What makes a great neighborhood bar? Certainly it's more than mere proximity. A great neighborhood bar has to offer a mix of low-key predictability, jovial welcome and a hangout vibe—and also be the sort of watering hole where everyone else you like wants to come too."We all know you can't set out and create that kind of scene," says steel guitarist and East Nashville resident Pete Finney. "You can open a business that's amenable to what the Family Wash is, but you can't make it happen. You can't create a sense of community with the regulars like that."
Finney would know. When he's not backing Patty Loveless on the road, he finds himself most nights stopping by the gastropub/listening room at the tree-shaded corner of Porter and Greenwood for a beer or to socialize with friends. On a given night, you can often find the cream of the city's touring sidemen.
"People aren't networking, they're there to hang out—sometimes to play, and sometimes to listen," Finney says. "And with a pretty wide range of beers and really good food."
That's what makes the news that the Family Wash is in financial trouble all the more upsetting to patrons and friends. After nearly seven years of conversation-friendly short music sets and a menu of boutique brews, shepherd's pies, meat loaf, salads and more, the former Laundromat may have to shut its doors.
"It would leave a huge vacuum in the neighborhood if it closed," Finney says.
For Finney, the Family Wash picked up where the Slow Bar—also a low-key dive where everybody knew your name—left off. To him, the Wash enjoys the critical distinction of being a musician's bar without being a music business kind of bar. The sort of only-in-Nashville place where someone comes off a tour with Bob Dylan and plays for tips.
"Like any endeavor, it comes down to the energy of the place and the people," says former Black Crowes guitarist Audley Freed, a Wash regular. "That's really it. As with so much stuff, it's the intangibles. The stuff you can't really describe. It's all about the vibe."
That's precisely what owner Jamie Rubin has spent the better part of seven years trying to preserve. His devotion has meant a slow but steady increase in revenue each consecutive year since opening in 2003, in spite of the various challenges he's weathered: change in partners, taking the business solo, being shut down in 2004 due to nonpayment of taxes, loss of a beer permit due to a clerical error in 2006. Last year, he weathered both the darkest days of the recession and a robbery.
But in the last few months, something stalled. Tables usually filled with a wide-ranging age group of artsy East Nashvillians and curious West Siders stayed empty all night long. Late-night crowds, usually eager for live music from Nashville luminaries such as Warren Pash and former Bowie guitarist Reeves Gabrels, stopped materializing. Even his popular Tuesday-night pint-and-pie special—featuring a meat or veggie shepherd's pie and a pint of beer for only $10—hasn't been the slam dunk it once was. Rubin stopped breaking even, and he hasn't been able to issue himself a paycheck since May.
"It's a matter of the times and the economy," says drummer and regular Marco Giovino, who tours with Patty Griffin and plays every Tuesday night at the Wash with Rubin. Giovino felt compelled to send an email around to patrons, friends and media to rally the troops.
"There's just not a ton of money out there for people to go out and spend and to eat," he says by phone. "But we need to come together as a music community, because the Wash needs a shot in the arm to get back on its feet."
Rubin had hoped that shot in the arm would come in August, a month typically reliable for a swell in patrons. No such luck. Now Rubin—a father of two used to averaging about four hours' sleep a night these last seven years—is losing sleep for different reasons. Just a couple more months like this, and he'll have to call it quits.
"Sometimes, there's not a soul in the place for two hours," says Rubin, who has the scruffy salt-and-pepper charm of a gracefully aging rocker who still wears Ramones T-shirts. "And I can't have another April and May like a June and July. Something's gotta change."
He's tried making adjustments. This year, he stayed open during the week of the Fourth of July, typically a slow business holiday. He buckled down on labor and food costs. He cut back on fish dishes and shrimp—good sellers, but costly perishables. He's focused instead on ingredients that do double duty: the ground beef that fills the pies and the meat loaf, roasted chicken that can also be trimmed off into salads.
Since he's a ubiquitous presence behind the bar most nights—a money saver that makes him all the more approachable—Rubin has fielded numerous suggestions from friends and patrons. He's seriously considered all of them.
"They've told me the music is too loud to talk sometimes—to not have music every night," he says. "Or to quit having music at all. They've told me to stop serving food and only have music."
