“The CheckOut is Chicago’s only venue in a former 7-Eleven,” composer Seth Boustead says to me, half-jokingly. We walk through the building together a few weeks before it’s set to open to the public. The space feels casual and welcoming. There’s an absolutely gorgeous Yamaha CS-II in the performance area, but other than that, the decor is relaxed. No velvet red or suited ushers here. Instead, neon green plastic chairs fill the room. The floor is painted a comfortable millennial gray. There is no physical boundary between the audience and the stage; everything in the room (besides the bar) can be shuffled and rearranged for any given performance.
The CheckOut is the latest venture from Access Contemporary Music (ACM), a presenting organization and educational nonprofit founded by Boustead. The new space will be a chamber music venue first and foremost, but it will also play host to a potpourri of programming ranging from piano lessons to album listening parties. The CheckOut also features a slushie machine, as any venue in a former 7-Eleven surely must do.
The building is located at the intersection of Southport and Clark, right across the street from Chicago’s famous Graceland Cemetery. Several of the city’s most beloved music and arts venues are within a mile of The CheckOut, including the Vic, Metro, Schubas, and the Music Box Theatre. This is no accident. “The central thrust of my grant proposal to the city was saying that we would be kind of a lynchpin in an art corridor,” Boustead explains. “When you fill in this space, then, potentially, people could walk or bike to all these different art spaces.”
Accessibility will be a key tenet of The CheckOut’s mission. There’s a Divvy bike station on one side of the building’s lot, and a bus stop on the other. The CTA Red Line is also less than a mile away. In addition to transportation, Boustead and ACM are thinking about accessibility in terms of affordability, too; price points at The CheckOut will be intentionally inclusive. The goal is to set ticket prices around or below $25.
Keeping the cost of entry low may help the space diversify its audience — a challenging feat in a city as segregated as Chicago. But Boustead is aiming high. He hopes to have “a truly integrated venue, where you have people of all walks of life coming to shows.” Partnerships will be key to accomplishing this goal, and Boustead imagines collaborations with organizations like Truman College and the Black writers’ workshop Kuumba Lynx.
Boustead envisions programming will be along themes, with experts in the room to add context and color. Music won’t necessarily be sorted along traditional valences, i.e. an explicit focus on new music by living composers, or conversely, a historic focus on classical music. For example, one upcoming performance on Saturday, Sep. 27 features a commissioned “musical response” to Yuval Noah Hariri’s book Sapiens, as well as a talk from one of the Field Museum’s anthropologists. It’s music in context and in conversation.
The CheckOut’s programming will seek to fill the gaps that have emerged after a tough few years for the Chicago music scene. Davenport Piano Bar had been the city’s home for cabaret until it cancelled its shows abruptly this spring; now, Boustead has added cabaret to The CheckOut’s season, introducing a new space for the artform in the city.
As part of ACM, The CheckOut will also continue the organization’s longstanding history of commissioning new works. Boustead notes that ACM is “in the top ten commissioners of chamber music” already. The CheckOut’s two-week Grand Opening festival began Sep. 13 and features over a dozen commissioned works specifically for the occasion. The first performance of the festival was a celebration of the Uptown neighborhood; this week, the Black Oak Ensemble will take the stage with a rendition of Studs Terkel’s beloved oral history, “Working.” It’s a very Chicago lineup.
In truth, everything about The CheckOut’s story is oh-so-very Chicago. When Boustead first saw the ‘for sale’ sign on the abandoned 7-Eleven, he called the posted number, but no one answered the phone. So Boustead called his alderman instead. (Alderpersons are Chicago’s city councillors; they can be well-liked in their communities, but they can also operate their neighborhoods like personal fiefdoms.) The 47th Ward Alderman gave Boustead the accurate contact information for the building’s owners. From there, Boustead secured letters of support from nearly a dozen neighborhood associations in order to get a Community Development Grant from the City of Chicago.
But getting the grant didn’t seal the deal. There were twists and turns, including with the building’s ownership and local media, all of which took time to navigate. Boustead first dreamed up The CheckOut in February 2023; two and a half years later, the newly renovated space is finally ready to open its doors.
Of course, the economy in September 2025 is much more volatile than it was two and a half years ago. Arts venues across the city and the country are shuttering. “Everything’s drying up,” Boustead acknowledged. “Our sign came on the building today, and I was taking pictures of it. Every business you see in the city had a moment like that, where the owners were out front watching the sign come in.” Towards the end of our interview, Boustead noted grimly, “Someday I might have to watch them pull the sign off this building.”
For now, that day is still far off. The CheckOut is booked solid for the fall: concerts, lessons, and even a wedding reception. All this is happening while the space continues staffing up. A consultant joked to Boustead, “You guys are building this train while it’s hurdling down the tracks.” Boustead chuckled. “I don’t know how else to do it, really.”
Walking around the outside of the building, Boustead gestured to the brick side facing Clark Street. This is where they plan to display The CheckOut’s slogan: “Music Is Good For You.” After our interview, I reflected on these words. Music certainly helps my individual wellbeing. But these days, my wellbeing feels inextricably linked with the vibrancy of my city. You can hear buzz about The CheckOut all around Chicago this month, in conversations at the library and the art center and the pop up concert hall.
This month has also been a time of heightened anxiety for Chicagoans, as the city faces down the prospect of a National Guard occupation and an ICE surge directed by the president’s vendettas. Chicagoans are looking to come together in this moment, to find not just solidarity in each other, but joy as well. As an exciting new space for art, discovery, and wonder, The CheckOut won’t just be good for me, the individual — it will be good for all of us, together and as one.
I CARE IF YOU LISTEN is an editorially-independent program of the American Composers Forum, and is made possible thanks to generous donor and institutional support. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author and may not represent the views of ICIYL or ACF.
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