When Dan Dennis was a teen-ager, he and his friends were always looking for something to do.

"There was not a lot to do. You either found something to do or you got in trouble," said the 30-year-old Grove City man. "I know myself, having kids of my own, I'd rather give them an opportunity to do something positive instead of something negative."

Dennis recently created that positive opportunity and he calls it GeeksCafe. The cybernet cafe on Broad Street will open Thursday morning and offer Internet use and a decent mocha cappuccino, among other things.

"I think I fit in perfectly with the downtown revitalization," said the former member of the Army military police. "I'm putting in a business that is more with the times. They are upgrading and redoing the downtown to draw in people. A lot of people have e-mail. This will give them a chance to come down on their lunch break, a chance to get in touch."

But checking up on their e-mail isn't the only thing customers can do at the cafe. Besides a big-screen television, Dennis has six computers set up for Internet use and at least eight ports available for people to hook in their own systems for free.

All age groups are welcome. A special hookup with his main computer gives Dennis the ability to view what anyone is looking at and shut him down if it's questionable material. "I'm not going to be reading anyone's chats, because that's private. But I won't tolerate anyone looking at pornography on my computers," Dennis said. Users will sign an agreement before they go online.

"I didn't want to put a business in specifically for one age group ... It offers something that everyone can enjoy" he said. "We offer good coffee and computer training. I offer one-on-one training for people who aren't familiar with computers."

He and his fiancee, Melissa McMasters, who also co-owns the business, plan to offer comedy nights with local and professional comedians, as well as open mic nights. "If you're a comedian, a musician, read good poems, you can come in on those nights and perform," Dennis said.

There will also be Local Area Network, or LAN, gaming competitions at GeeksCafe. "Two weeks from this Thursday (May 15) we'll have our first LAN competition -- Unreal Tournament 2003. It will be from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. People can pre-register for the LAN parties via the Website or come into the store," Dennis said.

Dennis thinks it's a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

"I love Broad Street and it has some great businesses. But there are a lot of college students in this area and most college students go to class until 5 or 6 p.m. and the average business closes at 7 p.m. here," he said. "That doesn't give them a lot of time to shop. I feel there is still enough people downtown to do things after hours. That's why my business is open until 11 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. I'm across from the theater, and that theater is doing really well. To me, that's a sign showing that after hours is the time that the average person will go out."

He will also have business hours on Sunday. "You come down to Grove City on Sunday and it's like a ghost town, but the majority of people are off on Sunday. I know this is a real big church community and I respect that, but I feel more businesses should be open on Sunday because people go shopping on Sundays. It's when most people are off," he said.

As for the GeeksCafe name, the self-proclaimed computer geek thought that name fit best.

"Of course I live on my computer," the father of three said with a laugh. "I do everything on it, from paying all my bills to running all my business programs, even my inventory. I'm also a big-time gamer. The reason I went with that name is that two things that don't normally go together are coffee and computers. We're combining two worlds that aren't normally combined, not on this coast anyway."

He also said that he and his fiancee did a lot of preparation to get this done right. "We didn't want to do this blind. Coffee is a bigger business than people think," Dennis said, adding that his coffee will be from a local business -- the George J. Howe Co. "We are going to add more systems. We want to open more than one. My fiancee's hometown is Franklin, so we're looking there next."

For more information, check www.geekscafe.com or call (724) 458-5231.

You can e-mail Herald Staff Writer Sherris Moreira-Byers at sbyers@sharonherald.com