The Ernest Tubb Record Shop Has Closed Again, And One Nashville Musician Perfectly Summed Up Why

That didn’t last long.

The iconic Ernest Tubb Record Shop has closed once again in Nashville, just three months after quietly reopening their doors and attempting to rebrand themselves from just a record shop to a full four-story party bar.

Honestly, it’s an idea that seemed doom to fail from the beginning. The record shop closed back in 2022, but after outcry from country music fans it was announced that the shop would indeed reopened after being bought for $18.3 million by a group that includes Nashville real estate developer Brad Bars, musician Ilya Toshinskiy, local attorney Grover Collins, and Dale Tubb, grandson of Ernest Tubb.

In a statement at the time, Bars confirmed that the legendary record shop would remain open and the building, which has housed Ernest Tubb’s Record Shop for over 51 years, would be receiving major renovations. And earlier this year, it was confirmed that the record shop would indeed be reopening soon, with the new project being overseen by Tusk Brothers, a management company owned by brothers Jamie and Bryan Kenney, as well as Toshinsky and Dale Tubb.

That reopening came with little fanfare back in October, when the newly-revamped record shop opened – with quite a few changes.

The ground floor of the revamped Ernest Tubb Record Shop featured two bars, each with a stage and live music, and of course plenty of authentic and never-before-seen memorabilia.

The record store itself, meanwhile, was located on the second floor, designed to be an authentic recreation of the original record shop that would also host performances in the back just like the old one. The third floor was a reserved space for private events, and the final floor was, of course, a rooftop bar – because you can’t have a bar in Nashville these days without a rooftop bar.

A VIP grand reopening was held back in November, featuring Marty Stuart, Wynonna and Vince Gill, among others, but it was limited to only invited guests. And the whole re-opening seemed to fly below the radar: I live in Nashville, work in country music, and have been following and covering the record shop’s future since the very beginning, and I had no idea they were reopening until I saw on social media that it had already happened.

And it seems like the bar never really had an identity like the old record shop: Far from embracing the history of Ernest Tubb and classic country music, it seemed like they were trying to compete with the other artist bars on Broadway that appeal to tourists and younger fans of pop-leaning country, with Instagram posts featuring Morgan Wallen and Janet Jackson music and comment sections questioning the changes to the iconic spot.

So it was really no surprise earlier this week when the shop announced that it was closed once again and would be undergoing a management change:

“It has been a labor of love to rekindle the legacy of Ernest Tubb Record Shop over the past few years. We’re proud to have been a partner in its restoration and reopening. In the interest of doing what is best for the business, we are stepping down for its day-to-day management.

This means a temporary closure to make way for new management. We’re very grateful for the employees who have worked with us and for the guests we’ve gotten to know along the way. We look forward to the long-term success of the business.”

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After the shop announced it had closed, and employees reportedly let go, many took to social media to discuss what went wrong. And one musician who played at the reopened shop shared some particularly insightful thoughts on why the reopening – and the redesign in general – missed the mark.

Scott Hinds, who said he shared his thoughts since there was no longer a risk of his band losing their weekly gig now that the record shop had closed, believes the writing was on the wall from the beginning:

“These are thoughts I’ve had since the beginning. Everyone saw the writing on the wall with that place from the first day, and I’d predicted we’d have our gig through the end of January anyway because they were making mistakes musicians have seen happen all too often on Broadway, so my prediction really only came true two weeks earlier than expected.”

And he puts the blame for the bar’s closing not on the management, but the investors who never really seemed to understand the Broadway bar scene or the identity of the record shop:

“Management may have gotten the blame by the investors, but the blame really lies at the feet of the investors, owners, and the planners themselves. I feel the boots on the ground management team was essentially handed something doomed to fail because of poor decisions made at the highest levels of this investment group.

Now, as I refer to the investors and owners, I’m not going to lump in Dale Tubb. I don’t know the man, but I have no reason to doubt that he was likely the only owner genuinely interested in preserving his grandfather’s legacy. Who knows, maybe the others were too.

But regardless, Ernest Tubb’s is a textbook example of how NOT to open a bar on Broadway and I can only hope that future bar owners can learn from the hard lessons the owners of this bar got these last few months. The owners and planners essentially half assed every decision made in the bar, and boots on the ground management was just trying to survive. It’s like the owners wanted the clout of “Saving Ernest Tubb’s Record Shop,” but didn’t properly invest in what it means to preserve that legacy.”

Hinds then, in my opinion, absolutely nailed all the problems with the bar, from the failed reopening to the confusing identity.

I’ll embed the whole post below, but to me this seems like the most important part:

“They didn’t know what demographic they were catering to. Broadway has two types of bars. Legacy bars (Robert’s, Layla’s, Legends, The Stage, The Second Fiddle RIP) and they have party bars (any of the celebrity bars).

The vast VAST majority of the general public sadly have never heard the name Ernest Tubb. Preserving Ernest Tubb’s Record Shop on Broadway is a legacy act. ET’s was always supposed to be a legacy bar. But their social media said otherwise. Everything they posted was young influencer types drinking and partying saying “Ernest Tubb’s is the place to party!” All with pop country background music.

Who are they trying to cater to? Twenty something partiers or classic country fans who like vinyl? They shot themselves in the foot by not picking a lane and thus cancelled out any chance they could by building a brand.”

That really seems to sum up the problem with the revamped bar: The party crowd they were seemingly trying to attract doesn’t know or care who Ernest Tubb is, and the crowd who does know Ernest Tubb and wanted to preserve his legacy wouldn’t come to a bar that was seemingly geared towards the same crowd as every other bar on Broadway. They could have appealed to either crowd, and instead came up with something that appealed to neither.

And sure, there’s going to be a narrative spun from this that there’s no room for traditional country or “honky tonks” on Broadway anymore. But bars like Robert’s Western World and Layla’s are doing just fine. They’re consistently packed, and Robert’s is even undergoing a much-needed expansion of their bar despite focusing solely on traditional country music.

The demand is there: The execution from Ernest Tubb’s Record Shop was not.

The good news is it sounds like the record shop plans to give it another go and reopen in the future under new management. But it sounds like unless they figure out what they want to be and develop a real identity, the result may end up being the same.

The post The Ernest Tubb Record Shop Has Closed Again, And One Nashville Musician Perfectly Summed Up Why first appeared on Whiskey Riff.