Bill Curry, who helped make South Street a destination with Copabanana and Cafe Nola, has died at 85

Bill Curry, 85, the former Inquirer columnist who traded his byline for a barstool and transformed a modest South Street tavern into the landmark Copabanana, died July 1 after a long illness.

For generations of Philadelphians, Mr. Curry’s name was synonymous with the colorful restaurant and bar he opened in October 1978 at Fourth and South Streets. Mr. Curry expanded it into a collection of restaurants and nightlife ventures that helped define South Street’s modern identity, including Cafe Nola and Hurricane Alley. The original Copabanana closed last year.

Drawing on his South Florida upbringing, Mr. Curry filled Copabanana with the sounds and aromas that became its trademark: an art deco setting of bartenders squeezing fresh limes for margaritas, burgers sizzling in the front window, and nachos and signature Spanish fries topped with jalapeños and onions crowding nearly every table. It was a time when South Street — a once-thriving commercial district that had languished for years under the threat of a never-built crosstown expressway — was still more counterculture enclave than tourist destination.

But Mr. Curry’s influence on South Street extended well beyond a single restaurant. First as a journalist and later as an entrepreneur, he became one of the corridor’s most visible champions.

South Street’s renaissance was still in its early stages when Mr. Curry arrived in Philadelphia in 1971 from the Miami Herald — first as an art director on The Inquirer’s Sunday magazine and soon after as a nightlife writer. The corridor had become a magnet for artists, musicians, entrepreneurs, and preservationists who were filling vacant storefronts with galleries, boutiques, restaurants, and bars. Few people did more to promote that hippie-into-punk transformation than Mr. Curry in his column, “On the Go.”

“I had fallen in love with the neighborhood and wanted to be a central part of its freewheeling, Bohemian culture,” he told an interviewer in 2015.

“Bill had a quality of world-weary amusement about ‘it all’: politics, serious young journalists, himself, his column, his New Orleans mojo,” said former Inquirer columnist Clark DeLeon.

In 1975, Mr. Curry opened a card shop and newsstand called Paper Moon, stocking it with out-of-town papers, international magazines, and specialty cigarettes at 329 South St. A year later, he backed a second location at 15th and Locust Streets called Le Corner Store.

Mr. Curry’s newspaper career ended in September 1978 after he informed executive editor Gene Roberts that he planned to open Copabanana. Roberts concluded that Mr. Curry’s business interests amounted to a conflict of interest and took away the column. He offered Mr. Curry a nonwriting role, but Mr. Curry said he chose to leave.

Copabanana opened a month later. When asked whether he had restaurant experience, he told an interviewer: “No, but I had been to plenty — I got paid to drink. I was around town all the time telling folks what was good and what was bad. So I was ready to do it.”

Copabanana — across from Jim’s Steaks and Lickety Split, and down the block from the Theatre of Living Arts — quickly became a destination. In 1981, Mr. Curry and business partner Judy DeVicaris opened the far more refined Cafe Nola a few doors away. With an adventurous, New Orleans-inspired menu and a lush decor, it enjoyed a 15-year run before closing in 1996.

Mr. Curry also developed or helped operate Copa Too!, a Center City offshoot where Jose Pistola’s is now, as well as a still-operating Copabanana at 40th and Spruce Streets in University City.

“He lived for the moment, all the time,” said his nephew David Christensen, who worked for his uncle for a spell. “On the culinary and restaurant side, he was always looking to expand, always wanting to do more. He stretched his assets to the limit, trying to bring in investors and make the next project happen. It was a wild ride.”

Mr. Curry became as much a symbol of South Street as any of his restaurants. “He was the unofficial mayor of South Street,” said Brian Phillips, who in 2003 bought the University City Copabanana from Mr. Curry. “He tirelessly promoted the South Street way of life to make it ‘the hippest street in town.’”

Julia Zagar, who with her artist husband Isaiah opened Eye’s Galley on the next block in 1968, said Mr. Curry “embraced the South Street community with his intellect and tastes, books, magazines, and food. He understood the street life.”

The original Copabanana occupied a shot-and-a-beer bar owned by a former longshoreman named Frank “Turk” Jaworski. Neighborhood lore said Turk’s once housed a Prohibition-era speakeasy reached through a concealed staircase hidden behind a phone booth — a story Mr. Curry happily embraced.

Mr. Curry sold Paper Moon in 1983, and the shop closed two years later. In 2011, he revived the name for a new location nearby on Fourth Street.

Asked after decades in business why Copabanana endured while so many restaurants came and went, Mr. Curry offered a simple explanation: “Consistency. You can go somewhere once and love it, but if you go back and it’s not good, you might never return. Good consistent food, and consistent drinks.”

The restaurant struggled in its later years. In 2023, Copabanana sought bankruptcy protection as Mr. Curry battled a series of health problems. Later that year, Copabanana moved into Hurricane Alley’s former space two doors away. It closed in January 2025.

The original South Street property, long on the market, is now under agreement of sale, said Billy Creagh, owner of National Realty Commercial, a brokerage.

Mr. Curry’s life partner, Jim Bush, died several years ago. Besides his nephew, Mr. Curry is survived by a sister, Charlotte Christensen, and another nephew, Tom.

A memorial service is being planned, Phillips said.