Texas jazz club operator bets on Chicago with Lincoln Park expansion
By Mark Guarino
October 02, 2026 06:00 AM CDT
A Texas jazz club operator is expanding to Chicago, taking over a former Yard House space in Lincoln Park with a business model that puts local musicians on the payroll rather than relying exclusively on gig workers.
Doc’s Chicago plans to open in March at 1500 N. Halsted St. in New City, the mixed-use development at Clybourn Avenue and Halsted Street. The venture is the third jazz club from pianist and entrepreneur Brent “Doc” Watkins and investor Richard Koch, following Doc’s Jazz Supper Club in Houston and Jazz, TX in San Antonio.
The club will include a 150-seat music room and a restaurant and patio with room for another 130 patrons.
Watkins said the Chicago club will hire a musical director and four musicians as full-time employees, with booking focused primarily on local performers. The house quartet will anchor themed programs built around such subjects as New Orleans jazz, the songbooks of Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra and Latin American jazz, while additional musicians will join the group for performances throughout the week.
“We’re not totally insular, but our bread and butter is the local scene,” Watkins said. “Ninety percent will be local musicians who live in the city.”
Touring musicians will round out the calendar. Performers at Doc’s Houston location have included Nicholas Payton, Bill Charlap, Brian Blade, John Pizzarelli, Chris Potter, Jane Monheit, Herlin Riley and Kevin Eubanks.
Watkins, who is based in San Antonio and performs more than 100 shows a year with an 11-member orchestra, expects to play as many as 30 dates annually at the Chicago club.
Watkins’ move into the club business grew out of his experience trying to make a living as a working jazz musician. After graduating from Southern Oregon University in 2003, he moved with his wife to Austin, Texas, where he earned master’s and doctoral degrees in music from the University of Texas while performing professionally.
After years of playing restaurants and clubs — as well as Carnegie Hall — Watkins partnered with Koch to open Jazz, TX in San Antonio, where Watkins and his family had moved.
“I always felt I could do the business side better than the people who hired me to play at their restaurants,” Watkins said. The opportunity, he said, would allow him and other musicians to “create the musical environment we want to live in.”
Doc’s Chicago will also include a full kitchen and bar headed by two former Chicagoans returning to the city after working at Watkins’ Houston club: chef Matt Fanella and manager Nick De Fina.
The Chicago operation will also serve as a showcase for another Watkins business. Ticketing will run through TurnTable, a platform he co-founded in 2022 that is designed specifically for live-music venues.
In addition to selecting seats, customers can indicate when they plan to arrive and how long they want to keep their table, features Watkins said help venues manage seating and avoid forcing customers to share tables with strangers. Watkins said TurnTable is now used by 40% of U.S. jazz clubs, including the Jazz Showcase in Printers Row and Le Piano in Rogers Park.
An exact opening date has not been set. Watkins said he expects to host opening night, with a prominent Chicago jazz musician featured on the bill.
“It will feel like a friends-and-family kind of party that will introduce a new club to some of the best talent on the Chicago scene,” he said. “From day one we’ll show how that’s what makes Doc’s special.”
Doc’s will enter a Chicago jazz market that includes longtime venues such as the Green Mill, Jazz Showcase and Andy’s Jazz Club, as well as newer and smaller operations. The Local Note, a 45-seat club designed for intimate listening, opened in downtown Evanston in July.