Joseph Alan Scozzaro, a Santa Barbara music scene legend who lit up lower State Street for 15 years as the proprietor of Joseppi’s Bar and Restaurant, died on September 26, at age 73, succumbing to progressive Lewy body dementia. Joseppi, as he was known, became a legend the way all the best legends do: through touching and improving the lives of those around him, one person at a time.
In Joe’s case, the community he created was achieved in the most humble and human of ways, through his sense of humor, ever-ready laugh, twinkling eyes, and generous heart, and the sharing of good music, good food, and good drink. We’re talking world-class jazz, 50-cent oysters, and two-dollar plates of pasta, bread and salad included. No brass, no ferns, no white tablecloths. It was this humility, embodied and amplified by the bare brick walls of his establishment, that helped make both him and the bar Santa Barbara institutions through most of the ’80s and ’90s.
Joe was born October 23, 1943, in Trenton, New Jersey, to Anne and James Scozzaro, graduating from Rider College with a BA in business administration and later serving in the Army Reserves. He came west in the early ’80s, and after spending time in the Bay Area, landed in Santa Barbara. He and partner Jim Kurtze used a combined savings of $1,200 to fully fund Joseppi’s, which opened in May 1983 at 434 State Street.