Jazz club Churchill Grounds to reopen in former Decatur post office
Ten years after the closure of Churchill Grounds’ original location on Peachtree Street, next door to the Fox Theatre, the beloved jazz nightclub is coming back.
Originally opened in 1997, Churchill Grounds was a core venue for live jazz for nearly 30 years and one of only a handful of places where music performances could be consistently enjoyed in Atlanta.
This time, the storied musical venue will be located in a historic marble-covered building, a former post office built in 1935, in downtown Decatur. And in addition to a swanky new lounge with live jazz performances, there will be food and beverages and other amenities to serve Atlanta’s community of jazz musicians and enthusiasts.
The return of Churchill Grounds is the work of a group called the Cornerstone Jazz Collective, comprised of almost 200 members investing in the project together.
When it opens this summer — in time for the beginning of the World Cup, according to Cornerstone Jazz Collective founder and CEO Will Scruggs — the building at 141 East Trinity Place will be known as the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Center.
Scruggs, a professional saxophonist, is leading a team of musicians to reopen Churchill Grounds and establish the center. His background includes a bachelor’s degree from Emory University with a double major in music and business and a master’s degree in jazz studies from Georgia State University. Scruggs also had a five-year stint booking talent and managing live music for Atlanta restaurant chain Ray’s Restaurants.
Scruggs also played saxophone at the original Churchill Grounds location early in his career. He said bringing the jazz club back to life in a new home is his way of paying forward what he gained from his experience.
“I came up at Churchill Grounds,” Scruggs told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution during an exclusive tour of the building. “I cut my teeth there. I wouldn’t be a pro now if I hadn’t had that as a platform.”
Clave, a full-service Cuban restaurant, will provide an “ever-changing” menu
Clave, a full-service Cuban restaurant, will be run by Yanin and Luis Fernandez, married musicians who also own and operate Gwinnett County restaurants the Crossing Steakhouse and Mojitos Bistro.
In an interview with the AJC, Luis Fernandez said he and Yanin were already looking to open a new concept with live music, which is frequently performed at Mojitos, when they met Scruggs and decided to bring Clave to the center.
He said Yanin came up with the name Clave, which is a rhythmic percussion pattern often used in Cuban music and the sounds of the African diaspora.
“The clave itself is the backbone, the foundation of that kind of music,” Luis Fernandez said. “It’s a really cool name, and it’s meant to have synergy with the jazz club.”
Much like the inherent spontaneity of jazz music, improvisation will be literally on the menu, he added. So while empanadas, mojitos and other Cuban classics will also be available, they will constantly evolve.
“Our menu itself is going to be ever-changing, very dynamic, because in jazz, you play the same song a lot of times, but you never play the same song the same way.”
Other dishes customers can expect include lechon asado — citrus-marinated roast pork with garlic casava root and congrí rice — and guava cheesecake.
An “integrated ecosystem” to support artists and engage the community
In addition to Churchill Grounds and Clave, the center will host a music academy and a recording studio named Koolbonga Studios, named in honor of one of Williams’ most famous jazz compositions.
The result, Scruggs said, will be an integrated ecosystem designed to support artists and engage the community at every level, from live performance to music education, artist development, production, recording and hospitality combined.
Construction in progress will add an additional 3,000 square feet for a total of 9,000 square feet of usable space. The basement, previously used for warehousing and storage, will become Scruggs Woodwinds, a retail and repair shop for woodwind instruments, with areas for music education, rehearsals and recording.
Scruggs and the Cornerstone Jazz Collective’s members also want to bring more attention to the musical contributions of Atlanta native and jazz pioneer Mary Lou Williams, the center’s namesake. Known as one of the greatest jazz pianists, composers and arrangers in history.
The center honors Atlanta native and jazz pioneer Mary Lou Williams
Born in Atlanta in 1910, Williams was a child piano prodigy. She moved to Pittsburgh, Pa., when she was six, and as a teenager, gained a reputation as one of the best players in the city. When bands visited on the Vaudeville circuit, Williams was often hired to perform with them.
She eventually would meet and become a mentor to such talents as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk. She went on to arrange and compose songs for Duke Ellington, Count Basie and others and, in the 1970s, worked with the jazz orchestra at Clark Atlanta University before she died in 1981, having made a significant influence on the rise of bebop, swing and modern jazz in the U.S.
“She was never as famous as she should have been, partly because, as a Black woman in that era, she wasn’t a singer, and she always rebuffed any efforts to kind of sexualize or commercialize herself in order to sell more. She just wanted it to be about the music,” Scruggs said.
“So we’re going to be encouraging all jazz musicians, but particularly women, to compose new work. That’s a big part to me. Jazz lives and breathes as it evolves.”
In a statement provided to the AJC, the Collective said the center reflects a rare ownership structure rooted in shared cultural investment. It’s an approach intended to build a lasting institution shaped by and for the community.
“This is about creating a true home for jazz in Atlanta, one that reflects the depth of the music and the community that sustains it,“ said Scruggs. ”The Mary Lou Williams Jazz Center is designed to bring people together through performance, education and culture, and Churchill Grounds has always embodied that spirit. Bringing it into this space allows us to build something that feels both rooted and forward-looking.”
The fulfillment of Sam Yi’s vision
Sam Yi, Churchill Grounds’ founder, died in February 2025. After closing the original Churchill Grounds, Yi announced plans to reopen in East Atlanta Village. While the plan did not come to fruition, the Churchill Grounds brand maintained a presence in Atlanta with pop-up performances across the city, including in East Atlanta Village at Ten ATL.
Scruggs said Yi saved some of the inlaid woodwork at Churchill Grounds and intended to use it at a new location for the club. The wood was given to the Cornerstone Jazz Collective and will be restored and used in the design of the new club’s bar.
“Churchill Grounds meant so much to Sam and to the Atlanta jazz community,” said Yi’s widow, Nina Yi, in a statement provided to the AJC.
“He believed deeply in creating a place where musicians could connect and where people could truly feel the music. Seeing that spirit carried forward, now as part of something even larger, is incredibly meaningful to me and to our family.”
About the Author
Mike Jordan is senior lifestyle reporter at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. His work has been published in The Wall Street Journal, ProPublica, The Guardian, National Geographic, Bon Appetit, Rolling Stone and others. Jordan won the James Beard Foundation’s Jonathan Gold Local Voice Award in 2024.
