Waikiki steppin' out with Nashville

By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer

Crystal Mueller hangs out at the honky-tonk to play pool. Some women there said it's a no-hassle atmosphere where they feel comfortable going solo to have a beer and enjoy the music. And the line dancing doesn't require a partner. Photos by Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

Amber Hoffhines dances with Milton Freewater. There's DJ music, and guided pub-crawler tours often drop in.

It would be more like the "Boot Scootin' Boogie."

It would be about belt buckles the size of Texas and about a Tim McGraw Bud Light sign adorned with a neon cowboy hat. It would be about mastering the two-step, Hawaiian-style, and learning to count to eight, with rhythm.

It would be about a honky-tonk in the middle of Waikiki, the most western country-western saloon in the nation. It would be about a place where Wrangler jeans are the unofficial dress code and just as many people drop in for a beer and a pool game as they do to get their groove on and do the Tush Push on the dance floor.

Welcome to Nashville Waikiki, where there's never a cover charge and the people-watching is free.

There's no sign here that the country line-dance craze is over. A mostly military crowd still moseys in, any night of the week, to the Kuhio Avenue club. Nashville Waikiki is celebrating its ninth birthday next month. A possible indication of its popularity is that Zanzabar Night Club, down the street, just added a "country night" on Wednesdays to catch some of the drifters.

"I come here to drink, smoke, dance and meet my friends," said Renee Terry, 37, a cowgirl-hat-wearing regular at Nashville's. "I come here every night."

Terry was born and raised in Honolulu but can easily trade slippers for boots better made for shuffling and stomping to the two-step and cha-cha. Terry went country a while back. She used to ride horses and even worked at Nashville's for a time. Now the place feels like home.

"I really like it here," she said. "It makes me happy."

Urban cowgirls

Sandy Miano has been in the bar business for 30 years.

The idea for a country bar stirred in the back of her mind for years until she and her husband decided it was perfect for Hawai'i. Nashville Waikiki was born in 1994. Two blocks from Waikiki Beach in the low-ceilinged basement of the Ohana Waikiki West hotel, the club attracts a mix of tourists, pub crawlers and Mainland transplants.

There's no mechanical bull, but beyond the dancing, it offers pool tables, dart boards, video games, drink specials and details such as the Hawai'i vanity plate that says "FIDLIN," not that you have to have a fondness for fiddlin', though.

"A lot of people come in here who don't even like country music," Miano said. "It's like a down-home place."

Typical patron Linda Hijirida's introduction to country music didn't go well. She was on a camping trip with friends, and one of the campers blared country tunes from his radio. They asked the cowboy to move his tent downwind. "We called it whang-whang music because all they do is whine and cry."

Hijirida discovered a line-dancing class at Windward Mall. It looked like aerobics to her. She thought it would be good exercise. She heard music that wasn't so whiny and whangy. She was hooked.

Now Hijirida, 50, of Kane'ohe, teaches jigs like "Crazy Legs" and "Slappin' Leather," wears denim and a cowgirl hat, and she's gotten her whole family into it. Her ex-husband used to help with the music at what fans call Nashville's. Now her son is the DJ, and her boyfriend is a dealer on blackjack nights, when the dancing turns to West Coast swing.

For women, Nashville's is a safe refuge in the world of nightclubs. The atmosphere welcomes line-dancing loners just as easily as it can fill up with a busload of pub crawlers. It's also a place where regular pool player Crystal Mueller has never felt threatened or uneasy. She says it's just a laid-back place to hang out.

Mueller, 27, a University of Hawai'i graduate student studying clinical psychology, has a wealth of characters to analyze here, but she just comes to shoot pool.

Clad in a straw western-style hat and Birkenstocks instead of boots, she says most of the new players underestimate her ability at pool, but she would rather be behind the eight ball than on the dance floor.

Amber Hoffhines, decked out in jeans and a short-sleeved plaid shirt, would rather fill her dance card. Hoffhines, 21, an Air Force satellite photographer from Oregon, learned to line dance at the Pearl Club, but has found it's easy to blend in as military-or-not at Nashville's.

"It's relaxing and laid back," she said. "It's a good atmosphere."

'It grows on you'

But this is not just the place for a girls' night out.

Recently spotted at the bar: the spiked Mohawk head of newlywed Sean Medina, a San Franciscan with his bride on a pub crawl. Granted, Medina looked a little out of place in the bar, but no worse than the haole pub crawler wearing the JamMaster Jay T-shirt.

Bruce Knecht, who heads up a tour business called Endless Summer Pub Crawl, makes Nashville's stop No. 2 on his twice-weekly $50 package parties that go to five night spots. (Yes, he's the same guy who took some heat a few years back for allowing underage teens on booze cruises, but he's grown strict on checking IDs, he says.)

Knecht brings in a crowd of between 40 and 80 partiers, about 90 percent of them tourists. In turn, the bar makes the music a little less country for an hour or so, until the pub crawl bus leaves about 9:30 p.m.

Head doorman John Adams enjoys meeting people from all over the world. But he especially likes those with a hankering for honky-tonks and line dancing.

Adams, 38, a former bull rider and military man, also has found the comfort of family here.

"I just love the people and the regular crowd we get," he said.

For him, the bar is a country version of "Cheers," where everybody knows his name. He even comes in on his night off on Wednesdays to teach dances like the Watermelon Crawl and the Cowboy Strut.

DJ Adam Hijirida, Linda's 23-year-old son, is one of the truly "local" faces in the bar, but it's where he's found a second family. He says Hawaiian music isn't that far off from the country he plays. And after those lessons from his mom, he has been known to do a good job taking the lead on the dance floor.

"It grows on you," he said. "Definitely."

Reach Tanya Bricking at 525-8026 or tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com.