It won’t be Big Ben but a Tequila Cowboy that will replace Toby Keith on the North Shore.
Billing itself as a “Little Bit Country, a Little Bit Rock N’ Roll,” Tequila Cowboy, a Nashville, Tenn.-based restaurant, bar and live music venue, will take a high-profile spot on North Shore Drive that had been reserved for Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill.
“We’re bringing Music City to your town,” said Adam Hesler, president of TC Restaurant Group, the Tequila Cowboy owner.
The company has signed a lease with Continental Real Estate Companies to occupy the 16,000-square-foot space next to Stage AE for the restaurant, which Mr. Hesler hopes to open early this fall.
Tequila Cowboy, which was featured in the just canceled ABC television show “Nashville,” will have a large stage that will host weekly Nashville acts as well as national and local performers.
And if you want to belt out a song yourself, you can do that in Wanna B’s, a karaoke bar that will occupy another part of the venue. Patrons will be able to choose from more than 250,000 songs to perform.
“Pretty much any song you can think of you’ll have,” Mr. Hesler said.
If none of that sounds appealing, there will be a mechanical bull to ride. Restaurant menu items will include burgers, wings, and chicken tenders, although the focus will be on gourmet melts, a concept TC designed for its second restaurant in Nashville.
The North Shore will be the fifth Tequila Cowboy location in the country. Others are in Columbus, Ohio; Lansing, Mich.; and two in Nashville, including the flagship restaurant on Broadway, a major entertainment district for country music.
Mr. Hesler said Tequila Cowboy had been looking for another site for the restaurant for some time before settling on the North Shore. “We just love the area. It’s really cool with the Pirates and the Steelers. It’s an event-driven area,” he said.
Barry Ford, Continental’s president of development, said the country-tinged Tequila Cowboy will pair well with the more rock-oriented Stage AE.
“We had hoped that corner of the building would not only be a very good restaurant but would enhance the entertainment aspects on the North Shore and be a complement to Stage AE,” he said.
Continental launched a search last fall for a tenant to fill the space after cutting ties with Toby Keith. It did not give a reason for the decision, although the restaurant chain has closed a number of locations around the country and left others unfinished or never got them started.
Tequila Cowboy is the third big signing by Continental for North Shore spaces since March.
Burn by Rocky Patel, an upscale cigar bar based in Naples, Fla., is expected to open in a 6,500-square-foot space next to Burgatory restaurant on North Shore Drive before the end of the year.
Southern Tier Brewing Co., a microbrewer headquartered in Lakewood, N.Y., will take a 6,200-square-foot spot just east of Burn on the same street. It is expected to open this summer.
For Continental, the Tequila Cowboy signing fills the last retail space available in the new North Shore Place I & II office complex. It also completes the retail build-out along North Shore Drive, where Continental has developed two other office complexes.
The Columbus, Ohio-based company was hired by the Steelers and the Pirates to develop the land between Heinz Field and PNC Park.
“The addition of Tequila Cowboy finishes this phase of the development and adds another untapped element of entertainment that will catapult the North Shore to the next level,” said Herky Pollock, the CBRE executive vice president who represented Continental in the deal.
Continental also has plans to build an eight- to nine-story building filled with 200 to 300 apartments as well as street level retail space on a North Shore Drive parcel adjacent to the Hyatt Place Hotel.
Among those who have been considering the North Shore for a restaurant is Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.
Mark Belko: mbelko@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1262.
First Published: May 25, 2016, 4:12 a.m.
