Gotta be honest, as somebody who lives in Nashville, I would really prefer that our city council spend time on more important issues than signs in front of bars, but here we are again.
Morgan Wallen is gearing up to open his new downtown Nashville bar, Morgan Wallen’s This Bar & Tennessee Kitchen, this weekend. But the Metro Nashville City Council is making him change his plans for a sign that the country music superstar wanted to install outside of his bar.
TC Restaurant Group, the hospitality company that partnered with Wallen for the bar (and also operates bars like Jason Aldean’s Kitchen & Rooftop Bar, Luke’s 32 Bridge, Miranda Lambert’s Casa Rosa and Lainey Wilson’s upcoming Bell Bottoms Up), had requested permission for an “aerial encroachment” for the sign to hang over the new bar, located at 107 4th Avenue North, just beside the Ryman Auditorium.
The sign would have hung above the entrance to the bar, but because it encroached on a city right of way, owners needed to get permission from the council to install it.
But the council made it clear that they weren’t exactly happy with Wallen right now, with many citing his recent arrest for throwing a chair off the rooftop of Eric Church’s downtown Nashville bar, Chief’s, as well as his racial slur incident back in 2021, and ultimately voted against allowing the sign to hang in front of the bar.
Now, is it petty? Sure. I mean, I don’t exactly think of Broadway as a bastion of morals and upstanding citizens. People aren’t going downtown looking for a role model: They’re looking to get hammered.
And it was also clearly a political move by the council to send whatever small message that they could to Wallen that they don’t approve of his behavior. It had nothing to do with the actual sign and everything to do with the name on it.
But it’s also not the first time the Nashville City Council got their panties in a wad over a proposed sign outside of a bar on Broadway.
Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk Rock & Roll Steakhouse (yes, that’s the real name of it, for anybody who’s not aware) opened back in 2018 ago on Lower Broadway, and at the time, some members of the city council were up in arms over the proposed neon sign on the front of the bar.
The design shouldn’t have really come as a surprise for a bar called “Big Ass Honky Tonk Rock & Roll Steakhouse.” It was an ass.
Well, it’s a guitar that’s meant to look like an ass. But it’s clearly an ass. (Apparently it’s one thing to have the word “ass” hanging out on the street, but it’s another to have a sign depicting an actual ass).
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One member of the city council said that the sign “crosses the line between good taste, family-friendliness, and I think what we would like Nashville to portray to people who come to visit us.” Yeah, because nothing says “family friendly” like a row of bars full of bachelorettes sipping beer out of penis straws at 11 AM on a Tuesday.
Kid Rock’s sign was ultimately approved by the city council by a vote of 27-3, although the council was really only voting on whether to allow the hanging sign as opposed to the design of the sign.
The controversy seemed to be limited to city council, as online polls like one from local news station WKRN showed that the general public was just fine with the big ass sign (only 13% found it “offensive”).
I have a feeling that the sentiment around Morgan’s bar is much the same. It’s a half-hearted attempt to punish Morgan for reasons that don’t even make sense when you consider the environment on Broadway.
The council can claim all they want that they’re trying to make Broadway a safer place, but at the same time they’re not about to take any steps that destroy the city’s cash cow – so for now, they’re limited to arguing about signs and sending meaningless messages that, if we’ve seen anything about Morgan and his fanbase in the past, is only going to make the bar more popular than it would have been before.
But hey, at least they felt like they did something – and it seems they enjoy arguing about signs.
