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Mojo�s offers jazz �n� Cajun Mail Tribune / Drew Fleming The interior of the Mojo Cafe rounds into shape for tonight�s scheduled opening. Co-owners Dave Warper, center left, and Steve Owsley, center right, say the Ashland nightspot plans to book professional artists as they travel from Portland to San Francisco. Ashland restaurant opens tonight with Paul deLay By SARA MURPHY ASHLAND � Bring out the beads! Mojo Cafe�s serving up some grits and gumbo tonight. Portland blues performer Paul deLay is headlining at Mojo�s, which opens tonight. Owners of the brand-new blues and jazz club at 141 Lithia Way say they�re going to offer "true Cajun" food and live music. "This is the only place where people can come to get �la fete�," says Eric Turner, a part-owner in the restaurant and music venue. Another co-owner, David Walper, says the club was his idea. A self-described former "computer geek," Walper moved to Ashland three years ago from Laguna Beach, Calif. "The one thing I noticed was missing was live music," he says. "There are so many people who remember when there was jazz (in Ashland)," Walper adds. "I think everyone�s ready for it again." Mojo Cafe plans to book professional artists as they travel from Portland to San Francisco. Walper says he thinks the club will appeal to the "25 to 50" crowd, folks who are looking for "some place to go besides the movies." "We�re hoping to fill that niche," he says. Walper and Steve Owsley, a co-owner who will manage the business and restaurant, partnered up with Ashland developers Allan Sandler and Ed Bemis to create Mojo from a vacant lot across from Copeland�s Lumber. "It was built from the ground up just to be what it is," Walper says. "It�s rare that you get to do this." The building was built for sound, the owners say. They plan to test it out with live music seven nights a week. Renowned harmonica player Paul deLay will kick off the party tonight. Tickets are $8 in advance � available at CD or Not CD, Guitar Center and Mojo Cafe � or $10 at the door. The show starts at 9. Smokin� Joe Kubek Band, featuring Bnois King, will play the cafe Saturday. Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door. "When I think of New Orleans, I think of the music � and the food," says Walper. Mojo Head Chef Greg Wilcox says he�ll serve up Cajun and Creole dishes so good they�ll "make true Acadians cry for their mama." Wilcox, who leads a team of 13 chefs, is a trained French chef from Vail, Colo., who spent a week in a Louisiana cooking school and toured kitchens back in the bayou to get ready for Mojo�s opening. The restaurant, he says, will serve "delta-fusion cuisine," a term he coined to explain the combination of tradition and techniques from Lafayette, La., and products from the Northwest. "That doesn�t mean salmon," Wilcox says. "There�s no salmon, none of that. "And we�ve got to go with the gulf shrimp," he adds. "Because there�s no substitute for gulf shrimp." Appetizers run $1.75 for an oyster shooter to $12.75 for a dozen oysters on the half shell � and, yes, they have hush puppies. They�re $3.95. Lunch prices average about $7 and dinners run from $10.95 to about $17. Wilcox recommends the beignets, seafood gumbo and roasted duck with sun-dried cherry and pecan sauce. And that�s good enough to get Turner, who moved to Ashland from Lafayette, licking his lips. "It�s real Cajun," he says. "Not what people up here sometimes call Cajun." Reach Ashland bureau reporter Sara Murphy at 482-4655, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.