Bill Miller
When Bill and Shannon Miller opened their first project in Nashville, the Johnny Cash Museum, it came thanks to Bill’s lifelong connection to and admiration of the Man in Black. In the decade since, the Millers and their Icon Entertainment have transformed Nashville’s entertainment offerings, adding the Patsy Cline Museum and Nudie’s Honky Tonk, renovating the storied Skull’s Rainbow Room, and launching the magic-themed House of Cards.
In April, Icon Entertainment will open its newest venture, Sinatra Bar and Lounge, inside the Southern Turf Building, which the company owns. The 1880s-built building, with its ornamental stonework, will continue to be home to Skull’s on its lower level, facing Printers Alley, plus the new Fourth Avenue North Sinatra Bar and Lounge and six upper-level Southern Turf Lofts. The fourth floor will house a private membership club; members will have preferred access to all of the Icon Entertainment venues.
“These artists appear once in many lifetimes,” Bill says of his forthcoming establishment’s namesake. At first blush, Sinatra Bar and Lounge might seem like a departure for Icon Entertainment — the Italian American sang with swing bands and in Las Vegas residencies. But Sinatra played the Grand Ole Opry in 1973 (with none other than Count Basie), and at one point in Nashville’s history, there was an effort to give Sinatra a key to the city. Even so, he certainly didn’t have the Music City DNA of Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Nudie Cohn or David “Skull” Schulman.
Getting to this point wasn’t as easy as watching for Sinatra-themed goods on auction sites. It started when Bill and Shannon were brainstorming their next project. “Wouldn’t it be great to have a Sinatra-themed venue?” they mused. It seemed like a long shot. They didn’t have any personal connections to the Chairman of the Board, although Bill, a California native, remembered when his father met Ol’ Blue Eyes in Palm Springs. Bill sees similarities between Sinatra and Cash, and the ways in which they interacted with their fans.
“The more I dug into Sinatra, and especially when I talked to people that really knew him, I realized that both Johnny and Sinatra had this incredible respect and love for their fans and they both had the ‘without them, there’s no me’ attitude,” he says. “What I loved and admired about Johnny was that connection he had to his roots, and to the fans and the people that helped him get to where he is. It just became more and more apparent that Sinatra could be something that I could really develop a passion for. That’s happened in a big way.”
In addition to being a singer, Sinatra was a painter, and Bill bought one of his paintings at auction after the deal went through. One of Bill’s particular passions is searching for historic artifacts. Memorabilia he has collected was the basis of the Johnny Cash Museum and Patsy Cline Museum, Nudie’s and House of Cards. So there’s no surprise that he’s seizing the Rat Pack vibes with similar items — yes, he already found ticket stubs and a program from that aforementioned Opry show.
Bill is tenacious and had a track record of working respectfully with the families of other celebrities, so he started reaching out. It took him much longer than he expected to find a contact and even longer to hear back. And when he and Shannon finally were able to meet with Tina Sinatra, the singer’s youngest daughter, the team said, “We don’t like to do museums, and we don’t do restaurants.”
Seeing as how those projects are exactly what Icon Entertainment does, Bill wasn’t optimistic. “It was like a knife through the heart,” he remembers. But the lines of communication stayed open, and about seven months later Tina came to Nashville to tour Icon Entertainment’s properties.
“It didn’t go well,” Bill says. Not due to the venues themselves, but the weather was gloomy and rainy and Broadway was particularly loud and rowdy. “Nashville was not on its best behavior,” Bill says. When Tina left, Bill and Shannon were resigned — they’ve also been in business long enough to know that not every deal goes through. So they were surprised when they got a call the next week saying the project was a go. That was in part because the Sinatra team admired the Millers’ tenacity and their attention to detail. It’s not unusual to encounter a Cash or Cline family member at one of their other museums, and that’s a level of support that’s hard to fake. “We take legacy licenses seriously,” Bill says.
The Millers had been holding on to the Southern Turf building — which Bill considers “one of Nashville’s grand dames” — for just the right project. “We don’t open businesses just to open them,” Bill says.
The couple started a renovation process that included more than $1 million in custom-milled mahogany and brass work. The idea is for a restaurant space that won’t seat more than 150 people at a time — intimate, but not tiny. “Eating dinner should not feel like a spectator sport,” Bill says. The private club will be furnished with period antiques and multiple fireplaces beneath its 14-foot ceilings.
There will be a dress code — no flip-flops or shorts, but not the jackets-required level of House of Cards. The team is shooting for “a cozy, warm feeling like the places Frank used to visit,” says Bill. “We want you to feel like Frank is sitting in a corner booth.” The menu will include Italian food and steaks, plus cocktails such as martinis with three olives, Tom Collinses and Manhattans. The sound system will play Rat Pack-style music daily, with live music on the weekends.
Even as Sinatra Bar and Lounge is not yet open, the Icon Entertainment group is not sitting idle. The Millers’ three sons work in the company in different capacities. Two of them live in East Nashville and made a pitch to open something more low-key, a neighborhood bar. That first project outside of downtown is planned for the former Southern Grist location in East Nashville at the intersection of Porter Road and Greenwood Avenue.
None of the family members have formal hospitality training. Bill says their collective ability to learn on the job and to be open to what others need has fueled their success and created an environment where people want to work. Icon Entertainment has a reputation for longevity of staff tenure. The hundreds of people who work for the company tend to socialize together even when not at work. Two of their sons call Bill by his first name while at work, and Bill says some employees have told him they didn’t know that the sons were offspring of the owners — something Bill feels helps contribute to good morale at the family-run business. Staff also appreciates that Bill walks into the kitchen and calls people by their names. Bill says, frankly it surprises him when people tell him that doesn’t happen elsewhere.
“It just stems from lessons that I observed firsthand from Johnny [Cash] and tried to capture,” he says. “Here was one of the biggest artists in the world, and if anybody approached him they were treated like the most important person in the world. I observed him giving somebody 30 seconds and watching them walk away just in amazement and so happy knowing that they would go back to their phones and say, ‘I met Johnny Cash.’ And I’m in no way comparing myself to Johnny Cash, but what I saw in him was that, by showing kindness and respect to other people, it doesn’t cost you any money. But man, it can have an impact on their life.”
