovative comedians to push the envelope.

“I think of him as a community builder like no other — funny, smart with a huge heart,” Winstead said.

“For all his success in show business and in restaurants, Joe was all about his love for family,” said Mixed Blood Theatre founder Jack Reuler, who worked closely with Minjares.

It all started for Minjares in Minneapolis, where dabbling in stand-up comedy led to an unexpected career.

Raised on the North Side until he was 13, Minjares graduated from Central High School in south Minneapolis and then served from 1964 to 1968 in the U.S. Army’s intelligence division during the Vietnam War.

Encouraged by his parents, Minjares and his wife, Sue, bought the Colonial Inn in Minneapolis in 1971 and turned it into Pepitos, a Tex-Mex place that the family owned for more than four decades. They had a room where Joe, who lived across the street, and others would tell jokes.

The family later bought and renovated the Parkway Theater next door, which, according to Winstead, became a favorite haunt of performing artists, including comedians and rockers. She recalled that she had a sold-out three-night stand, with music by the likes of Billy Bragg, during the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

Reuler described Minjares as “Ralph Kramdenesque,” after “The Honeymooners” character played by Jackie Gleason who was always teeming with ideas. After seeing Minjares do stand-up, Reuler cast him in shows at Mixed Blood and encouraged him to try his hand at plays.

The first result was “The King of Kosher Grocers,” a work featuring a trio of Black, Latino and Jewish protagonists in a multiracial neighborhood that has been produced widely.

Minjares also wrote “Minnecanos,” an autobiographical tribute to Chicanos in Minnesota, and “River Road Boogie: The Augie Garcia Story,” which premiered at the History Theatre in 2015.

“Joe had a natural writing gift and he really leveraged it in his plays,” said Keller.

Minjares played a bartender in “The Truman Show,” and appeared in numerous other films, including “Patti Rocks,” “Nothing to Lose” and “McHale’s Navy.”

“He had a look that Hollywood liked,” Keller said.

His parents and a son, William Joseph “Joey” Senkyr-Minjares, predeceased him. Survivors include children Leonard Senkyr of Blaine, Kenny Senkyr and Paul Senkyr of Richfield, and Pamela Senkyr of Minneapolis; siblings Bobby Senkyr of Hugo, Liz Benson of Minnetonka, Starr Acuna of San Antonio, and Alycia Hausladen of Waverly, Minn.; 11 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Services are being planned.

Minjares put his heart into his pursuits, and that was especially true of Pepitos, said Winstead. “Don’t forget that Pepitos had some of the best ribs in Minnesota,” said Winstead. “They had a honey barbecue sauce with a slight crystallized coating so there was a crunch to the outside but big, fat tenderness inside. That was Joe.”