Sinatra Bar and Lounge brings Ol' Blue Eyes' cool, relaxed ambiance to downtown Nashville

Before the April 14 opening of the new Printer's Alley bar, speakeasy and restaurant Sinatra Bar and Lounge, the Chairman of the Board's most logical connection to Music City is that he played a tour date with the Count Basie Orchestra at the Grand Ole Opry on May 10, 1976.

In 1976, downtown Nashville was in the throes of a crime-ridden era where legendary classic storefront honkytonks shared real estate with pawnshops, peep shows, and seedy pool halls.

Liner notes for a 2020-released remastered bootleg of the performance state, "Frank did disparage Nashville as being 'beneath him.' At best, he was complimentary of the new Grand Ole Opry House as a performance hall."

However, in 2023, Nashville bears many modern evolutions ridding the city of its hackneyed, sleepy reputation. Thus, imagine the bar as a retro-fitted place, anachronistic, contemporary to modern times and repairing "Ol' Blue Eyes'" relationship with Tennessee's capital city.

Had it existed in 1976, the new bar and lounge most certainly would've been where Sinatra would've likely headed back downtown after his set out off Briley Parkway.

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"He would've probably sat in a corner booth here and had a steak dinner and martini," says the building and business owner, Icon Entertainment Group CEO Bill Miller, to The Tennessean while touring the space on a Tuesday afternoon.

Since 2017, Icon Entertainment Group has owned the 184-year-old Southern Turf building where Siantra's is located. It also houses the iconic, seven-decade-old Skull's Rainbow Room (owned by Icon Entertainment Group) in its basement facing Printer's Alley.

Also in Icon's Lower Broadway real estate portfolio are the Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline Museums, Nudie's Honky Tonk, the Johnny Cash Bar and BBQ, plus the House of Cards bar.

For Icon's CEO Bill Miller, the venue's connection to Sinatra's love of fast living was important to manipulate the building's history to showcase how it could seamlessly be connected to the legend in its restoration.

"At the turn of the century, many 'proper' ladies would cross the street [upon encountering the building]," jokes Miller.

Six decades after it was initially built, the Southern Turf opened as a gambling hall, hotel and saloon from 1895-1914, closing as a result of Tennessee's prohibition laws. The business skirted the era's temperance movement by offering imported beers and liquors -- notably whiskey for consumption outside the hall.

Intriguingly enough, Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1915 -- just one year after the Southern Turf business' closure.

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Miller's a Palm Springs, California, area native. Thus, his lifelong fandom of the iconic performer is initially tied to the performer earning his first millions by the 1940s and wanting to settle into Twin Palms, a "desert modern"-style home. Still standing, its website offers a fascinating note connecting Palm Springs' timeless essence and modern Music City.

"When Frank Sinatra arrived in Palm Springs in the 1940s, he brought allure and sex appeal to the formerly sleepy town. Soon after, Palm Springs became the ultimate destination for jet setters and Hollywood royalty."

He's also a fan of New York City, crafting a vibe similar to Upper Midtown Manhattan's Polo Bar or P.J. Clarke's -- an upscale bar Sinatra adored in a building nearly as old as when Southern Turf opened in 1895 -- was essential. Its raw bar and martinis have migrated south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Also, Midtown haunt Patsy's Restaurant -- Sinatra's favorite Italian dining destination in Manhattan, on the upper west side, just south of Central Park, is reflected in the menu.

"Recreating those types of environment in Nashville is a daunting task," Miller continues.

However, they leveraged their partnership with Frank Sinatra Enterprises (FSE) for the venue to procure portraits of Sinatra with his friends and family, plus Cubist and Impressionist-inspired paintings made by Sinatra in his free time over the decades at his private Palm Springs studio to showcase on the walls.

"Sinatra's legacy is authentically respected here -- but we're not going to have his stagewear and trophies highlighted in here. Instead, we want to give the customer a sense of what it was like the be around and with Frank," says Miller.

The venue was announced as opening nearly four years ago. However, COVID-19 slowed the difficult, delicate renovations needed to evolve the former saloon and home to the Tennessee Publishing Company into a two-level space.

"We had incredible architecture and engineering plans, but once we started refurbishing the space, it was like putting a 110-year-old person on an operating table and without X-rays, cutting in, removing what we thought was a floor beam, but instead we can see Skull's Rainbow Room below us," says Miller with a smile.

Nashville hosts nearly 20 million tourists annually, and about 100 people are moving to Music City daily. Many of the city's new residents arrive from New York and California.

Sinatra's is a bar whose time has arrived in the heart of the American South.

"This is a three-olive martini place where we serve Jack Daniels No. 7, traditional Italian staples and steakhouse fare, but is also opening in a city where the population and tourism are growing and competitively, there's a new restaurant opening daily, it seems," says Miller.

Thus, dishes like Iberico Secreto -- a cut of marinated and pan-fried Spanish Iberian pork garnished with salsa verde, arugula and Meyer lemon, join a spiced and poached pear appetizer with ricotta cheese and brown butter, various premium cuts of steak priced between $60-$120, a 15-page cocktail menu, plus the ability to build your own martini (gin or vodka, vermouth, 10 different olive choices and various garnishes) as offerings.

The live music of the Sinatra and his "Rat Pack" friends variety will also be featured daily in the space.

Though Miller -- while seated at a stately black piano -- promises that no country music will be played in the space, the venue's April 14 soft opening will feature SiriusXM's Siriusly Sinatra presenting a live special featuring multi-award-winning country superstar and Grand Ole Opry member Trisha Yearwood performing selections from Yearwood's 2019 tribute album "Let's Be Frank" and other Sinatra tracks from 6-8 p.m. CST.

"Like Johnny Cash, Frank Sinatra's cool, relaxed and feel-good ambiance -- as a person and brand -- represents a relatable aesthetic and artistic appeal that transcends generations," says Miller.

"From international tourists arriving daily to that couple in Belle Meade that says 'they don't go downtown anymore,' Sinatra's is an exciting place that everyone should want to visit that also enhances Nashville's emerging world-class reputation."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Sinatra Bar and Lounge brings cool, relaxed ambiance to Nashville