The madcap maximalists at Cowboy Creative, the design team behind the Urban Cowboy hospitality brand, are saddling up in Nashville once again with an intimate new mezcal bar.
The Armadillo Lounge is a 500-square-foot saloon dedicated to the smoky agave spirit and situated near downtown Nashville’s Urban Cowboy Bar, the brand’s first standalone drinking den that launched last year.
Urban Cowboy is best known for its eclectic hotels in upstate New York, Nashville and Denver that are brimming with well-sourced vintage Western decor, including carved wooden bears, weathered leather club chairs, Pendleton wool blankets, copper clawfoot bathtubs and other cool cowpoke ephemera.
The 40-seat lounge, envisioned as a red-drenched respite from the hectic Broadway honky tonk strip, is located upstairs in the historic Nashville Arcade and will serve more than 200 bottles of mezcal. The watering hole’s interiors expertly channel the Urban Cowboy aesthetic with handmade terra-cotta tiles, 1960s-era banquettes, vintage Southwestern-style couches and ottomans, a hand-painted mural of two topless bull-women, and a 14-foot-long olive spear that Cowboy Creative’s Lyon Porter found at an antique show in Round Top, Texas.
“This came from a 1970s bar in Miami and is an homage to my partner, Jersey Banks, whose favorite drink is a martini, so I fell in love as soon as I saw it,” Porter tells Maxim, which can exclusively reveal the first Armadillo Lounge images here.
The Nashville mezcal haven was partially inspired by a tiny mezcalería in San Pancho, Mexico called La Baba Del Diablo, or “The Devil’s Drool.” While that wildly evocative name was unfortunately already taken, Porter managed to recycle some of his favorite decorative flourishes into his latest Music City opening.
Cowboy Creative previously designed Ziggurat House, a 1930s-era, Spanish-style gem which recently sold for $2.9 million and set a new Greater Nashville market record for price per square foot. The East Nashville property’s custom patterned tiles were handmade by local artisans at Red Rock Tileworks and also adorn Armadillo Lounge, Porter said.
“I actually finished the house before the bar, and because I was selling that house I wanted a place where I could keep the tile forever,” Porter said. “Somewhere it would be shared with many people, not just the people that come into that house. The Armadillo Lounge is my downtown Nashville home away from home.”
Cowboy Creative is also working on two coastal projects: a cliffside Los Angeles residence and an Urban Cowboy activation at Collective Retreats, the luxury tent getaway on New York City’s Governors Island that will feature a tent tricked out with one of the hotel brand’s signature clawfoot tubs.
While the NYC project capitalizes on striking harbor views and upscale glamping vibes, Armadillo Lounge aims to cater to lovers of fine mezcal and late-night revelry when it opens this fall. “Mezcal is my favorite spirit,” Porter shared. “I wanted to spotlight the drink and re-create the energy of a smaller, more intimate space where one could have a conversation, dance and have fun with either one or twenty friends.”