Broadway is a street in downtown Nashville that runs roughly east-west through the city, but when most people say “Broadway,” they mean the lower end of it, specifically the five-block strip between First and Fifth Avenues where honky-tonks, bars, restaurants, and tourist attractions are stacked shoulder-to-shoulder. This stretch is formally known as the Broadway Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1980, and locally called Honky Tonk Highway.
The street has a practical history before it became a party destination. Originally called Broad Street, its eastern terminus sat at the Cumberland River’s shipping docks. It was one of the first east-west roads in Nashville, and by the early 20th century it hosted hardware stores, feed stores, and a section called Auto Row filled with car dealers and tire shops. Country music gradually displaced all of that.
The Honky Tonk Strip
The core of Broadway today runs from roughly First Avenue near the Cumberland River to Fifth Avenue, where Bridgestone Arena anchors the upper end. Within that five-block stretch, bars open as early as 10 a.m. and operate until 3 a.m. Most do not charge a cover. Musicians work for tips and sometimes play 16-hour rotations across multiple floors. On a peak summer weekend, estimates suggest up to 200,000 people move through the Honky Tonk Highway in a single day.
The venues divide roughly into two categories. On one side are the old-school honky-tonks, buildings that existed before Broadway became a tourist destination: Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge (operating since 1960), Robert’s Western World (established in the early 1990s in a building that previously housed the Sho-Bud Steel Guitar Company), and Legends Corner. These places built their reputations on traditional country music and still attract musicians and fans who care about the sound more than the spectacle.
On the other side are the celebrity-branded mega-venues that have transformed Broadway since 2016. Jason Aldean’s Kitchen + Rooftop Bar opened in 2018 and has four floors and what was marketed as the largest rooftop patio on Broadway. Luke Bryan’s 32 Bridge opened next door with six floors and eight bars. Blake Shelton’s Ole Red, Garth Brooks’ Friends in Low Places, Eric Church’s Chief’s, Morgan Wallen’s This Bar (opened May 2024), and a growing roster of others all operate along the same strip. These venues typically span multiple stories, include rooftop bars, and serve full restaurant menus alongside live music.
What Broadway Offers
Every bar on the strip features live music, and the musicians are genuinely good. Competition for these slots is fierce. Nashville draws serious players from across the country who will work a Broadway stage for tips because it builds their profile and pays the bills. The quality of a house band at Robert’s Western World or The Stage is real. The fact that a performer might be covering a Maren Morris song in a six-story megabar does not mean they are not technically excellent.
Broadway also connects to the city’s major cultural anchors. The Ryman Auditorium sits one block north, at the corner of Fifth Avenue North. The Country Music Hall of Fame is three blocks south. Bridgestone Arena, where the Nashville Predators play, sits at Fifth and Broadway. The Fifth + Broadway complex, a $400 million mixed-use development that opened in 2021, sits directly across from Bridgestone and includes the National Museum of African American Music, Assembly Food Hall, and over 20 retailers.
The Honest Assessment
Broadway is loud, crowded, and increasingly expensive. A single drink at a rooftop bar on a Saturday night will cost what four drinks cost at Robert’s during the day. The sidewalks during peak hours are dense enough that forward motion requires persistence. The bachelorette party population is, by data, substantial. Nashville holds the title for most bachelor and bachelorette parties per capita in the world, between 4,000 and 5,000 per month, and a significant percentage of those groups spend time on Broadway.
None of that makes Broadway the wrong place to go. It makes it the wrong place to go at 10 p.m. on a Saturday if you want to hear music clearly, find a table, or move without effort. Weekday mornings and early afternoons are a completely different experience. The same musicians are playing, the drinks are cheaper, and the honky-tonks actually function as the social spaces they were designed to be. The neon is less theatrical in daylight, but the music is the same.
Sources
- Wikipedia, Broadway (Nashville, Tennessee): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadway(Nashville,Tennessee)
- Notes on Nashville, Complete Broadway Honky Tonk Guide: https://notesonnashville.com/live-music/honky-tonks-broadway-nashville-guide/
- Visit Nashville, Honky Tonk Highway: https://www.visitmusiccity.com/things-to-do-in-nashville/music-entertainment/guide-to-honky-tonk-highway
- Wandrly, Nashville Statistics 2025: https://blog.wandrly.app/nashville-statistics/
- Gresham Smith, Fifth + Broadway: https://www.greshamsmith.com/projects/fifth-and-broadway/