Old Dominion to open midtown Nashville bar and venue, Odie's, in 2024

Old Dominion's two decades in Nashville has led the six-time Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association Group of the Year back to where it all started.

Hanging out with free-spirited guitar-pickers and songwriters on 19th and Division Street on Music Row.

Yes, Old Dominion is getting into the Music City bar business.

Unlike so many entertainers with Nashville ties, the band is doing so away from Lower Broadway.

The pop-country stalwarts behind a new album titled "Memory Lane" and previous chart-topping country hits "One Man Band" and "I Was On A Boat That Day" will open Odie's, a Midtown bar/music venue, next year at the 3,200-square-foot former Midtown location of Music City favorite ReBar — 1919 Division St.

The band is doing so with the aid of restauranteur Ty Hauter and his 17-year-old Nashville and San Diego-based Good Times Design hospitality and entertainment group.

In a press release, Odie's — which will be located near other watering holes such as the Red Door Saloon and Losers and Winners — is cited as desiring to continue to "embody the creative spirit of early 21st century Music Row."

Paying it forward

The decision for the band to expand its brand into the bar and entertainment space was a group decision.

Old Dominion's Trevor Rosen is a longtime friend of Hauter, the Good Time Design CEO. Rosen often reminisced with him about how much he enjoyed playing a decade ago at Hauter's Moonshine Flats and Moonshine Beach Restaurants in San Diego.

This was concurrent to several conversations Rosen had with fellow Old Dominion members Matthew Ramsey and Brad Tursi about wanting to rekindle the spirit of the country music industry before it dovetailed a half-decade ago with Nashville's tourism boom.

When similarly queried about Hauter, Ramsey, Rosen and Tursi's conversations, the band's bassist, Geoff Sprung, and drummer Whit Sellers recalled how much they missed the Midtown scene in which their group was founded.

"(Odie's will) be a place where a group of songwriters who might have a band, or someone starting out, might be able to be part of a writers thing and get heard," Rosen said. "You know, pay it forward because all these years later, we know it works.

" "That's much better than just a temple to who we think we are."

He continued. "(Odies's is) a bar like the places we went to when we were just having our first cuts, hanging out with other writers."

ReBar's history, Hauter's revival, more

In 2009, Nashville businesswoman Rhonda Russell — herself having arrived in Nashville's Midtown in 1991 as a Longhorn Steakhouse bartender — opened ReBar amid the growth of country's mainstream mega-boom at the turn of the 2010s when acts such as Old Dominion were beginning their evolution from seasoned Music Row songwriters to label acts preparing for mainstream renown.

Spaces like ReBar served as a meeting point.

In May 2022, the Nashville Post reported that 1919 Division Street sold for $7 million to Lonesome Ten Miles LLC, which Hauter manages.

In the past two decades, Hauter's San Diego and Nashville-based work has seen him partner with MTV, as well as Blake Shelton, Ziggy Marley, Pink, Tiesto and more. For the past decade, his work has focused mainly on country music via hosting performances by Old Dominion, Morgan Wallen, Jon Pardi, Cody Johnson and Luke Combs.

Alongside Odie's and San Diego's previously mentioned Moonshine Flats and Moonshine Beach, Hauter's Good Time Design's portfolio touches Nashville via Germantown's Sonny's Patio Pub and Refuge, Downtown's Cerveza Jack's Mexican restaurant and cantina and Front Street Tavern in Westhaven Town Center in nearby Franklin.

Via a press release, 2024 could see more local and national expansion by Hauter, including a mixed-use development project in Music City's Germantown neighborhood, plus a "large-scale music venue expansion" into Las Vegas.

For more information on all things Old Dominion, visit http://www.weareolddominion.com.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville bars: Country music group Old Dominion to open Odie's