It started with five friends who loved music and just wanted to shoot videos of cool bands. They filmed those laid-back concerts on the lush back deck of a small Bonita Springs house nicknamed the Sugarshack.
Fast forward a decade, and the Sugarshack Sessions have transformed into more than just a hobby or a side hustle for these guys. It’s a full-time business called Sugarshack Inc. that’s led to more than 400 million total views on its YouTube channel, a new behind-the-scenes spinoff and an upcoming restaurant/concert venue in downtown Bonita Springs.
Sugarshack Downtown is open on Old 41 Road, right across from the Riverside Park bandshell. And even some of the Sugarshack guys can’t quite believe how far they’ve come.
“It’s a really crazy story,” says Dave Alpert, the company’s vice president of partnerships. “You don’t see YouTube channels, or media companies, going from the digital space to the physical space very often.”
The name didn’t come from the classic Jimmy Gilmer & The Fireballs song, although Kopp says he’s a fan. Instead, Kopp’s former band Common Ground nicknamed it the Sugarshack while rehearsing there, long before the Sugarshack Sessions started. The reason, Kopp says, was the 1942 house’s “sweet and historic nature.”
Meanwhile, Kopp and Sugarshack co-founder Justin Kaczmarek had been dabbling in freelance videography ― shooting weddings, music videos, real-estate footage and more. Then popular Southwest Florida reggae-rock band SOWFLO asked if they’d shoot an acoustic music video for them.
“I had just moved into my house,” Kopp says. “And I said ‘I have a really tropical back deck. We could use that as our set.’
“And we did. And it turned out amazing.”
Kopp said he’d always been into live-session YouTube channels, and so he decided to do one of his own. And bring along his friends, too ― now mostly in their mid-to-late 30s.
The Sugarshack Sessions officially launched as a YouTube channel in 2014. Since then, more than 300 local, regional and touring musical acts have performed on that back deck surrounded by palm trees, string lights and tiki torches. There's also the show's mascot, a gnome statue named Gnomeo. He's "attended" every show.
“It started with local artists,” Kopp says. “Me and Alex (co-founder Alex Casement), we were in bands. So we started with bands that we had played with … and our friends, whether it was locally or regionally in the state of Florida.”
The first Sugarshack Session featured local singer-songwriter Frankie Colt(now known as Frankie Orion). And that led to even more bands ― some local, some touring.
The biggies have been largely reggae and reggae-rock acts, including SOJA, Big Mountain, Rebelution and Fortunate Youth (that band’s performance of “Burn One” has racked up 16 million views and counting). But they’ve also filmed folk, acoustic, indie, hip-hop and other genres.
Things have been growing quickly for Sugarshack Incorporated. In December, the company moved into a new 2,000-square-foot office space off Old 41 Road, including a warehouse for Sugarshack-themed merchandise.
Things have been growing quickly for Sugarshack Incorporated. In December, the company moved into a new 2,000-square-foot office space off Old 41 Road, including a warehouse for Sugarshack-themed merchandise.
Next up: Sugarshack Downtown, a collaboration between Sugarshack Sessions and Bonita development company Moran Kennedy. They broke ground on the property about six or seven months ago, Alpert says. The 20,000-square-foot Sugarshack Downtown property is being developed around an existing, 1943 building at the intersection of Childers Street and Old 41.
That 1,200-square-foot building will house some indoor dining, a bar and a retail store selling Sugarshack merchandise, Kopp says. It’ll be surrounded by seven to 10 smaller open-air buildings, including the kitchen, a large outdoor bar, bathrooms and open-air pergola-style buildings for outdoor seating, Kopp says.