They've also suggested he start charging a cover for the live music he hosts every night, or reduce his menu to only pies. He's been told to install TVs in the 60-something capacity space and turn on football. To have a karaoke night. And so on.
But Rubin doesn't think those ideas will fly. To stay afloat, he needs diners who may or may not stay for the tunes, and drinkers lured by the upscale microbrews and ales that made the Wash's name. And he wouldn't dream of alienating his dining regulars by charging them for music. Instead, he passes around a tip hat.
"I've never wanted this to be a Budweiser and Miller Lite kind of place," Rubin says. "If that's what someone wants, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of places to go for that. There are also lots of places to go see music. But how many places are there to go where you can see something different every night of the week?"
That casually eclectic spirit has made the Wash the kind of club that doesn't just make people want to visit a city: it makes them want to move there. Over the years, the Wash has played host to jazz, rock, Western and experimental acts who've helped to create its inimitable anything-goes vibe. It got Cheap Trick bassist Tom Petersson, a Nashville resident and friend of the Wash, to screen a hitherto unseen full version of the Cheap Trick at Budokan concert DVD. It even showed the 2004 Bush/Kerry debate on a TV with bunny ears, while a live band provided musical accompaniment.
"The jazz band that played was called the Mass Debaters," Rubin recalls with a chuckle. "They played a major key when Kerry talked, and a minor key when Bush talked."
As a result, the club's renown has spread in typically low-key fashion. "To me, it's not so much a bar as it is a community, for lack of a better word," says Rubin, who periodically enlists patrons such as Gabrels and Freed in his own musical endeavor, a Warren Zevon tribute band called Sons of Zevon. "It's laid-back. Mostly, this is a respectful group."
Until last year, Rubin had the good luck to avoid the kind of rough-and-tumble crowds that are part and parcel of owning a beer license. Apart from the occasional rowdy drunk—who quickly surveyed the crowd of low-key patrons and thought better of it—the Wash led a peaceful existence.
Then, on a Wednesday night in June 2008, two armed crooks descended upon the Family Wash and robbed all seven customers and the staff. It was just a messy, old-fashioned stick-'em-up. Rubin became understandably worried not just about the safety of his neighborhood and customers, but also future business.
His concerns were quickly quelled. The next day, dozens of calls flooded the Wash from friends, residents and customers. They begged Rubin to keep his doors open despite the robbery. (The criminals, both aged 16, were apprehended a few weeks later.) The next night was more packed than he'd seen in recent memory, full of well-wishers and supporters. Even so, one security-minded patron suggested he install video cameras to deter future crimes.
Rubin disagreed. A Boston native, he couldn't remember a tavern or pub—even in rough neighborhoods—that had video cameras on the premises. "Having video cameras is like saying the place isn't safe, and Family Wash is safe," Rubin says. He went on to have a well-attended, successful year—until now.
After five straight months of what Rubin calls "horrible business," his safety net is substantially tattered. He's considering a few ticketed shows with local heavy-hitters to increase his draw. Another pint-and-pie night is under consideration, but he doesn't want to cut in on an already good thing. He might start selling Saturday's end-of-the-night wine surplus for a cheaper by-the-glass price. It doesn't keep till the Wash reopens Tuesday night, anyway.
For now, he's fingering his worry beads, wondering what the odds are that his tardy busy season will show itself. The other night, things were looking up. The September issue of GQ features a handful of the best drinking cities in the country, and both Nashville and the Family Wash made the list.
"Last night, at about a quarter to 12, I had 8 kids—I'd say late 20s—come in from San Diego, who were on the plane, who had GQ, and had seen this thing," Rubin says proudly. "They had flown into Nashville for a wedding. They came in and said, so tell us about this place. It was the first time that had happened, where people had said, hey, we saw this on the plane, and we had to come here. They were like, this is the coolest place." In true neighborhood fashion, the kid holding the GQ ended up being from Rubin's own hometown of Boston.
"It was so cool," Rubin says. "What are the odds?"
Those kids may not know how much their drop-in meant to Rubin, but his regulars do. "There's really no other place like the Family Wash to hang out at," says Giovino. "There are a couple of cool bars, but nothing is that kind of chill with that kind of music, somewhere that every week has someone great playing and such an eclectic mix of music. Losing it would be like a relative dying."
