Florida Georgia Line among first country acts to open a Nashville bar; FGL House closing recalls how we got here
The half-decade-long saga that was started by Florida Georgia Line — the now solo country acts Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley — has ended with the closing of their former four-story, 22,000 square-foot FGL House bar and restaurant at at 122 3rd Ave. S.
The site will become Lainey Wilson's Bell Bottoms Up. The new 27,000-square-feet, three-story venue will include a western disco-themed rooftop, two stages and four bars.
Florida Georgia Line was one of the first acts to capitalize on their massive success by opening a branded space on Lower Broadway where the sight of country star's names and brands has become all-too common since 2017.
Here's what set the stage for Florida Georgia Line to open a bar and what's next:
Before Florida Georgia Line came to Lower Broadway
Back in May 2017, Ohio-based TC Restaurant Group was operating FGL House alongside a series of venues in the 3rd Avenue area, including Sun Diner, Luigi's City Pizza, honky-tonk Crazy Town, Tequila Cowboy, and Wanna B's Karaoke Bar.
Their redesign of a space that housed aVenue and Nashville label Big Machine's clothing store occurred 16 months after Riot Hospitality Group (the minds behind Dierks Bentley's Whiskey Row concept) acquired the 14,500-square-foot, four-story building at 400 Broadway from The Stage, Legends Corner and the Second Fiddle owners Ruble and Brenda Sanderson (who, from 1993-1997, had worked in the preservation and restoration of another Lower Broadway destination, Tootsie's Orchid Lounge).
In a CityInk profile, Sanderson notes that at the turn of the 21st century, he felt Lower Broadway's charm had "faded, but was (still magnetic)."
"All it needed was someone to transform it into an entertainment district that would appeal to a broad section of visitors, not just the most avid country music fans."
By 2017, country music's mainstream industry and real estate trends finally aligned in a mega-massive way.
Paving the way for Florida Georgia Line and others
A look back at Billboard's country radio and sales charts shows that it wasn't Bentley, Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, or Florida Georgia Line whose success showed that country star-driven concept bars would take off in Lower Broadway.
No, it's Sam Hunt, who, like Morgan Wallen's success in 2023 with "Last Night," saw his single "Body Like A Back Road" on top of the genre's sales charts for 65 percent of 2017 while dominating radio in May of that year.
Hunt's success essentially elevated the work of the artists who preceded him to another level of acclaim.
Alongside Hunt's impressive success, two decades in Music City offered significantly expansive evolutions to Nashville's downtown area.
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum relocated from its former home on Music Row to the Lower Broadway area in 2001. A decade later, the popular television series "Nashville" and the opening of the 2.1 million-square-foot Music City Center next to the Country Music Hall of Fame offered another boon to the area.
Simultaneously to real estate moves, Florida Georgia Line's 2012 debut single, "Cruise," was eventually remixed by rap superstar Nelly and became the first country song ever to receive the Diamond (10 million sales) certification, spending 24 weeks at number one on Billboard's Country Sales chart.
For FGL — and by extension, Nashville's Lower Broadway — Kelley noted in a 2022 Tennessean interview that "Cruise" was a career and mind-expanding moment that inspired Nashville's reinvigorated national expansion.
Hunt's moment showcased how well what Bentley described in 2016 as aspiring country stars achieving full-circle moments "cutting their teeth and running up bar tabs (while) chasing this crazy dream of playing music" near the genre's legacy venues like Ernest Tubb's Record Store and the Ryman Auditorium had grown.
Florida Georgia Line expands into Lower Broadway and dance pop
Four months after FGL House opened with Hubbard and Kelley paired with EDM tandem The Chainsmokers for a performance, the duo continued their growth in the country-meets-dance-pop space with the Oct. 2017 release"Meant to Be," a duet with Bebe Rexha.
On Billboard's all-genre Hot 100 chart, "Meant to Be" took three months to peak at No. 2, behind Drake's single "God's Plan." On the country charts, however, Rexha became the first female artist to debut at No. 1, eventually surpassing Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" as the longest-running chart-topper for a lead female artist. Ten months later, it eclipsed "Body Like a Back Road" for the most weeks at number one on the chart.
Two years later, the song was certified diamond for selling over 10 million units in the United States.
Push forward and note that, by 2018, artists including ERNEST, HARDY and soon-to-be TC Restaurant Group bar and restaurant-featured artist Wallen were two years into pairing with FGL as collaborators and songwriters. Notably, HARDY and Wallen joined Brad Clawson and CJ Solar to co-write (and appear on) Wallen's 2017 Florida Georgia Line collaboration "Up Down."
FGL's 2017 era has already spawned continued genre success.
Hubbard and Kelley achieved three of the longest-charting singles in the history of Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart in and around the era their acclaim led to the creation of FGL House: "Meant To Be" spent 50 weeks at the top. In comparison, debut hit "Cruise" achieved a 24-week chart-topping run in 2012-13 and "H.O.L.Y." hit No. 1 for 18 weeks in 2016.
At the time of "Meant to Be"'s rise, Big Machine Label Group executive vice president Jimmy Harnen stated, "(That type of success) is absolutely nuclear. We send out a big thank you to all of the believers."
Florida Georgia Line breakup and the end of FGL House
On August 2022, Kelley and Hubbard played their final show together as Florida Georgia Line at the Minnesota State Fair.
"I think 'taking a break' is the proper term, as opposed to breaking up," said Hubbard to People in February of that year. "We're not going our separate ways," Kelley added. "We're taking a break from recording our music. We're being artists. We love creating. And so a couple years back, we started writing without each other and trying different writers, and now we're both doing that with our music."
In 2023, Hubbard released his eponymous solo debut to be followed by the April 2024 release of "Strong." Kelley is about to release his second solo album, "Tennessee Truth" on May 10th.
The Florida Georgia Line bar remained open for almost two years after the split, leading country music fans to speculate about the bar's future. On Monday, May 6, a story on Florida Georgia Line's Instagram account confirmed the bar's closure.
“We love being one of the first to have a bar downtown but all great things eventually come to an end," read the statement. "FGL House has closed, to make way for a new unrelated venture. Hope y’all made some fun memories there — we sure did!”
FGL House to become Lainey Wilson's Bell Bottoms Up
The now 27,000-square-foot, three-story venue is expected to open this summer with a western disco-themed rooftop, two stages, four bars and a menu including the Baskin, Louisiana native's favorite salads, crawfish, shrimp boils and boudin.
The project is in partnership with TC Restaurant Group, which also operates Luke Bryan's 32 Bridge, Jason Aldean's Kitchen and Rooftop Bar, Miranda Lambert's Casa Rosa, and soon, Morgan Wallen's This Bar & Tennessee Kitchen.
Wilson will join Lambert as the second female country star with a Lower Broadway venue.
"We are honored that Lainey has trusted us to deliver a venue that is faithful to her story, fans, and love for country music," said TC Restaurant Group Vice President of Operations Grant Burlingame.
"Fans gravitate to Lainey because of her authentic, down-to-earth personality, and Bell Bottoms Up will be a representation of her character and legacy. Lainey Wilson is one of the biggest names in country music, and we're proud to partner with her on a venue that celebrates her genuine mark on the industry and brings another female artist to the forefront of Nashville's Entertainment District."
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Florida Georgia Line's Nashville bar closes after changing downtown