By Steve Oldfield
NKyTribune staff reporter
Country music star and nightclub owner Bobby Mackey is preparing for a big shindig this weekend: closing out his temporary tavern in Florence ahead of re-opening his original renowned establishment in Wilder.
“We’ve had fun over there but this Saturday’s our last night,” Mackey said. “It’s worked out pretty good. We’ve met a lot of new people there.”
Mackey moved his operation to Florence in March of 2024, just ahead of demolishing his Bobby Mackey’s Music World on Licking Pike in Wilder. He and his band had made that legendary locale home since first opening in 1978. Mackey says he decided to open his own venue for his band after watching fans follow him to three nightclubs in a row over an eight-year period.
“I figured they’d follow me to my own place and they did,” he said. Soon after, Mackey witnessed the Urban Cowboy craze, sparked by the movie of that name starring John Travolta. “I ordered a mechanical bull and boy, it was on fire from the get-go.”
Fans of his original club will be glad to know he’ll be setting up a brand new bull in his new venue. Mackey says he found a company in Idaho that makes a more life-like bull, horns and all.
“We’re going to call it the Bad Boy,” Mackey said. He revealed that the bull will be on the opposite side of the building compared to where it was located originally. But other than that, he says his regulars will feel right at home
.
“The relationship with the bar and the stage and the dance floor, everything is going to be basically the same,” he said. The biggest difference will be a brand new roof that doesn’t leak. “The old club was just worn out,” Mackey said.
He’s keeping one of the oldest features that’s attracted another kind of customer from all over the country: ghost hunters. The nightclub became known as the most haunted honkey tonk in Kentucky and one of the most haunted bars in America. The original building was built in 1915 on the site of an old slaughterhouse that included a well that channeled all of the blood down to the nearby Licking River. Urban Legends that the site was haunted by some ghosts who’d died violent deaths spread across the country and became the subject of documentaries and nationally syndicated television programs. So Mackey didn’t just keep the well in the new plans – he’s promising it will be improved.
“I’m going to put a light in it, glass over it and rail around it and people will be able to see it anytime they want to,” he said.
As for ghosts, Mackey says he personally hasn’t seen anything at the club over the years but he knows plenty of people who say they’ve had run-ins with spirits.
“They’ve said that they’ve felt a wind blowing on the back of their neck and they would hear somebody whisper their name,” he said. “That happens a lot. And there’s a fascination with that well so we just had to keep it.”
Mackey and his band will keep making music as well, promising a mix of live performances, a DJ and karaoke to keep patrons entertained. He recently released a remake of the George Jones classic, “He Stopped Loving Her Today?” and he continues to record and make appearances on the Penny Gilley Show where he’s become a regular. “I’m proud to be a part of that.”
Mackey says that while he’s also proud his nightclub attracts such a diverse group of loyal fans, the glue that holds it all together is the country music.
“I’m still doing old country that nobody else does,” he said. “That’s what it’s all about for me,” he said. “ All these other things just added the spice to it.”
Mackey and his band will be serving up their music this one last weekend in Florence on US-42. He said the venue’s liquor license expires at the end of the month and it didn’t make sense to renew it since he’ll be re-opening in Wilder soon.
“We’re hoping to be up and running in a couple months,” he said. “I can’t wait!”
