69°F
weather icon Windy

John Rich’s Redneck Riviera to open in Las Vegas before National Finals Rodeo

If John Rich can’t find a place to hang out on the Strip, he will just have to build one.

The Nashville star says he decided to expand his Redneck Riviera apparel imprint into a Las Vegas music club after he kept having to ask a concierge or a bellman, “Hey man, where can I find a great live country band on a Tuesday night?”

“I want to get up and play with somebody. I want to hear some guys pick and really play. I realize that was a real underserved thing in Las Vegas,” says the singer best known as half of Big & Rich.

The music club will debut later this year in front of Bally’s, at the Grand Bazaar Shops. Rich says he would like to see the 400- to 500-capacity club open in time for the Dec. 1-10 National Finals Rodeo. A Nashville counterpart will open soon after the Las Vegas location.

The second-floor club will have retractable doors to an open-air patio. “Everybody walking by and going to the Grand Bazaar will hear live country music. Real human beings playing real country music, blasting out through those windows. Not unlike Nashville, not unlike Austin, Dallas, places like that, where you can walk around and hear that energy,” he says.

Gilley’s Las Vegas at Treasure Island and Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill at Harrah’s Las Vegas both offer live country most nights. But Rich says his honky-tonk will be more heavily branded as a live club. “There’s so many restaurants in Vegas. I wanted to focus in on the music, the atmosphere,” he says.

The club will have menus from the Wahlburgers eatery beneath it, with servers delivering the Wahlberg family’s reality-TV fare “right to where you’re sitting.”

Most nights will offer a house band, but “many, many times during the year there will be name-brand artists with hit songs coming through and playing,” Rich says. “Don’t forget, I’m friends with everybody.”

“I intend on being out there a lot. I’ll be a regular,” he adds.

The club will also feature the Heroes Bar, staffed by veterans and offering the first drink free to active-duty military and veterans. “I hope they drink me out of beer every night,” Rich says.

Rich, 42, says he has sold “thousands and thousands” of Redneck Riviera-branded boots and related apparel in the past three years in his partnership with Acumen Brands’ Country Outfitter.

“Redneck Riviera” has become more closely associated with Biloxi, Mississippi, and the Gulf Coast since casinos sprouted there. But Rich says it was “a phrase I’ve used my entire life,” and a definition he extends all the way to Lake Havasu, Arizona.

“I’d never seen it really marketed or turned into anything. It was just kind of something you said,” he explained of the curiosity that started him researching the phrase’s trademark availability.

Read more from Mike Weatherford at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com and follow @Mikeweatherford on Twitter.

Don't miss the big stories. Like us on Facebook.
THE LATEST
What is Las Vegas’ Brewery Row?

The Brewery Row concept was introduced as another way to make the Arts District area near Downtown Las Vegas stand out by offering many different beer options.