How The Bluebird Café — an 86-Seat Room in a Strip Mall — Became Country’s Proving Ground

Trending on Billboard People have tried bribing their way into The Bluebird Cafe. For an independent venue tucked away in a Nashville strip mall, The Bluebird has folks trying to get in at all hours of the day just to get a peak at the storied space that has been instrumental in the careers of giants like Garth Brooks, Taylor Swift and many more. “I would be counting money on a Sunday morning and people would be banging on the door having to get in,” says Bluebird Cafe COO and GM Erika Wollam Nichols. “When I wouldn’t let them in, they came around the back and started waiving $20 bills at me and I’m like, ‘No!’” Related The enthusiasm would seem outsized for an 86-capacity club five miles outside of downtown Nashville that hasn’t seen much renovation beyond sound system upgrades and regularly changing the carpet. But – like many independent venues that have survived the turbulent live music industry for more than four decades – its allure is in the lore. Before any stars graced the stage, The Bluebird Cafe was a 100-seat restaurant opened by Amy Kurland in a former drugstore turned poolhall in 1982. According to Wollam
Read More