What fresh hall is this?
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Three years ago this month, Schuba, owner of the popular north-side club that bears his name, opened the Coronet with a similar agenda, but noise complaints from neighbors and a liquor license that restricted drinking to the lobby before the show and during intermission led him to abandon the venture in June 1995. The building has been vacant ever since. Clark Fork’s renovation plans include ripping out the fixed seating and adding terraces to give the space, which holds about 500 people, a “20s jazz club” feel. Shure and the Musburgers hope to attract not just jazz but also bluegrass, blues, reggae, folk, world, rock, and children’s acts.
Though they’re well connected (the Musburgers’ dad, Todd, is Phil Jackson’s agent), the Clark Fork principals have no experience in the nightclub business. And their four-year lease, which includes an option to buy, is contingent on getting a liquor license that will allow them to sell alcohol inside the theater and throughout the performances–an unprecedented feat in Evanston history. The birthplace of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Evanston was completely dry until 1972, when a few liquor stores opened downtown and restaurants were granted permission to serve alcohol with food. In the 80s the city added a classification for bars, which are required to serve food. But even now there are only three such establishments in town, all of them in the core business district near Northwestern University. The Coronet is in an area with more permanent residents, on Chicago near Main.
Free-music venues in Chicago are like dandelions–the faster they get mowed down, the more there seem to be. The upcoming closing of Urbus Orbis, where percussionist Michael Zerang put on his broad-minded series, will without question be a setback, but there are three more rooms ready to take up the slack.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): Craig Musburger, Max Shure, and Brian Musburger photo by Nathan Mandell.
