The Electric Banana

Johnny and Judy Banana outside their club, the Electric Banana.
Image courtesy Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. (C)
reprinted with permission.
Photographer: Joyce Mendelsohn.

Few Pittsburgh club owners have made as colorful an impression on concertgoers and performers as Johnny and Judy Zarra, aka Johnny and Judy Banana. The Zarras bought The Electric Banana in 1970, initially operating it as a go-go bar and disco club along Bigelow Boulevard. A decade later they began offering punk and metal acts, and shows by bands like The Cynics, Half-Life, Hüsker Dü and Descendents cemented the venue as Pittsburgh’s home for punk music over the next 20 years.

"The Bananas" were legendary for their simultaneously tough and nuturing behavior towards patrons and performers. Concertgoers swear by stories of Johnny chasing unwelcome visitors out of his club while waving a pistol. Judy, by contrast, would take young bands under her wing and cook them nourishing dinners, with Johnny slipping them a few dollars to buy breakfast the next day.

Though the punk scene has gained more social acceptance today, in 1980 The Electric Banana was one of the few places that would tolerate a genre commonly deemed too wild for most bars. While the Zarras have since settled down (they now run The Electric Banana as Zarra’s Italian Restaurant), they’ve passed the punk torch to bands like Anti-Flag and bars like The Smiling Moose to continue the scene they helped create.