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Saddle up: Country culture is taking NYC by storm
By
Hannah Frishberg
Published Dec 24, 2024
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Courtesy Common Country
By
Hannah Frishberg
Published Dec 24, 2024
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Bless New Yorkers’ hearts: The boroughs want in on country music’s mainstream moment.
The Big Apple is proving that it’s no exception to country culture's newfound grip on the charts and audiences’ hearts nationwide, with yet another country bar opening to great success.
Common Country, located at 344 Third Ave., offers an “urban cowboy vibe” replete with Southern-inspired cocktails (bourbon lemonade, spiked sweet tea), Tex-Mex bar bites (Texas Twinkies, elote fritters), taxidermy on the walls, a stage strewn with straw bales and programming that includes line dancing. And working the door is the famous Hot Bouncer, dubbed the city’s “most eligible bachelor” by the New York Post.
“The reception was insane off the bat – every single night we’ve been open we’ve had a line down the block,” said Noah Aussems, managing partner of the 3,400-square-foot bar that opened earlier this month in Kips Bay. “You can see that the demand [for country culture] is steadily rising in New York.”
Common Country serves Tex-Mex bar bites.
Courtesy Common Country
Until last summer, Aussems and his business partner ran Sucker Punch Sports Bar at the same address. Though they said it was “doing fine,” they really “wanted to capitalize on the movement we see with country music.”
Also, Aussems missed Johnny’s Utah’s, the underground country-themed Midtown bar with a mechanical bull that recently closed and left “a huge gap in Manhattan,” he said, adding “Unfortunately our space isn’t big enough for a bull.”
So they closed it down, renovated and reopened it.
The interior of Common Country in Kip's Bay.
Courtesy Common Country
They’re far from the only borough business capitalizing on the nation’s fresh fondness for hoedowns and hootenannies.
Jesse Hornstein, a Montreal native inspired by a visit to Austin, Texas, decided to start a monthly event series called Molly & June’s NYC Honky Tonk in October. He’s also met with great and immediate success.
“ I found that there was a bit of a lacking in the sociability around New York City,” he said, characterizing the behavior as a post-pandemic trend that’s just “become sort of the thing to do in New York, is to be standoffish in the bars.”
At a honky tonk, though, the energy and partner-dancing format “allows you to just have that very quick bond with someone,” Hornstein said.
And Aussems agreed.
If done right, emulating a certain strain of country culture can “create an environment that, honestly, I've never felt in New York. It’s a warm feeling,” Aussems said.
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new york city
Hannah Frishberg
Hannah Frishberg covers New York City arts and culture. Got a tip? Email Hannah at [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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