Eric Church's Nashville bar and restaurant Chief's is headed for takeoff — literally. The country star's downtown honky-tonk is opening a new location inside Nashville International Airport's rebuilt Concourse A, giving travelers a taste of Broadway before they even board a flight.
The airport version won't try to recreate the six-story bar and live-entertainment experience that anchors the original Chief's at 200 Broadway, according to WhatNow. Instead, the new outpost at 1 Terminal Dr will operate as a full-service restaurant, giving fliers another Nashville address to grab a bite near the gate. Inside Concourse A, the Chief's location is expected to span roughly 8,000 square feet and will serve food from James Beard Award-winning pitmaster Rodney Scott's Whole Hog BBQ alongside live music, according to WZTV FOX 17.
Rodney Scott's barbecue is already baked into the Chief's brand — his rooftop barbecue helped define the original downtown venue when Church and AJ Capital Partners founder Ben Weprin opened the flagship at 200 Broadway on April 5, 2024, complete with a performance venue called Neon Steeple, according to Pollstar.
Airport Board Set to Vote on the Deal
The Nashville International Airport Authority board is expected to vote on the proposed Concourse A subleases during its September meeting, per the same WhatNow report. Lisa Leyva, BNA's vice president of concessions, announced Chief's among the new tenants being recruited for the Concourse A project, per the Tennessean.
The airport's concessions program is built around Nashville restaurants, bars and retailers, a strategy the airport shifted toward in 2019 when it began prioritizing local businesses over standard national chains. Dozens more Tennessee businesses made their BNA debut in 2025 alone, per the Tennessean, and the program was named the best in North America by Airports Council International that same year, per the Tennessean.
Chief's joins the broader effort to bring Nashville entertainment brands into airport concessions.
A $855 Million Concourse Built for Growth
Chief's won't open until the new Concourse A opens in 2028, since the entire structure is being rebuilt from scratch. The Concourse A project carries an $855 million price tag and will add more gates, a second story of passenger lounges, an outdoor terrace, and two 120-foot-long moving walkways, according to WhatNow.
That single project sits inside a much larger buildout: the new 374,000-square-foot Concourse A design will expand BNA's gate footprint from 54 to 70 total gates by adding 16 new gates, alongside 28,000 square feet of concessions space, 24 additional ticket counters, and two new baggage claim devices, according to the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority. Airport officials have set July 11, 2028, as the official public opening date for the reconstructed concourse.
BNA closed the legacy Concourse A on September 24, 2025, allowing the ground-up reconstruction to begin. The Concourse A rebuild is a flagship element of BNA's $3 billion New Horizon expansion program, an effort that also included a separate $40M central core upgrade.
Record Passenger Numbers Are Driving the Buildout
The expansion comes amid BNA's ongoing buildout.
Concession operations are part of BNA's airport buildout.
Not every rumored addition to Concourse A has panned out, though. Following social media reports that Hattie B's Hot Chicken and Tennessee Bao would join Chief's in the new concourse, an MNAA media relations representative clarified in August 2026 that neither concept will actually be located in Concourse A when it opens in 2028, per WhatNow. Airport officials say the final tenant lineup for the rebuilt terminal remains a work in progress.
