Long before Nashville’s Lower Broadway was crowded with celebrity-owned honky-tonks and bachelorette parties, the Ernest Tubb Record Shop, co-owned and comanaged by the famous Texas Troubadour himself, helped shape Nashville’s Music City reputation. The tears and tributes came from far and wide when the shop closed its doors in 2022 after seventy-five years of operation.
But fans are rejoicing: An entrepreneurial group has recently restored the building at 417 Broadway to glory, transforming the landmark into a rollicking four-story bar, restaurant, lounge, venue, and shop that honors Tubb’s legacy while providing a music destination for new (and vintage) generations. It’s open seven days a week from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. And, yes, the shop still sells records, too.
“The Ernest Tubb Record Shop is essentially the epicenter of country music,” says Jamie Kenney, co-owner of the new establishment along with his brother Bryan, local musician Ilya Toshinskiy, and Ernest’s grandson Dale Tubb. Jamie and Bryan, also the duo behind the popular Nashville bar Never Never and the Reunion Bar & Hotel, didn’t have their eyes set on opening a bar on Lower Broadway. But after hearing the lore, they couldn’t let such hallowed ground fall to the wayside.
Around the time Tubb opened his shop in 1947 on Commerce Street and moved it to Broadway in 1951, country and western was a nascent genre often dismissed as “hillbilly music,” with records hard to find in stores or jukeboxes. Tubb, a chart-topping singer with hits like “Blue Christmas,” aimed to make country music more accessible through his storefront and robust mail-order business. His downtown shop, steps from the Ryman (then housing the Grand Ole Opry), quickly became more than a place to buy records. It was a hub for country luminaries, serving as the Opry’s unofficial afterparty most Saturdays and hosting intimate performances by then-rising stars like Loretta Lynn, Hank Williams, and Dolly Parton.
“As we started digging into the history a bit more,” Jamie says, “we realized this guy was like the Godfather. He was the ultimate producer in power, and artists like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline, and Elvis came to him for advice and help.” Most famous, perhaps, is the story of Elvis heading to Tubb’s shop after being booed off the Opry stage. The King, then nineteen, confided in Tubb about his career doubts; Tubb gave him invaluable advice: “Make your money. Then you can do what you want to do.”
Designed to feel like a neighborhood tavern, the new establishment’s sprawling first floor is divided into two bars and stages, with live music all day long. The second and third floors—once used to house hospital beds during the Civil War, according to Bryan—have been refashioned into a private event venue, an intimate bar with room for acoustic performances, and of course, a small record store. “From the beginning, Bryan and I have never felt like owners, but more like stewards of this place that is so important to Nashville,” Jamie says. “Everyone talked about saving the record shop, but we also wanted to restore it in a meaningful way. The magic was in the music, in the stars wandering over from the Opry, jumping on stage with just a guitar and a six-pack of beer. That was our motivation.”
Today’s biggest stars might also find refuge here, at the basement’s private, exclusive lounge called the Forty Seven. Lush velvet furniture and wood-paneled walls offer a vintage vibe and, the Kenneys hope, a tranquil retreat amid the chaos of Lower Broadway.
“We wanted to give people a place to hang out and have fun, but also in an environment that’s meaningful,” Bryan says. Their reverence is clear in the scores of memorabilia covering the walls, from fan-painted portraits and well-worn cowboy boots in glass cases to framed letters from industry titans, such as one from Jo Walker-Meador inviting Tubb to help start the Country Music Hall of Fame. Outside, the iconic neon guitar and rotating sign have been updated but still reflect the shop’s original designs, promising to offer “all types of records shipped round the world.”
While much of the building and neighborhood have changed, the shop reflects the same spirit as the original store—and Tubb’s genuine love for classic, three-chords-and-the-truth music. Jamie remembered being especially trepidatious about bringing modern Broadway energy to an old-school landmark and honoring Tubb, who died in 1984. But, as he recalls, “[Ernest’s grandson] Dale smiled at us and said, ‘Guys, I don’t know that there’s anybody that’s going to walk through these doors and drink more than my granddad and his buddies did.” Pulling up a bar stool alongside friendly honky-tonk ghosts? We can cheers to that.
