"That area is just so noisy now,” says George Gruhn of Gruhn Guitars’ former longtime location at 400 Broadway in downtown Nashville. “It felt like a cross between Bourbon Street and Daytona Beach during Spring Break. It was great as far as sales tax revenue for the city, but it’s not the ideal place for selling guitars. It’s the ideal place for selling beer, bar-b-que, and Western Wear. Also, parking is nearly impossible anywhere near that block. It can be as much as $20 to park on a regular day and as much as $40 on ‘event days.’ Locals were beginning to avoid the store.”
Such ruckus and other related issues are no longer a concern for the storied guitar dealer, which celebrated a grand opening at 2120 Eighth Avenue South earlier this summer. While the new digs aren’t nearly as immediately accessible to the casual tourist, that doesn’t seem to be negatively affecting business – and also has some upsides as a result. Not only was the parking lot completely full at the new location when MMR dropped by to visit with George at 11 a.m. on a recent Wednesday, but at 400 Broadway: “The people coming through the door were 95 percent folks who did not come to us as a destination, but would get in the neighborhood and go in and out of every door. Here we have 45 parking places, we have an 18,000 square-foot building, and we have better floor layout that’s custom-done to suit us.”
Gruhn Guitars’ first opened in Nashville back in 1970 along Fourth Avenue. Four years later, the operation moved to the Broadway location where it remained until this June – during which time it gained worldwide recognition as one of (perhaps the) premier outlet for vintage and high-end guitars and related gear (though Gruhn does stock a select number of new instruments, as well).
“Moving wasn’t an easy decision,” Gruhn concedes. It’s unquestionably the end of an era and there’s certainly plenty that would (on the surface, anyway) make the previous spot on Broadway’s honky-tonk strip seem ideal – proximity to famed destinations such as the Ryman Auditorium, Ernest Tubb’s, and Robert’s Western World, and the resultant guaranteed foot-traffic – but the change in the neighborhood’s character in recent years was enough to serve as a catalyst for George to make the big move. “My entire career up until this point had been spent within 100-foot radius of the previous store. But we’re now only 10 minutes away from downtown, this is an up-and-coming neighborhood, and the new facility is more suited to our needs. It took no more than three days in the new location to realize that it was the right move.”
Specifically, the 2120 Building features a customer-friendly showroom on the first floor, an additional showroom on the second floor that houses more high-end items and administrative offices, a third floor which serves as the new repair shop, and a 45-car (free) customer parking lot. All of this is the result of a comprehensive $500,000-plus building renovation.
“We now have ample space and the instruments are all visible at eye-level,” notes Gruhn. “We didn’t use to have the physical space to display everything that we had. Now everything that’s for sale is on display. You can see it, there’s room to try it out, and the staff can wait on you if you want the help or leave you alone if you don’t.
“We’re happier here.”
