On Monday, November 2, a $25 ticket gets you into the EAV Trio with Larry Wilson. The show runs at the old Decatur Post Office on East Trinity Place, about a five-minute walk from the Decatur MARTA station. Wilson led the jam session at the former TenATL for more than eight years. Now his trio has a regular Monday spot at Churchill Grounds, the Atlanta jazz club that went dark in 2016 and reopened this fall inside the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Center. The club's listing calls the night a soft-opening event. That label applies to the whole club for a few more weeks.
A club with a long history and a new address on Trinity Place
Sam Yi opened Churchill Grounds beside the Fox Theatre on May 1, 1997. The original room closed on July 31, 2016. The club's own history puts it this way: the address kept changing, but the idea never did. It moved from the Fox to what it calls "a jazz club without walls," then to nights at TenATL, and now to a permanent home in Decatur.
That home is 141 E. Trinity Pl., the historic former Decatur Post Office. Cornerstone Jazz Collective, the nonprofit led by saxophonist Will Scruggs, bought the building with backing from more than 200 musicians and jazz fans across metro Atlanta, according to Decaturish. The center is named for Mary Lou Williams, the Atlanta-born pianist, composer and arranger who helped shape bebop and mentored Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie. Cornerstone's associate CEO, William McFarland, estimated the cost of converting the building at $8.6 million.
Churchill Grounds is the center's main performance room, and it was designed to be small. Decaturish's July walkthrough described about 140 seats: 100 on the main floor and 40 in the mezzanine. On that tour, Scruggs said the original club was where he got his start as a jazz musician. Decaturish reported his hopes for the new room:
"Hopefully this will become a home known to jazz musicians all over the world. This puts Decatur on the map."
Why late October and early November are different
Around 140 seats can fill up fast once the city notices a room. Right now the club is still between its quiet start and its public launch.
In mid-September, ArtsATL reported that no opening date had been announced yet. Invitation-only soft-launch concerts were planned for that weekend and the next. The first public show on the club's calendar was Trio Jockamo, at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 1. That same day, Rough Draft Atlanta reported that Churchill Grounds had reopened, with limited seatings available until a grand opening in November. Decaturish later reported that the club was open and that the grand opening for the whole center was set for late November.
So for a few more weeks, the room is running a full schedule before the grand-opening coverage arrives. The club says it's open every night: 6 to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 6 p.m. to midnight on Friday and Saturday, and 5 to 11 p.m. on Sunday. Here's what's on the published calendar from Halloween weekend through early December:
| Date | Show | What the listing says |
|---|---|---|
| Fri, Oct 30 and Sat, Oct 31 | Dan Baraszu & Dave Ellington Organ Trio | Halloween weekend run |
| Mon, Nov 2 | EAV Trio with Larry Wilson | $25, billed as a soft-opening event |
| Tue, Nov 17 | Cabaret Tuesday with Nancy Gaddy | November listing |
| Fri, Nov 20 | Jamel Mitchell Quintet | November listing |
| Tue, Dec 8 | Gwen Hughes & Friends | Christmas album release concert |
So far, the Gwen Hughes show is the only December date on the calendar. Holiday programming for the rest of the month will likely show up as the grand opening gets closer. October's lineup gives a sense of the range. It included four members of the Kennesaw State faculty Jazz Parliament, a Jamaican rocksteady revue with Scruggs on saxophone, a trio celebrating 100 years of Ray Brown, and Yanin and the Mojitos All-Star Band.
How a night at Churchill Grounds works
The details are on the club's visit page, and a few of them shape the evening more than you might expect:
- Set times. Monday sets start at 8 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday shows usually start at 7:30 p.m. On Friday and Saturday there are two sets, at 8 and 10 p.m. Sunday's set starts at 7 p.m. Doors typically open an hour before a set. On the two-set nights, they open 30 minutes before the 10 p.m. set.
- Tickets. October shows ran from $25 to $40. The club recommends buying in advance. Door sales start 30 minutes before a set, and sold-out shows have a door waitlist.
- Ages. All ages are welcome.
- Parking. On-site parking is limited and first-come, first-served. The club also offers a reservation link for a few extra spaces, and there's on-street parking downtown.
- Transit. The Decatur MARTA station is about a five-minute walk. The club's map puts it just off the square, near Church Street and Commerce Drive.
- Membership. The Cornerstone membership includes presale access, members-only events and a merchandise discount. Early-adopter annual pricing starts at $240, with higher tiers at $400 and $4,000, through January 1, 2027.
All ages welcome, a station five minutes away and $25 Monday tickets make this a room you can drop into on a weeknight. You don't need to plan a big night out around it. Presale access starts to matter once the grand opening brings in crowds from across the region and the small room fills up.
The rest of the building is opening in stages
The jazz center was always meant to be more than one club. Scruggs has compared it to Jazz at Lincoln Center, with performance spaces, recording studios, classrooms, a full-service restaurant and a coffee shop all in one building. Each part is opening on its own timeline.
Scruggs Woodwinds is open in the basement, which used to be the post office's warehouse and storage space. The shop calls itself a retail and education campus, offering lessons, class registration and studio time. Its Fall 2026 Jazz Academy covers jazz history, theory, combos and a lab band, with rehearsal and practice rooms in the building. Students can practice downstairs while the music plays upstairs.
The center's site still lists Koolbonga Studios, the professional recording space named after a Mary Lou Williams composition, as coming soon.
Clavé, the restaurant, will shape the evening most. It's a Cuban kitchen from Luis Fernandez and Yanin Cortes, the musician and restaurateur whose All-Star Band played the club in October. The menu lists empanadas, Cuban sandwiches, lechón, seasonal mains and mojitos, plus a morning coffee window. According to Decaturish, the Decatur City Commission approved Clavé's license to serve beer, wine and spirits at 141 East Trinity Place, Suite 2. That license covers drinks at the restaurant and inside Churchill Grounds. The jazz center's site still lists Clavé as coming soon. Clavé's own site takes reservations and posts daily hours of 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., with late-night kitchen and bar service until about 2 a.m. Wednesday through Sunday. If dinner before a set is part of the plan, call ahead to confirm Clavé's hours.
Once all the tenants are open, one visit can cover coffee at the patio window, dinner at Clavé and a set in the club. Until late November, Churchill Grounds is the part that's fully running, with a show on the calendar most nights of the week.
New places like Churchill Grounds shape how a neighborhood feels day to day, and our team follows them closely across South Metro and in-town Atlanta. If you live near downtown Decatur and want to know how the area's changes show up in your home's value, Watkins Real Estate Associates can walk you through it. Get a Free Home Valuation, then go catch a weeknight set on Trinity Place.
