Tootsie's Orchid Lounge

The purple-painted building on Lower Broadway behind the Ryman has been a working-musician bar since 1960 and is the most storied of all the Nashville honky-tonks. The ground floor is a narrow, packed room with a small stage at the back; two more floors of bars and live music stack above. Live country bands play from 10 a.m. to last call, every day, no cover.

The walls are papered with autographed photos of the artists who drank, wrote, and sang here. Despite its fame, Tootsie's remains a real bar — the beer is cold, the band tip jar is the only money the musicians make, and the music is louder and rawer than at the more polished celebrity venues down the strip.

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A story
Tootsie's back door opens onto an alley that runs directly to the Ryman Auditorium's stage door. Through the 1960s and 70s, Grand Ole Opry musicians — Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Patsy Cline, Roger Miller — would slip across the alley between sets to drink. The bar's matriarch, Tootsie Bess, ran tabs for unknown songwriters and was repaid in royalties when their songs hit.