Professor Opens New Music Venue in Former 7-Eleven

The CheckOut, a new contemporary music venue founded by a Loyola professor, opened in the Graceland West neighborhood located at 4116 N. Clark St.

Housed in a former 7-Eleven, the venue aims to serve the neighborhood and provide a new home for classical music on the North Side.

The non-profit, Access Contemporary Music (ACM), which owns The CheckOut, also runs a music school which teaches guitar, piano, voice, strings and composition in Avondale, Uptown, Ravenswood and Rogers Park. 

ACM runs classical music festivals such as Thirsty Ears Festival and Sound of Silent Film Festival, both of which are annual events. 

Loyola computer science and music professor David Wetzel has worked as the technical director of ACM for seven years. 

Wetzel worked on several projects with ACM including Thirsty Ears Festival, Sound of Silent Film Festival and as a sound technician and producer for the PBS docuseries “Songs about Buildings and Moods,” which is a project by ACM exploring the connections between architecture and music. 

“This place was a 7-Eleven, before that it was a White Hen Pantry and was abandoned for like 10 years,” Wetzel said. “It was a pretty famous eyesore.”  

The idea for the CheckOut came from founder and executive director of ACM and host of “Sounds about Buildings and Moods,” Seth Boustead. It came to him on a bike ride past the location, where he said he saw a “for rent” sign. 

“I knew we could make the CheckOut work, so I called the landlord, the alderperson, the city and a bunch of other community councils,” Boustead said.

Boustead said when he started renovating the venue, it was a lengthy process. From gutting the building to adding sound boards, creating The CheckOut took nearly 18 months from start to finish. 

“The piano came to us as a donation, along with the lights, the chairs, the sound gear — all of that stuff came from the Nevermore Theater,” Wetzel said. 

The CheckOut is hosting a Grand Opening Festival Sept. 13-28, which will feature Chicago-based pianist Matthew Hagle, cabaret performer Carla Gordon and COOL Friends in: “Ain’t Our First Caba-Rodeo!”

“We did a couple preview concerts where we had people in the space, and it was almost a nightmare,” Wetzel said. “You could not hear anybody, it was so boomy and loud, so we’re trying to tame that.” 

The acoustic panels which line the ceiling were installed the same day as the opening performance, providing a full sound with no echo or boom. 

The first event featured the Amos Gillespie Quartet performing music from Chicago-based composers, including a piece by Boustead. The sold-out event featured photographs from Bob Rehak, a photographer who documented Uptown from 1973-1977. 

The jazz-classical quartet named after Saxophonist Amos Gillespie, also includes clarinetist Richard Zili, flautist Priya Fink and cellist David Keller. Together, their performance was a flowing love-letter to Uptown and Chicago’s jazz traditions. 

Marcia Mizushima, an event attendee and parent of a piano student at ACM, said the show was very moving. 

Guests were invited to stay after the performance to chat, drink, and listen to records. With casual seating, tables and ambient lighting, the Checkout intended to be a hub for the community and a place for musicians to work together and share their work. 

The CheckOut is a multipurpose venue, with the ability to hold performances, music classes and surprisingly, a wedding booked for October — planned long before the venue was completed. 

“We don’t have anything like this, a place to bring music on an intimate scale,” Mizushima said.