The Penelope aims at teenage customers
Date: October 9, 1965
Credit: The Gazette newspaper
Gary Eisenkraft wanted his coffee houses to be welcoming spaces for teenagers who enjoyed music. His new coffee house, The Penelope, makes no exception. This article relates the story of the opening of the new venue in 1965.
Transcription:
Gary’s Night Spot Aims At Teenage Customers
By GARY McCARTHY
Canadian Press
Gary Eisenkraft, 20, of Montreal, who has spent five years folksinging his way around Canada and the United States, has opened a coffee house in downtown Montreal with the accent on youth.
“I opened the place because I figured teenagers have nowhere to go,” he said.
“They are pushed around and mistreated when they go out somewhere but we treat them with respect here.”
From his own observation, teenagers “are more mature” as a group than adults and they are extremely “serious-minded if given a chance.”
His coffee house, The Penelope, is a dimly-lit room measuring about 5 feet by 15 feet with seating for about 55 persons. But as many as 70 manage to squeeze in for a show. Broken bottles, used as light shades, line the ceiling. The one contribution to modern art is a triple circle of copper tubing with a water faucet at its end.
He also plans to set aside one night – either Monday or Tuesday – for “old-time movies.” He said these would feature such “oldies” as W.C. Fields and other well-known comedians of another era.
Gary, who sings regularly in his coffee house, is mainly interested in hiring Canadian folksinging talent to appear at his teenage club “because, let’s face it, Canadians don’t get many chances.” But he is also arranging to bring in American folk artists such as the Greenbriar Boys, Mike Seeger and many others.
The youth, who claims he has the longest hair of anyone in the Montreal region, began folksinging by “just picking up a guitar and singing.” For the last five years he has been singing his way around college campuses and in an assortment of cafés devoted to folksinging in Canada and the United States.
“I guess you could say I have appeared in just about every American state you could name,” he said.