Longtime Murfreesboro venue and late-night shenanigans hotspot The Boro Bar and Grill is slated for an early July close after just more than four decades of serving icy beverages and interesting times.
The bar, about a 45-minute drive from Nashville and across the street from the campus of Middle Tennessee State University, has hosted a massively diverse array of shows, including many with current or former Nashville bands. (See Those Darlins and The Protomen for just a couple of examples.) Owner Lee Roberts has threatened to close The Boro more than once, and over the years he has had a few deals to sell the place fall through. But this time it seems like he’s serious.Â
Running a bar in a college town isn’t easy for one night, let alone 40 years. And like many (or most) dive-bar owners in the history of dive-bar owners, Roberts was never looking to make the place sought-after for anything but cold beer and a good grilled burger. Though blurrier in some places than others, The Boro brings me memories of both of those things. But there are also memories of walking into odd themed nights — remember the pajama party taco buffet? — seeing various metal and punk shows, running into friends and acquaintances and heading there with my husband (my fiancé when we lived in Murfreesboro) to avoid the crowds at the chain restaurants littering the town.
Lee Roberts at The Boro, 6/29/2025
“What I don’t think I knew would happen was it became a family thing,” Roberts says. “Regulars started to point it out to me. Everyone would say, even if they didn't know you, they knew a friend of yours and the guy sitting next to you may know someone you know. And we had this huge diversity of clientele: ages, shapes, color and sizes. I’ve really enjoyed that. It gives you a different perspective than some homogenized corporate place.”
The Boro Bar and Grill has survived and thrived being close to MTSU, but it has served folks from all over Bucket City: students, all-day stool tenants, guys dropping in for a beer before going home, ruffians and more in an ever-changing community. At one point early on, Roberts says, he noticed a lot of other bars were only doing covers and country music. He saw the potential in having punk and metal bands play at his bar.
“We had for a time a really strong punk scene, and people would tell me that nobody was going to come see that, and, well, it turns out that punk and metal could be some of our biggest draws to the bar,” Roberts says. “I guess because at first they didn’t have a lot of other places to play or go see it. But those people — a lot of the bands play here and then also come in for a burger and beer later on.”
Almost everyone who worked with me at MTSU student newspaper Sidelines snuck away for a moment of downtime there between many deadlines. More than one of the paper’s writers also slung beer there a few nights a week working for Roberts, who is known for wanting things done a certain way.
“[Some] of the people who've written on our Facebook posts and things like that have commented that we gave them a good work ethic and a little responsibility, and I think that's [the] most you can hope for is to improve somebody so that they can go on and do better for themselves,” Roberts says. “They're only going to work here for three to five years typically. The best thing or the biggest compliment to me is that they put up with my whining and moaning and they liked it. Or at least got some benefits from it, anyway.”
The Boro will close after service on Saturday, July 5, which will also be the day Roberts retires. He is under contract with a buyer and headed for an early August close. Roberts says a handful of folks have reached out to ask about taking over and running the bar, but he plans to pass along those contacts to the new owner.
“There's a time for everything,” Roberts says, having just finished watching country musician Cole Swindell shoot a video at his bar. “I think this was a good time to head on down the road. … I feel good about it. We'll see what happens. I've had a lot of real estate deals fall apart between contract and closing, so we'll see. But either way, I'm quitting.”
The Boro’s first day of business was June 3, 1985, and Roberts has owned and operated it from the beginning. Now he wants to walk into a bar that he doesn’t own and have a beer and a plate of food without worrying about whether the toilet is going to clog or overflow — shoutout to that tiny helluva bathroom — or if there’s going to be trouble.
Roberts has played witness to just the type of bar hijinks one might expect, and plenty you might not. In the late ’80s, a bunch of horse riders got kicked out of the bars on the Murfreesboro Public Square, about two miles from The Boro, so Roberts set up some hitching posts out front to welcome them. He ended up with horses tromping straight through the bar and leaving behind some presents. Then there was the time the bar made international news — and the cover of the Scene’s 2014 Boner Awards — when a patron attempted to get, um, amorous with The Boro’s ATM.
“He made a mistake, and I’m sure he was embarrassed,” Roberts says, laughing slightly, and adding he was grateful he’s always had good staff who could handle the most outlandish situations. “I know it sounds trite, but mostly I think it’s important as I go to just thank the many people who have helped make The Boro a success — the patrons, and the staff, and folks who’ve kept coming back. It's really been interesting to live it and watch it unfold.”
Though editors at the Scene throughout the years may have disagreed with me, I believe you’re not really from Nashville unless you’ve spent at least a little time in Murfreesboro. And that includes spending at least one night out at The Boro. If you’ve yet to accomplish that: There's a fundraiser show for artistic podcast Bucket City Mouthwash on June 26 and the last scheduled show is Sunday Service with the Joey Fletcher Band on June 29. There’ll be beer and food specials until the bar closes on July 5.
“On July 6, I sleep in,” Roberts says.
