Copabanana to open live music bar in Oct.

Live music will have a new home at Penn with the impending arrival of the Jumping Bean Cafe in the lower level of the Copabanana bar and restaurant.

The venue's owners hope the space will become a rock-'n'-roll acoustic bar specializing in coffee drinks, upscale beers and quality liquor.

Located at 40th and Spruce streets, the space most recently contained the little-known and short-lived O-Bar.

O-Bar "was not what the students wanted," Copabanana Assistant General Manager Shane Zack said. "I thought it was a bad marketing concept to begin with."

Zack is behind the creation of the Jumping Bean Cafe, inspired by his own experiences in the industry as a musician.

His goal is to make the Jumping Bean both a student hang-out and a starting venue for up-and-coming bands and musicians.

Zack has already begun talking with individual student musicians and groups spurred by a Copabanana tent during PennFest, a New Student Orientation event.

"It's not going to be an open-mic place. Open mics are crap," he said. "College students will be able to say years from now, 'This is where I got my start.'"

The club is scheduled to open in the next three or four weeks.

College sophomore Talia Joseph lives in an apartment above Copabanana and hopes the Jumping Bean will attract more Penn students to the area.

"I was excited about living at Copa because that's where everyone would be," she said. However, she discovered the bar was mainly frequented by neighborhood people.

O-Bar, founded by DJ and record-store owner Nigel Richards, predominately featured house music in a lounge atmosphere.

The club opened in June 2004 and was closed by October of the same year.

Richards attributes the loss of business to the opening of MarBar that September above Marathon Grill.

"We really did get squashed because ... MarBar was big and beautiful," he said. O-Bar "was small, it wasn't big and glass."

Zack describes the O-Bar venture as "a waste of good real estate." He attributes the failure both to the lack of student interest and to Richards' refusal to "accept the help managers offered."

"It ended up being more of a local scene, which wasn't really our target," he said.

Joseph believes Copabanana falls under this category as well.

"People don't associate Copa with Penn," she said. "They associate MarBar with Penn. They associate Smokes' with upperclassmen at Penn."

Zack believes the new, live-music-driven atmosphere of the Jumping Bean Cafe will appeal to students more than the lounge scene.

"Then again, I'm a rock and roller," he said. "If you ask me, I think DJs are going to end up drowning in the long term."

The Jumping Bean will charge a small cover depending on the act. All cover fees will go to the musicians in addition to a varying flat fee, to "give the musicians motivation to advertise," Zack said.

The venture is being funded by the Copabanana ownership and various investors. Zack had no numbers on hand, but described the costs as "very affordable," in large part due to the association with Copabanana upstairs.

"There's no real competition in the area," he said, adding that the Jumping Bean will remain open even when other coffee houses close. "We'll set up their customers with a wicked hangover."

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.