Billy Bob's Texas
| The World's Largest Honky Tonk | |
Billy Bob's Texas dance floor
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| Address | 2520 Rodeo Plaza |
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| Location | Fort Worth, Texas |
| Coordinates | 32°47′29″N 97°20′53″W / 32.79139°N 97.34806°WCoordinates: 32°47′29″N 97°20′53″W / 32.79139°N 97.34806°W |
| Owner | Billy Bob's Texas, LLC |
| Type | Nightclub |
| Genre(s) | Country |
| Capacity | 6,000+ |
| Opened | 1 April 1981 |
| Website | |
| billybobstexas |
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Billy Bob's Texas is a popular country & western nightclub in the , Texas, United States. It promotes itself as "The World's Largest Honky Tonk" with 127,000 square feet (12,000 m²). Billy Bob's opened April 1, 1981 to national attention with Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Brothers as the first performers. Other artists who appeared that first week were Waylon Jennings, Janie Fricke and Willie Nelson.
Since then, artists such as Pat Green have carried on the tradition. In addition to several dance floors, musical stages, arcade games, and billiards tables, Billy Bob's is the home to a small indoor rodeo arena, in which they have weekend bullriding events.
Built as a cattle barn in the early 1900s, the building was enclosed as a City of Fort Worth Centennial project in 1936. With sloped floors for easy cleaning due to the cattle pens, the building also had the perfect setting for a concert venue, but that would have to wait nearly 40 years. In the interim period, the building was used as an AT-10 airplane manufacturing plant and a department store. Clark’s Department Store was so large that the stock boys had to wear roller skates.
But on April 1, 1981, Billy Bob Barnett opened what is now internationally known as “The World’s Largest Honky Tonk”. With a capacity over 6,000 people, over 20 bar stations, the best in entertainment and live bullriding, it was not long before Billy Bob’s Texas won the first of its eight Academy of Country Music’s “Club of the Year” awards. BBT has also been awarded the Country Music Association’s “Club of the Year” four times.
The nightclub quickly entered the public consciousness in the early 1980s with frequent references by the Ewing Clan on the soap opera Dallas. It was also featured prominently during CBS's New Year's Eve coverage, Happy New Year, America, during this period.
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