Nudie's Honky Tonk runs more than 100 feet of bar down a century old building at 409 Broadway, the longest bar in Nashville and one of the simplest places on Lower Broadway to lose an afternoon to live country music. The bar top is embedded with 9,465 silver dollars, a detail Visit Music City flags as the single most photographed surface in the room.
Anyone who came to Nashville for honky tonk in its loudest, most maximal form will find it here across three floors and three stages. Anyone hoping for a quiet seat and a measured cocktail should keep walking to a smaller room. This is a music first, memorabilia heavy operation built for volume.
The space carries the name and the wardrobe of Nudie Cohn, the rhinestone tailor who dressed Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Roy Rogers and the gold lame suit Elvis Presley wore. Original costumes and rare country artifacts line the walls across the three stories, and the top floor opens onto a rooftop deck with its own stage and a view down Broadway. Bands rotate from late morning until the small hours, which keeps the energy steady rather than building to a single peak.
The drink to order is a cold longneck or a bucket of domestics, because the music is the product and the kitchen and taps are priced for a Broadway crowd rather than a cocktail program. There is no cover charge, in keeping with the Broadway honky tonk tradition, so the working musicians play for tips. Regulars on Yelp, where the bar carries hundreds of reviews, repeat one piece of advice more than any other, which is to tip the band every set.
Daytime skews toward tourists and bachelorette groups working the strip, while the rooftop stays the calmer choice when the ground floor fills on weekend nights. The most rewarding window is a weekday afternoon, when a strong band often plays to a half full room and the silver dollar bar is easy to reach.
The history is the reason to look up rather than only out. Visit Music City describes a collection of rare country artifacts spread across the three stories, from stage suits to instruments, which turns a walk to the rooftop into a slow climb past glass cases. The result reads more like a country museum with a bar attached than a standard Broadway shell.
Google Maps reviewers, reading across the pattern of recent ratings, return to a few consistent notes. The live bands and the silver dollar bar draw the warmest comments, the costume displays get the most photos, and the main complaint is the weekend wait to reach the upper floors. The same reviewers point first time visitors to the rooftop for air and a clearer line on the band.
On taps and bottles the program stays simple and cold, with domestic drafts, longnecks and shareable buckets rather than a cocktail card. The kitchen runs standard Broadway bar food, which most reviewers treat as fuel between sets rather than the reason to come. Getting in is easy on a weekday and slower after dark, when a doorman manages the flow on the ground floor.
The smartest plan is to start early and work upward, catching a daytime band downstairs before claiming a rail spot on the roof as the evening turns over. By midnight the building runs at full tilt across all three stages, which is the experience many visitors want and a few find too much.
It suits a first trip down the honky tonk strip, a group that wants three stages under one roof, and anyone tracking down the Nudie Cohn costume history. For a tighter, more traditional room a few doors along, pair it with Robert's Western World in Nashville or the older Tootsie's Orchid Lounge in Nashville, and see where it lands in our guide to the best live music bars in Nashville.
Sources: Nudie's Honky Tonk official site (2026); Visit Music City business listing; Yelp reviews (n=427+); 117 Entertainment Group venue page.