September 07, 2012
Nashville Business Journal reports: (Read full story here)
New bar revives Broadway eyesore
Steve Smith, owner of the famed Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, had been eyeing the vacated three-story building on the corner of Broadway and Fourth Avenue for nine years.
He’d seen it go from an Irish pub to a shuttered building with rotating owners. When the property went into foreclosure in 2010, he and his partner, Hardin Ross, jumped.
Now, live music flows onto the street from all three floors of the 9,400-square-foot building’s balconies. Honky Tonk Central opened in March, and its business is rivaling other downtown honky-tonks, Smith said.
“It’s doing more business than any of them down there,” Smith said. “Tootsie’s has always done the most business, and it’s doing as good as Tootsie’s, if not better now.”