Official Merle Haggard Museum & Restaurant Coming
Merle Haggard fans will finally have a place they can go to see some of his most cherished mementos, while a new generation of country music fans can discover the legacy of one of the most influential and iconic performers in country music and American history.
Announced Tuesday (10-30), the family of Merle Haggard has partnered with Icon Entertainment Group’s Bill and Shannon Miller, as well as the Swett Family, to launch the Merle Haggard Museum, and accompanying restaurant, “Merle’s Meat + 3 Saloon” in Nashville. The museum and restaurant will be located at 121 Third Ave. S. in Nashville, which is just steps off of the city’s Lower Broadway entertainment district, and right next door to the Johnny Cash museum, where the announcement was made Tuesday afternoon.
“The world lost one of the greatest country singers of all time and I lost the love of my life when Merle Haggard died on his 79th birthday April 6, 2016,” says Theresa Haggard, Merle’s widow. “Now, nearly one and half years later, I have partnered with my friends Bill and Shannon Miller, owners of the acclaimed Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline Museums to open the Merle Haggard Museum. Merle would be very happy knowing that his museum will be next door to his dear friend Johnny Cash. I’m sure he is up there smiling about that. Our family is also very excited about the Merle-themed restaurant and bar featuring first-class, Southern home cooking and a saloon to boot. This museum will be a way to preserve and share the love Merle had for music and life.”
Bill and Shannon Miller also own the Johnny Cash Museum, Nudie’s Honky Tonk, the Patsy Cline Museum, and Skull’s Rainbow Room as well. The Swett Family, which will handle the restaurant portions of the operation, have been running Swett’s Restaurant for 62 years. For those unaware of Southern slang, “Meat +3” is a term used for a restaurant where you choose a meat entree, and three sides to accompany it.
“My family is honored to join with our dear friends, the Haggard family, to bring a new, world-class museum to Nashville,” says Bill Miller, Founder of Icon Entertainment Group. “Merle Haggard is one of the most iconic country music singers and songwriters of all time. Rolling Stone and Billboard magazines both named him the number one country entertainer of all-time. We are very excited to begin the process of designing and building Merle’s museum which will also feature a Southern-style restaurant and saloon bearing his name. We are thrilled to be working with long time Nashville family restaurant operator David Swett, who brings his highly respected expertise to our restaurant. Swett’s opened their doors in 1954 and is still going strong.”
The restaurant will be on the ground floor of the establishment, with the museum on the top floor. It is currently scheduled to open in the summer of 2018.
October 30, 2017 @ 1:45 pm
Awesome
October 30, 2017 @ 1:47 pm
I’ll have the Rainbow Stew and a Bubble Up.
October 30, 2017 @ 2:00 pm
Sounds cool and totally understand why it’s going to be in Nashville but it would be more appropriately located in Bakersfield or Lake Shasta.
To me Merle is the most un-Nashville country music great, even more so than Waylon and Willie.
October 30, 2017 @ 3:28 pm
Yeah, I’m glad it’s in Nashville because I live here, but it seems more appropriate (although less financially viable in Bakersfield or Shasta, somewhere with more ties to Haggard. Maybe the old trouts building, but again it will make a lot more money, and be seen by a lot more people in Nashville.
October 30, 2017 @ 3:32 pm
Yep, that’s why I understand them putting it in Nashville. It’s where the most potential customers are and that is the most important thing in the end.
October 30, 2017 @ 4:05 pm
Having lived just an hour or two from the Redding/Shasta area for many years and traveled through there and visited countless times, the idea of putting a museum/restaurant like this in that area is unfeasible, and would doom it to fail. People don’t go there with expendable cash to eat Southern food and delve into country music history. I understand Haggard is more closely connected to that area and everything and it would be a romantic notion, but it just wouldn’t work. It is perfect on lower Broadway in an area that is constantly getting pumped with cash and tourists who are there very specifically to go to museums and indulge in Southern cooking.
