Can the North Shore support a music room devoted to jazz, blues, country and other eclectic offerings?
That question is being posed in Highwood, its historic dining scene on and around Green Bay Road now home to 210, a music-and-food venue that has been presenting noteworthy jazz artists, including organist Dr. Lonnie Smith, singer-pianist Judy Roberts, the Yellowjackets and harmonica whiz Howard Levy.
One hastens to note that 210, which launched its music-food-nightlife concept in 2015 but didn’t get seriously into jazz until last year, isn’t the only listening spot on the North Shore. SPACE presents a stylistically wide-ranging musical lineup in Evanston seven nights a week, and Pete Miller’s, also in Evanston, offers jazz and related idioms nightly as well.
But the pickings get thin the farther north you get.
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“There’s really nothing between Evanston and Waukegan and Libertyville — or even Vernon Hills, for that matter — that can have bands where you’re not crammed in,” says 210 partner Steven Goldstein of a venue that can accommodate 150 to 500, depending on the seating arrangement.
“You need economies of scale,” adds Goldstein, whose establishment stretches 11,000 square feet. “It’s go big, or go home.”
Yet “big” is a relative term considering the intimate feel of 210, which is in the process of changing its name to 210 Live, to emphasize performance.
“When we started, it was a restaurant with music — now it’s music with a restaurant,” says Judy Shatkin, a jazz pianist who performs at 210 once a month under the stage name Judy Night. She became a partner in the venture during spring of 2016 and quickly turned up the dial on live music in general, jazz in particular.
So what exactly is 210?
“What I think we are shooting for here is to have a place that offers top-quality live entertainment, consistently good and interesting food and an ambience that people who enjoy nightlife and dining and throwing parties (would appreciate),” says Goldstein. “A place outside their home that feels like home.
“Think of it as a big room with a house concert every night.”
I tested that proposition Sunday evening, returning to 210 after a visit last summer, and some of what Goldstein describes has come to fruition.
For starters, two distinguished Chicago artists — harmonica ace Corky Siegel and Indian percussion virtuoso Kalyan Pathak — offered a blues-meets-tabla amalgam unique to them. 210’s new sound system served these musicians well from all corners of the room, with the exception of a couple of inexplicable bursts of feedback.
At 74, Siegel plays harmonica at a high technical level, addresses the piano exuberantly and sings as best he can. Pathak enriches every musical setting, giving Siegel’s already ebullient manner additional rhythmic lift.
The design of 210 resembles no other comparably sized music room in the Chicago area, its decor as stylistically far-flung as the music it presents. Chandeliers and track lighting, narrow tables and very long ones, scattered sofas and chairs, sculptures and paintings — nostalgia, kitsch and contemporary aesthetics converge here, adding to the bohemian sensibility of the place.
Unfortunately, on this night the tables were crammed far too close to one another, trapping anyone who wasn’t seated on the periphery. Getting up to stroll to the bar or simply stretch proved absurdly difficult.
This arrangement rendered food service awkward at best, as servers struggled to get to one table or another — or even to find the right customer for the right dish. The dining results were erratic, to put it kindly.
So a great deal of fine-tuning is in order in a space that has been entertaining the North Shore since 1949, when the building opened as a bowling alley. It has held many identities ever since, presenting rock and pop acts such as Cheap Trick and Jump in the Saddle in the 1970s and ’80s.
Goldstein, a real estate developer and commercial broker, says he got involved with the building in 2005 and about a decade ago revived it as a bar and bowling alley, as he and colleagues “dipped our toe into music.”
For a while he tried a mix of bowling during the week and live shows on weekends, but customers “started having the idea they didn’t want bowling,” says Goldstein. “My wife is an antique dealer, so we put her to the task of putting (the decor) together,” he adds, referring to Peggy Goldstein.
As partner-pianist Shatkin looks ahead, she envisions “music for dancing on weekends. Blues and country are going to be on Thursdays. Jazz on Sundays in general. Wednesdays is a little bit of a mix.”
Because the room has two large screens on either side of the stage, “We are going to do a monthly silent movie with a jazz artist or group (accompanying), starting in January with Justin Dillard’s DOT (Dillard Organ Trio) and Buster Keaton.”
As for private events, which occasionally close the place to the public, “we want to limit it to two a month,” says Shatkin.
The large audience that turned out Sunday evening appeared to be enjoying the experience, at least judging by the singalong portions of Siegel’s show.
“People are telling me: Thank you, we needed this,” says Shatkin.
“Someone said: Can you open one in Glenview? Another person said: Can you open one in Mokena?”
For now, the owners have their hands full with the Highwood location, which stands as a work in progress.
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210 presents music Wednesdays through Sundays at 210 Green Bay Road, Highwood; 847-433-0304 or www.210restaurant.com.
Howard Reich is a Tribune critic.
Twitter @howardreich