Belt buckles meet the Big Apple as Opry City Stage opens in Times Square

NEW YORK — There’s a room that mimics the Bluebird Café, a retro WSM 650 neon sign, photos and memorabilia of country music legends, and even stained-glass windows like those in the Ryman Auditorium.

But this vast country music collection, which provides the ambiance of the Grand Ole Opry for two music stages, dinner tables and multiple bars, isn’t in Nashville.

Instead the four-floor venue is sandwiched between a Sbarro Pizza and M&M World on Broadway in the middle of bustling Times Square in New York.

Opry City Stage is its name, and it’s the latest component of an ambitious entertainment strategy from Opry Entertainment that Ryman Hospitality believes will increase leisure tourists coming to Nashville.

The 28,000 square-foot venue — billed as the place (perhaps the only place) to see country music in New York — opened on Dec. 1. Trace Adkins has already stopped by for a surprise performance. And on Friday morning, country start Luke Bryan performed a pop-up show from the venue’s main stage for ABC’s Good Morning America. The first headline concert, LOCASH, is slated for New Year’s Eve.

Although country music isn’t exactly synonymous with New York, Opry executives are convinced their audience will be twofold: local New Yorkers, who have lacked options to watch country, and the millions of tourists who visit Times Square each year.

“One of the benefits of New York City is we have country music fans who are underserved in the largest city in America,” said Dan Rogers, director of marketing and program development for Opry Entertainment. “And you have people from around the world walking by these front doors all day long, everyday.

“It’s going to be a mix based upon the day and based upon the programming.”

Ryman expanding live entertainment venues

The opening of Opry City Stage comes as Ryman is planning an expansion that will bring similar venues into other cities.

Ryman Hospitality President and Chief Financial Officer Mark Fioravanti said announcements on more more live entertainment venues are expected in 2018.

In addition to Opry City Stage, the company rolled out its Blake Shelton-inspired honky tonk Ole Red in his home town of Tishomingo, Oklahoma earlier this year. An Ole Red in downtown Nashville will open in 2018 as well.

With Opry City Stage, Fioravanti said the hope is to create an experience that inspires tourists to visit Nashville, where country music fans will in turn visit the Grand Ole Opry, or a concert at the Ryman Auditorium or one of its other local offerings.

With over 40 million people per year walking past the venue's front door, there's an unprecedented opportunity to immerse fans in the history and culture of the Opry, Fioravanti said.

"The notion here is that we have this 90-plus-year-old brand that has a singular location in Nashville," Fioravanti said. "We believe the opportunity here is to create distribution through these live entertainment venues, and provide people with a slice of southern hospitality, country music and the history and legacy of the Grand Ole Opry.

"With that experience, that give them the incentive to want to come and visit Nashville."

The company pumped roughly $14 million into the project.

Fioravanti said Ryman Hospitality believes there's a chance to expand Opry City Stage internationall as well.

In Times Square, Opry City Stage, which replaced a night club that closed years ago, to be a place where both up-and-comers and superstars can perform. They think the latter will drop in during the many visits to New York that country artists make for media appearances.

“It’s an exciting time for us,” Rogers said. “So much has happened in country music over the past five years. So much has happened with the Opry and Opry Entertainment in the past years. This is absolutely just the beginning. I see 2018 and '19 being years with a lot of growth and a lot of announcements to come.”

A trip to the Opry City Stage begins with a walk into a gift shop that’s not unlike those at the Ryman or the Grand Ole Opry. Visitors can come for a show, or a casual burger and drink.

The top floor features a small ticketed concert room that is supposed to feel intimate like the famous Bluebird Café — made even more famous by its references in the TV show “Nashville.” This is where Ryman executives believe they’ll find a regular local audience.

Employees charged with launching the new venue said they sought to bring in the “Opry culture,” both in style and decor as well as staff — minus the Southern accents found in Nashville.

Hallways and staircases are dotted with gold records, plates, banners, hatch prints, as well as photos of Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, Keith Urban, Randy Travis, Dierks Bentley and other greats. There’s a wall celebrating great Opry moments. The detail is even in the wallpaper, which has a the Opry City Stage/New York logo.

A massive Opry City Stage sign, made of some 10,000 guitar picks, hangs on one large wall of the venue.

Stain glass windows recall Ryman Auditorium

Views of the main stage — very much the centerpiece of the venue, where visitors will also have to buy tickets to watch — includes second- and third floor balconies. The stage itself is flanked by television screens that will show live satellite performances from the actual Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.

Green rooms for performers of the Opry City Stage are based on those in the Grand Old Opry that were remodeled following the flood of 2010. And as they perform on stage, musicians will look into an audience and backdrop of four stained-glass windows. For a second, they might think they’re at the Ryman.

Though Opry City Stage currently opens at 6 p.m., patrons will be able to get breakfast, lunch and dinner and see live music any time of the day beginning in 2018.

Food includes some Southern Staples: Nashville hot chicken and waffles, Memphis meatloaf, catfish and chips, shrimp and grits, burgers, including one called the Tennessean and other named the Titan, barbecue.

And on the spirits list, there’s a long list of different whiskeys.

As country music fans leave, they will walk under an oversized replica of the famous Ernest Tubb guitar that reads “Thanks” on the back of the instrument.

“See you in Nashville,” large block letters read below.

Reach Joey Garrison at 615-259-8236, jgarrison@tennessean.com