Broadway between 1st and 5th avenues — known as Lower Broadway, or "Honky Tonk Highway" — is the face of Nashville. The pre-war brick buildings are filled top to bottom with honky-tonks: bars with live country music seven days a week, from late morning to last call, no cover charge. Robert's Western World, Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, Legends Corner, the Stage, and Layla's are the historic core; newer celebrity-branded venues (Jason Aldean's, Kid Rock's, Luke Bryan's) have spread up the block and around the corner.
It is loud, gaudy, and crowded — pedi-cabs, party buses with hot tubs, neon, and the smell of fried food rolling out of every open door. It is also genuinely entertaining and the music is real. Walk the strip in the late afternoon for the lowest-key version; weekend nights are something else entirely.