File 2004 / DMN

The Conspiracy Museum's lease expires at the end of this month.

DALLAS — The Conspiracy Museum, which for more than a decade has given JFK tourists plenty to chew on, will soon be replaced by a sandwich shop.

The museum, which has occupied the first floor of the Katy Building downtown since 1995, will temporarily close after the first of the year.

The space will become a Quiznos, where visitors, hungry for the real truth, can have lunch and, if they choose, contemplate the theories behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy – with windows that overlook the JFK Memorial across the street.

The restaurant is scheduled to open in April.

Tom Bowden, the museum's president, said plans call for the museum to reopen in the spring, either elsewhere in the Katy Building or at some other location to be determined. He said detailed plans will be announced later this week.

The new museum will include an extensive redesign, he said.

The museum has served as an unofficial counterbalance to the more mainstream Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. Exhibits in the Conspiracy Museum largely consist of handmade panels questioning official explanations of the deaths of President Kennedy and other 1960s figures who – directly or indirectly – were connected to him.

These include Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby. Other exhibition space has been devoted to the alleged UFO sightings in Roswell, N.M.

The museum receives about 12,000 visitors a year, not enough to break even, Mr. Bowden said. The Sixth Floor Museum has about 325,000 visitors per year.

He said expenses have been subsidized by revenue from his participation in JFK-related documentaries and other projects.

Sharon Friedberg, a spokeswoman for the building's owners, said the museum has been paying a lower rental rate for what had been the building's most valuable retail space.

Moving the museum allows the owners to charge the market rate, she said.

"We really wanted retail in the building, and this was the only space that opened to the street without requiring people to walk through a lobby," Ms. Friedberg said.

The museum's lease expires at the end of this month, and the building's owners have notified Mr. Bowden that he must vacate the space after then, she said.

She said they have offered Mr. Bowden space elsewhere in the building.

"We'd love to keep them here. They're a great addition to downtown," Ms. Friedberg said.

E-mail dflick@dallasnews.com