The cozy inside of the Listening Room Cafe is idea for intimate and acoustic sets. to 4 p.m., unless there are special events. The café is now open Mondays and Tuesdays, 7 a.m. Although the space was zoned to be a bar/restaurant, it still took months of application processes to get the required licenses.įinally, the Listening Room Café started its soft opening in January on a three-day-a-week schedule, then quickly went to four days. But the hoops to jump through kept coming. “It seemed super-reasonable,” Briggs recalls. With the help of Leone’s brother, Mike, who owns the building, the team figured on a September 2018 opening. Then Briggs quit her full-time job as event manager at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Spring 2018 to work full time at the new venue. Jewett had to back out because of the overwhelming commitment, but that void was quickly filled by Briggs’ now-husband, James (Jimmy) Leone. The team realized the place would have to be open every day to make back what they needed. But once I ran the numbers, I knew it wouldn’t support itself.” “Joanna had a full-time job and I did, too. “We originally thought we’d be open once or twice a week for events,” Briggs says. However, it was a long road from picking the place to making it functional. O’Leary’s and the Old Parochial League bars. In 2016 they found the perfect location: 443 Burnet Ave., former home of The Barge, Mrs. (Michael Davis/Syracuse New Times)īriggs and Jewett had already found success in shows like Ladies Night at Eastwood’s Palace Theatre, but starting a space from scratch proved to be a major undertaking. I thought, ‘Maybe we should make a room where we can do this.’”Ĥ43 Burnet Ave. “The shows were magical and I thought we should do more of them, but we needed to make them viable. “That series led to a decision to open my own space,” she says. While the concerts were impressive, the results were not profitable. “Two walls were exposed brick and it was a long space,” she explains, which was roomy enough for a portable bar, a few tables and a musical act.īriggs hosted about a half-dozen shows with her business partner, Joanna Jewett, and their production company, Red Shoes Black Bag Productions. A back room that the restaurant rented out for private events proved to be an ideal spot. So Briggs started with “The Listening Room” music series in 2014 at the former Small Plates venue in Armory Square. “Being in that environment and seeing how a successful event comes together influenced me to begin producing my own shows,” she says. She had worked with, and learned from, music producer Stacey Waterman on several concerts. “We pride ourselves on having the best sounding room in Music City as well as food and drink offerings made with the freshest local ingredients.Briggs had a solid background in hospitality, event planning and bar management, so the feat seemed reasonable. “Our goal as a venue is to showcase songs in their purest form as well as offer a great dining experience,” says Blair. The Listening Room has been in its current SoBro (south of Broadway) location for over two years and sits in the heart of an area whose growth has certainly helped put Nashville on recent “it city” lists. Being able to combine his passion for live music with his love of a great meal, Blair set out to create a one-of-a-kind venue that would offer patrons a true Music City experience. The celebration, which is open to the public will take place both inside and outside the venue.Ĭhris Blair founded The Listening Room Cafe in 2006, making a fairly big career shift based on hopes, dreams, and faith. Happy Hour: ($5.50 ticket includes two shows in the Front Bar)Ĥ:00PM: Taylor Austin Dye & Halfway to HazardĨ:30 PM: Eric Van Houten, Heath Warren, Mark Holman Afternoon: ($10 ticket includes two shows)ġ:30PM: Chris Blair, AJ Kross, & Rob Williford
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