Trisha Yearwood Leverages Family Favorites for Menu at Friends in Low Places Nashville Venue
Nashville, the city of country music, has welcomed to Broadway a new entrant into its thriving hospitality scene. Friends in Low Places, a bar and honky-tonk owned by renowned country singer and Food Network host Trisha Yearwood and her legendary music artist husband Garth Brooks, opened its doors earlier this month. While the bar pays homage to their musical careers with a décor designed by Garth’s tour production crew, a unique highlight is a menu peppered with Yearwood’s personal touch.
The Bar, The Music and The Culinary Journey
With an impressive 54,715 square feet, Friends in Low Places is the largest venue on Broadway. Boasting Garth Brook’s regalia, visitors are enveloped in a space designed by his tour production crew featuring open bars with massive LED screens, tour-grade lighting setups, and two-story-tall artificial palm trees. A signature stage repurposed from Brooks’s historic 1997 Central Park concert adds to the atmosphere in a big way.
However, Trisha Yearwood’s vital contribution brings a whole new aromatic dimension to the venue. Yearwood, known for her cooking prowess, has carefully curated a menu rich with her favorite family dishes. While she initially hesitated about stepping into Nashville’s hospitality scene, she found a personal connection in the endeavor, noting, “You can’t have a Garth Brooks bar and not have Trisha food in it.”
A Family-Inspired Menu
Yearwood’s menu at the bar includes some of her family’s all-time favorite dishes. Highlights are Jack’s Smoked BBQ Chicken Wings, inspired by her father’s recipe, and tributes to her mother with dishes like Mama’s Meatloaf, and Gwen’s Fried Chicken and White Gravy. Not leaving out sweet memories from her nuptials, there’s also G&T’s wedding cake, based on the sour cream pound cake her mother made for their wedding.
The experience of sharing her family recipies moved Yearwood, who said, “Every time we did a tasting, we were sitting in a room with 10 people tasting my mom’s meatloaf. It was so bizarre to me…Like the cookbooks and the show, getting to share my family memories and those recipes with everybody is exciting.”
Culinary Charm Meets Southern Hospitality
A part of the bar’s third floor has been designated Trisha’s Kitchen, a rentable space epitomizing Southern hospitality with a stately country manor kitchen design. Yearwood plans on using this intimate space to test new recipes and host events. The venue offers exclusive menu selections for banquets and events, featuring some of Yearwood’s signature dishes not available in the bar, such as her jalapeno hush puppies.
Among the wide array of her selections, Yearwood’s chicken tenders deserve a special mention. These entrees, inspired by her husband’s fondness for this popular bar staple, can be enjoyed throughout the venue, including ‘The Oasis’, the rooftop bar that boasts a beachy vibe, indoor and outdoor seating, and two full bars.
“We really want to be the place on Lower Broadway where you go to have a cocktail and watch the game, but also you’re going to have the best chicken tenders and steak fries you’ve ever had,” Yearwood says. “It has such a great, comfortable vibe, and I think that’s because everything is curated by us. It’s personal, and I’m just so happy with it.”
