Garth Brooks‘ Friends in Low Places Bar & Honky Tonk might be a smart business venture, but that isn’t at all why he devoted the last two years of his life to working on the new bar and music venue. Instead, the 62-year-old decided to open Friends in Low Places, in partnership with his wife, Trisha Yearwood, as a way to thank a city that helped give him one of the most successful careers in country music, spanning more than 35 years, and still going strong.
“This one is a thank you,” Brooks tells Everything Nash. “This one has been a guilt trip for me forever. This city has been so good to me. And it’s like the musical Oz kind of thing. So if you’re one of the people that’s lucky enough to get to live the dream, don’t you owe this city? This is how we think about it. So it’s been piling up on you and piling up on you that you owe this city. Let’s give it something.”
Brooks wanted to open something in tribute to Music City, but was insistent that it not be named after him, wanting its legacy to continue beyond his own fame and notoriety.
“You notice it’s not the Garth Brooks bar, because who knows how many people know who Garth Brooks is? But everybody has sang ‘Friends in Low Places,'” Brooks explains. “And so that’s the fun part of it. And Friends in Low Places is gonna live a lot longer than Garth Brooks ever will. So I think it was the right name for the bar, right place for it. The location’s fantastic. And you don’t get better in country music than right here in the home of country music.”
One of the most important parts of Friends in Low Places is the adjacent police station. It is part of the safety measures Brooks insisted on, including trained bartenders, multiple staircases so people aren’t harmed in crowded stairwells, medical safety measures and more.
“You want girls to come down here and have fun,” Brooks says. “But here’s the main thing too: you make this a safe bar, and it’s pretty much this simple. We want sweet people in here. If you’re an a–hole, there are plenty of other places to go down here, right? We want a place where people go, ‘Hey, I want to go there because people feel welcome and safe.’ That’s what you want out of a honky tonk. So you’re bartenders are all safe-bartend trained. They go through that training, and you get that sticker. Police are right next door to us.”
For the Oklahoma native, more than another crowded bar, he wants Friends in Low Places to be an environment where everyone feels welcomed, taken care of, and secure.
“I always think of this place as a community, but I understand why it scares some people, because there are more people out there than you can count on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday night,” he admits. “It’s like a city moving on its own out there. So with that comes fear. I’m hoping this is a place that you feel comfortable and safe.”
Friends in Low Places Bar officially opens on March 7 at 7:00 PM. It is located at 411 Broadway, in downtown Nashville. Find more information at FriendsBarNashville.com.