Also, anyone who has been to Bakersfield also knows it would be an uphill battle for a concept like this, though probably better than Shasta/Redding.
What they need in the Shasta/Redding area is a memorial, like a statue, or something similar to what they’re doing in Folsom with Johnny Cash, which is christening an overpass that looks like the Folsom guard towers, and a memorial part with statues and other things commemorating Cash’s legacy. That way people can stop and show their respects if they’re in the area, but it’s not dependent on a constant flow of cash to keep the doors open and the rent paid. Bakersfield already has Merle’s boyhood home set up at the county museum, as well as as a major thoroughfare named after him. You can have a museum in Nashville, and still do other things to preserve Merle’s legacy in California.
October 30, 2017 @ 4:16 pm
Oh I know I’ve been to Lake Shasta many times and wasn’t really saying it would be more successful there just that Merle is more identified with California than Nashville. Bakersfield maybe could work as I seem to remember they have done some stuff honoring him (maybe a street or something I remember seeing when I was there a few years ago) in the past.
My hope for these types of museums is always that they are respectful and successful as that is good for everyone.
October 30, 2017 @ 4:12 pm
It would be nice to have it here in the City of Shasta Lake, but honestly we’re not much of a town, LOL. Something on Lake Shasta would be cool, but that’s all government ground.
The corner of Cypress and Pine in nearby Redding would be a darn good spot. Easy access from the freeway for I-5 pilgrims. But there’s already a restaurant there. Lulu’s, a favorite of Merle’s.
If Teresa and the family want a Nashville joint, good for them.
October 31, 2017 @ 10:44 am
Buck Owens Crystal Palace in Bakersfield is always a good time. They have a convertible mounted to the bar wall that Buck apparently won from Elvis in a poker game. ‘Nuff said.
October 30, 2017 @ 2:27 pm
Plenty of decent places to eat in Nashville Bakersfield could use something a bit more real than Buck’s Crystal Palace. Maybe near that wonderful Mexican seafood place, Mariscos Puerto Vallarta. Make the south end of Bakersfield a destination.
October 30, 2017 @ 2:33 pm
Merle hated Nashville. Didn’t even like playing here. This would have never have happened while he was alive.
October 30, 2017 @ 3:17 pm
He may have disliked Nashville. But it was Cash who made him start a career as
professional singer. So I think It’s was a good decision. Besides the museum will
probably also get more visiters, than it would get in Bakersfield.Since almost all other museums related to country music is located there
October 30, 2017 @ 3:23 pm
Good points Kent. Personally I love the Cash museum. Seeing Luther Perkins guitar and amp gives me goose bumps. Bill Miller was a close friend of the Cash family. As for Haggard, yeah California is more true to him but Nashville will bring the people. And new generations should learn the legacy of Hag. As for the restaraunt, eh …not so much, seems like a greedy money grab.
October 30, 2017 @ 4:07 pm
The Cash museum is VERY well organized and operated, much better than all the drama that has dogged the George Jones museum/restaurant. We still will have to see how everything turns out, but from who is involved, this is a good sign.
October 31, 2017 @ 5:59 pm
The new owners have done a great job with the Jones museum. Great bar, solid music and solid museum. Problem is it got a rough start and Jones doesn’t have an “image” like cash. Cash legacy and image have been handled perfectly, better so than even his music. People go to see cash because of image. If the owners of the cash museum gave a damn about country music then they would have better music than the bull shit they play in nudies honky tonk.
October 31, 2017 @ 6:26 pm
In the downtown area, I’ll put the music at The George Jones up against anyone. It’s right there with Roberts and Layla’s. Oh and Jones is the greatest country singer who has ever breathed. All substance and soul in the music, fuck an image.
October 30, 2017 @ 7:14 pm
If they really wanted to honor Merle, they would sink Nashville to the bottom of Lake Shasta…
October 30, 2017 @ 10:30 pm
I love the Johnny Cash Museum so I’m excited. Nashville does make sense as it’s right next the CMHoF and all the rest of the country music shrines. And I get to go see it easily. 🙂