Roquan Smith teams with Jimmy Butler to open new music venue

Baltimore Ravens linebacker Roquan Smith and Miami Heat forward Jimmy Butler are both part of an ownership group opening a new restaurant and live music venue in Chicago.

“Welcome to the Farm,” which already has two locations, in St. Petersburg, FL and Cleveland, OH, is a 10,000 square foot space in the River North neighborhood of the second city.

Smith last played for the Chicago Bears in 2022 while Butler last played for the Chicago Bulls in 2017. Their new venture will replace the Fremont, a modern American restaurant and dance club which closed in the past year.

According to Eater Chicago, The Farm “will house a barbecue restaurant, Drinking Pig BBQ, with food from Miami chef Raheem Sealey.”

The main backer in Smith’s new venture is Chase Rice, a singer-songwriter who is most famous for the reality series Survivor.

While the restaurant/club/music venue business is notoriously competitive, with a very low overall success rate, this venture certainly has location on its side.

Smith, Butler, Rice and company are opening a venue that is a very short walk from several major Chicago landmarks: the Magnificent Mile, Wrigley Building, Tribune Tower and the original Billy Goat Tavern.

So there will always be non-stop foot traffic in the area. We’ll see if Roquan and his group can create a destination that capitalizes on that opportunity. Its predecessor could not.