Chatterbox is a location that begs to be visited with one look, a hole in the wall that looks even more authentic thanks to some of the more polished options nearby. One of the rarest of dive bar amenities, a good front porch, provides the perfect gateway inside, a small set of low tables providing a bit of overflow seating and a stopover for smokers watching the show inside. Dark painted wood and latticework over the windows provides visual contrast to the polished, clean windowed storefront next door, a faded picture in the window hinting at some of the history to be found within.
Beyond the patio, the music flying out of the front door provides all the invitation needed. Be warned, in very non-dive bar fashion, a cover accompanies many jazz nights, particularly on weekends, but because of the devoted following and the attractive location, the vibe is almost worth the price of admission. Chatterbox Jazz Club is small, a skinny room that isn’t all that long, room enough for a row of tables, the bar itself and not much else. And because of its stature, the experience inside becomes a compressed mixture of heat, music, drinking and people in a very compelling way.
The space inside has been allowed to grow as its organic self, a mixture of aging signs, Christmas lights, floral wallpaper and a Sharpie-covered refrigerator in back. Indiana liquor laws require the availability of food to operate most liquor permits, Chatterbox Jazz Club complying through offering Jamaica Patties which are delicious in their own right but made even better by the compelling advertising behind the bar just above a series of stapled foreign currency. Dollar bills are similarly given their own chance to shine, serving as default wall covering for much of the area behind the bar closest to the window stage.
