NO BOOZE IN THE FUNKY PICKLE

CARBONDALE, Ill. - The Funky Pickle! opened here Friday.

The nightclub will offer music some of it live frozen drinks, including strawberry daiquiris and pina coladas, fruit juices, flavored seltzers and varied finger foods.

But nary a drop of booze.

Steve M. Olsher, a senior at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, whose parents are in the alcohlic beverage business, is convinced teenagers and fellow college students will rave about his new non-alcoholic nightclub.

Olsher's The Funky Pickle! was slated to open Friday as the newest watering hole in this college town's tavern area known as the "Strip."

"I don't disagree with the consumption of alcohol. I just don't think it's a necessary part of having a good time," said Olsher, a speech communication student who has spent the past nine months building his dream of a booze-free joint.

It started last summer when he landed a job at William A. Robinson, a Chicago marketing-communications agency. He hit it off with company president Alan Maites and the two often spent lunch hours brainstorming.

"One day he started talking about a non-alcoholic nightclub," Olsher said. "The more he talked, the more I related it to Southern Illinois."

Olsher put information and numbers together, but his first attempts to find investors failed. Then he heard about SIU-C's Small Business Development Center, which provides expert advice to new and established businesses.

Staffers helped him organize his data into a 60-page, bank-approved business plan.

Olsher launched a door-to-door survey in Carbondale to determine the club's chances of success.

At the same time, one of Olsher's former finance professors at SIUC agreed to come aboard as an anonymous investor.

Thus was born Bold Inc., doing business as The Funky Pickle!. The corporate name reflects Olsher's early nightclub stints as a disk jockey under the name "Mr. Bold."

Olsher has signed a two-year lease for the basement of an apparel store and figures he will know by final exams week in early May if his no-spirits club will make it.

He will have some advantages. Costs to start up the operation will be a third less than those of traditional nightclubs. His will be the only such establishment in Carbondale open after the city's 2 a.m. deadline for regular pubs.

The club, to operate Tuesday through Sunday, will cater to two crowds: teenagers from 13 to 18 and "older" revelers 19 and above.

Teenagers will have the run of the place for dance parties on Friday and Saturday nights only, starting at 7 p.m. At 11:30 p.m., half an hour before the city's weekend curfew, the club will close and everyone will have to leave. It will reopen at midnight for the older crowd.

A cover charge will help defray music and light show costs.

"Teenagers who grow up in Southern Illinois have never had a place on the Strip," Olsher said.

Olsher sees a certain irony in his maiden business venture. His mother, Gail Zelitzky of Chicago, and her father are franchisers of Topmost Liquor Stores in Chicago and Florida.

"In comparing myself to my friends, I think I am mature for my age," Olsher said. "It's part of growing up in an environment where my family owned a major business, not one where my family worked for somebody else."

Olsher said he has the family's wholehearted support - emotionally, not financially.

"This is my baby," he said.

Olsher, 1987 graduate of Evanston Township High School, expects to complete his bachelor's degree at SIU-C next December.