A site is lined up for a Garth Brooks-themed bar, restaurant and music venue in downtown Nashville.
Whiskey Riff first reported in March that 411 Broadway, the former home of the Downtown Sporting Club, was sold in Dec. 2021 to 411, LLC. The registered agent for the LLC is listed in public records as Cheryl Harris, co-founder and partner of management and consulting firm O'Neil Hagaman. Coincidence or not, Harris has been Brooks' accountant and business manager since 1989: the year the future Country Music Hall of Famer entered the mainstream arena.
Nashville Scene reported in December that the 411 Broadway building, which is next door to the soon-to-close Ernest Tubb Record Shop, sold for $47.9 million.
Brooks confirmed on Tuesday (April 5) via a press release that he's partnering with Nashville-based Strategic Hospitality to transform the 40,000 square-foot space into a "classic honky-tonk" that "welcomes all and encourages love and kindness."
No timeline was given for when the new business might open.
"It can't come soon enough for me," Brooks said during an Aug. 2021 press conference for a Stadium Tour stop at Nashville's Nissan Stadium. "It would be an honor if I ever got to do it. I know exactly the way I'd want it to be because I live in the dive bars. Just take one thing out of every dive bar you've been in. Because for me, that's what it's all about."
Brooks further teased that his Lower Broadway oasis might be themed around the song "Friends in Low Places."
"That'd be a fun thing," he added."I'll tell you, man, with getting to be part of arguably one of the most sing-a-long songs ever, in all of the music, that's a fun direction to go to."
Talk of Brooks getting his own bar in Music City dates back to at least an Aug. 2020 virtual press conference that was part of his Facebook Live series Inside Studio G.
"It's coming in the future, but it's gonna be done the way we do it," Brooks said in 2020. "It'll be its own place very much like [Blake Shelton's Ole Red] is his own place. We're gonna do it our own way. It's coming, I would say, probably in the next two years, three years."
A Brooks bar will add another neon sign to a sea of honky-tonks bearing the names of fellow superstars Dierks Bentley, Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, John Rich, Alan Jackson, Florida Georgia Line and Miranda Lambert.
This article was originally published on March 15, 2022. It was updated on April 5, 2022 after Garth Brooks confirmed his connection to the 411 Broadway site.
