Downtown Nashville Bar Closing This Weekend To Make Room For Yet Another Artist Bar On Broadway

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Another artist bar is coming to Broadway in Nashville.

Downtown Nashville has basically become an adult Disneyland, with country artists opening up their own bars on Broadway left and right. At this point it might be shorter to list the artists who DON’T have their own bar, but right now on Broadway you can visit bars from Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, Dierks Bentley, Blake Shelton, Morgan Wallen, Garth Brooks, Lainey Wilson, Luke Combs, Eric Church, Kid Rock, John Rich, Miranda Lambert, Hank Williams Jr., Alan Jackson, Post Malone, Jelly Roll, and of course, Bon Jovi.

I don’t think I missed any, but there’s a good chance another one has opened since I started writing this article.

Now, most of the artists don’t own their own bars. The vast majority of the bars, with the exception of Eric Church’s Chiefs, John Rich’s Redneck Riviera, Alan Jackson’s AJ’s Good Time Bar, and Garth Brooks’ Friends In Low Places, are owned by giant hospitality corporations that pay an artist to put their name on the bar. (And it’s no coincidence that the bars that are actually owned by the artists are far and away the best of the artist bars on Broadway).

If you haven’t visited these bars, for the most part, you’re not missing much. Most of them are pretty cookie-cutter, massive six-story venues with multiple stages that play everything from modern country to pop and rock and everything in between, and they have some memorabilia hung up around the bar from whichever artist happens to have their name on the sign.

I’ve said time and time again that all of these artist bars have completely stripped the character from Broadway. They’ve turned it from honky tonks to night clubs and bars where drunk tourists flock to hear top 40 hits and dance to DJs with bottle service.

It’s sad.

But unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that there’s any end in sight to the depressing trend, because this week it was announced that yet another bar on Broadway will be closing to make room for an artist bar.

The Valentine, located at 312 Broadway, will be closing after this weekend, and according to an employee, will be taken over by an as-of-yet-unnamed country artist:

@gigglegoth

Replying to @Brian Livingston can’t say the artists name but come say hey this Saturday and grab a drink with me y’all #broadwaynashville #bartender #nashvilletn

♬ original sound – noel

The bar, which opened in early 2016, was formerly owned by South Capital Partners, which owned several restaurants in Nashville and other cities across the south. But The Valentine was bought out by The Elia Group, a hospitality company out of Michigan, last year. The company also owns ZuZu, an Asian fusion restaurant in downtown Nashville that features an upstairs nightclub and “ultra luxurious lounge.”

It hasn’t been announced yet which artist will be taking over, and there aren’t any pending trademark filings from The Elia Group yet, although it’s been heavily rumored that Kane Brown is the unnamed artist who will be moving in.

Given the company’s other venues, I think it’s a safe bet that this is going to be turned into more of a cocktail lounge and nightclub than a honky tonk or live music venue, which is just another sad development as Broadway strays further and further from what made it uniquely Nashville.The post Downtown Nashville Bar Closing This Weekend To Make Room For Yet Another Artist Bar On Broadway first appeared on Whiskey Riff.