Comedy veteran to open club at Ponce City Market later this year
New comedy club Whiplash is set to open later this year at Ponce City Market in the space above City Winery.
Marshall Chiles, who founded the Laughing Skull Lounge in Midtown, gave The Atlanta Journal-Constitution an exclusive tour of the 6,000-square-foot space behind Dancing Goats Coffee Shop. He signed a 10-year lease Dec. 31, with an option to extend another five years.
Chiles said he and his investors are pumping an unspecified seven-figure amount into fixing up the location with the goal of opening Whiplash by June.
“We are positioning this as a high-end comedy club,” said Chiles Monday inside the space, which has been empty since City Winery shut down its upstairs restaurant in 2021 while keeping its event venue and bar downstairs open.
Chiles said Whiplash will likely directly compete with Laughing Skull, which is attached to popular burger joint Vortex Bar & Grill, less than 2 miles west in Midtown. Chiles launched Laughing Skull in 2009, building it into a home for up-and-coming Atlanta comics, but unexpectedly lost his job there last year when new owners came in.
He plans to host up to 25 shows a week at Whiplash, far more than he did at Laughing Skull, in part because he’ll have two rooms instead of one: the 130-seat “Main Squeeze” and a 44-seat “Side Piece.” Similar to Laughing Skull, he will schedule a mix of stand-up comic headlining shows, open mic nights and showcases featuring multiple professional comics.
He even plans to host 1 a.m. shows.
“We don’t seem to have a lot of late-night entertainment options anymore,” he said.
Whiplash will also have a 2,500-square-foot outdoor patio, a full bar and food options like flatbreads, quesadillas and sliders.
“We’ll have a better arrangement at Whiplash” than Laughing Skull, Chiles said. “I’ll be able to charge less for tickets because there’ll be more seats. Parking is cheaper and security here is amazing.”
Ian Aber, booking agent for Laughing Skull since 2019 and a working comic himself, said Laughing Skull had its best grossing week ever at the end of 2025.
“We’re not slowing down or letting off the gas at all,” added Laughing Skull general manager Bob Place, who worked with Chiles for 13 years and considers him a mentor. “I think two clubs in competition will only make both clubs better. It will be good for the comedy scene to have two dope clubs. I have no bad wishes for him.”
Chiles found the Whiplash space last summer, but the deal took several months to close. Ponce City Market gave him early access to the space to design a basic layout of what the club would look like. On Monday, there was blue painters’ tape on the floor outlining where walls will eventually go.
“I’ve had a lot of time to think about this,” he said.
Ponce City Market was impressed with Chiles’ experience and vision for Whiplash, said Adam Schwegman, director and head of retail leasing for Jamestown, which owns the 12-year-old mixed-space development.
“We like that comedy can draw not just local but a regional kind of crowd,” Schwegman said. “And people who eat dinner there can stick around for a show.”
He also said Whiplash complements City Winery, which opened in 2016 and has a larger 350-seat space but largely hosts musicians with the occasional comedian like George Lopez later this month.
Chiles has a quarter-century history in comedy. In 2000, he was a road comic who paid the bills selling websites when the owners of the now-shuttered Funny Farm in Roswell offered him the opportunity to run the club. It was part of Startime Entertainment, which also featured a sports bar, go-karts, a minigolf course and an arcade.
Over the next decade, Chiles said he learned to negotiate with comedy agents and talent such as Bob Saget, Tommy Chong, Tig Notaro, Jeff Garlin and Richard Lewis.
When Startime went under in 2009, Chiles landed at the intimate 74-seat Laughing Skull space, which had been used for burlesque shows. The Benoit family, the Vortex owners at the time, gave him the space rent-free in exchange for liquor sales.
Chiles struggled for a few months and was running low on cash, but said Jennifer Coolidge of “Legally Blonde” fame saved the day. He inserted fliers into the “Legally Blonde” musical program at the nearby Fox Theatre promoting six Coolidge stand-up shows, which all sold out.
“We got some buzz,” he said. “The gay community embraced us. It was a big turning point.”
He opened seven days a week, turning the space into a low-cost date night hot spot for customers and a place for working comics to hone material. Occasionally, big names popped in like Robin Williams, Dave Chappelle, Hannibal Buress, Joe Rogan and Amy Schumer. Kevin Hart in early 2020 spent several weeks at the space prepping for a Netflix comedy special.
Chiles hopes to turn Whiplash into a similar magnet for both customers and local comics.
“I get to build a second Atlanta icon which competes with my first,” he said. “Building something successful a second time will be more gratifying. You do it once, it’s a fluke. Do it a second time, you’re the common denominator.”
Brian Moote, a Star 94 afternoon host and veteran stand-up comic, considers Chiles a visionary in the business.
“He pretty much brought national attention to the comedy scene here in Atlanta thanks to his annual Laughing Skull Festival,” Moote said. “He made it a great place for casting directors and booking agents to find talent of diverse perspectives.”
Moote feels there’s enough room for both places to thrive. “Ponce City Market is a different part of Midtown,” he said. “It’s now a huge draw with the Beltline and all those new apartments.”
About the Author
Rodney Ho writes about entertainment for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution including TV, radio, film, comedy and all things in between. A native New Yorker, he has covered education at The Virginian-Pilot, small business for The Wall Street Journal and a host of beats at the AJC over 20-plus years. He loves tennis, pop culture & seeing live events.
