Permanent Hard Rock Bristol casino opens

The bright lights of Bristol shine considerably brighter now following the opening of Virginia’s second full-fledged casino.

Thursday heralded the grand opening of the $515 million-plus Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Bristol, Virginia’s first hotel/casino combo. Symphonies of sounds, from music to slot machines, indicated the site’s time for business had arrived.

“This brand is now 54 years old, [with] 60,000 employees in 74 countries,” said Jim Allen, chairman of Hard Rock International. “I hope we have collectively created something that everyone is proud of.”

Located near downtown Bristol, the casino resort’s dominant features include a 45-foot-tall guitar at the entrance to the 303-room (including 56 suites) concave-shaped hotel. The 620,000-square-foot facility opened with the Hard Rock tradition of The Who-like smashing of guitars inside Hard Rock Live Bristol, an indoor flexible capacity venue that can seat up to 2,000 people.

There’s a spa in the hotel, nearly 1,500 slot machines in the casino, 38,000 original miles on Faith Hill’s vintage Rudolph red Corvette on the casino floor, and countless grins on the faces of those who made the place happen.

“It was a moonshot,” said Jim McGlothlin, chairman of Bristol-based United Co. A joint venture between Hard Rock, McGlothlin and Par Ventures President Clyde Stacy developed Bristol’s Hard Rock.

“With Hard Rock, we went to work in Bristol,” McGlothlin added. “We’re changing a lot of lives here.”

The new resort casino replaces the temporary Bristol Casino: Future Home of Hard Rock, which opened in July 2022 as Virginia’s first operating casino. Since then, a permanent facility in Portsmouth and a temporary casino in Danville have opened. Located inside the former Bristol Mall, the 30,000-square-foot temporary casino featured 900 slot machines, 29 table games and a sportsbook.

Today, Hard Rock Bristol maintains about 1,400 permanent jobs, nearly 1,500 slots and 50 table games.

“Today is the day we go from operating a casino to operating a Hard Rock,” said Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Bristol President Allie Evangelista.

The development team previously pushed back the opening of the permanent casino at 500 Gate City Highway, which had been expected in July, in favor of opening the full casino resort, the nation’s eighth Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.

TN Ward and BurWil Construction are the contractors for the Bristol Hard Rock project. Some construction work remains to be done, which will increase the team’s capital investment, Evangelista said Tuesday, adding, “Right now, I think it’s at $515 million, but we’re not done.”

In its first year of operation, the temporary Bristol casino’s net gaming revenues totaled $157 million, while the Rivers Casino Portsmouth, which opened in January 2023, made almost $250 million in gaming revenue during its first year. The temporary Caesars Virginia casino in Danville opened May 2023; in its first six months, the Danville casino racked up about $145 million in gaming revenue.

In 2023, Virginia casinos generated $554.87 million in adjusted gaming revenues, based on monthly reports from Virginia Lottery. The Bristol casino represented $160.49 million of the annual total.

Virginia’s three casinos reported a total of $56.56 million in gaming revenues for September. Of that, about $14.09 million came from the temporary Bristol casino.

Thus far, the Bristol Hard Rock has paid more than $68 million in taxes to the state government and has hosted more than 3 million guests.

Marcellus Osceola Jr., chairman of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, which acquired Hard Rock in 2007, said the company takes pride in the incorporation of local flavor within their properties. “We pride ourselves in immersing ourselves in a community,” Osceola said. “We love all — we serve all. That’s our motto.”

Love, in the form of music, abounds inside Bristol’s Hard Rock. Myriad examples of Bristol, Virginia, and Tennessee music history are displayed throughout the site.

“That’s very important to us,” Evangelista said. “We want to connect with Bristol because it is the Birthplace of Country Music.”

A hallway connects the casino and dining area. One side of the hall depicts musicians from Virginia. The other, Tennessee. There’s a framed autograph from Winchester’s Patsy Cline and an autographed album from Castlewood’s 49 Winchester.

Labyrinths of music memorabilia weave like straw through the Hard Rock Café and casino to form basketfuls of iconic imagery. Examine Glen Campbell’s guitar where it resides near Hard Rock Live. Marvel at Bob Dylan’s harmonica. Lean in and read the details on Johnny Cash’s passport.

“I loved the Ozzy Osbourne display,” said Ali Randolph, a country musician from Burnsville, North Carolina. “Old school metal; you can’t beat it.”

Randolph will perform at the Hard Rock Café Bristol on Nov. 27. There are four stages for live music — rock and otherwise — within the complex.

“Hard Rock is not just about rock music,” Evangelista said. “We have about $1 million of music memorabilia on site.”

Then again, Hard Rock earned its name because it does rock — at least on occasion. Grand opening night features country music star Blake Shelton at Hard Rock Live Bristol. Rock veterans Soul Asylum, purveyors of such 1990s generational hits as “Runaway Train,” appear in the 23,000-square-foot venue on Saturday.

“We’ll be there for the grand opening, the christening of the Hard Rock in Bristol,” Dave Pirner, lead singer of Soul Asylum, said by phone on Monday from an airport in Minneapolis.

Hard Rock features more than gaming and music. Seven restaurants, from the fine dining of Council Oak Steaks & Seafood to the finger food of Street Tacos, occupy various spaces on the outer edges of the casino.

An Appalachian merry-go-round, adults grinned like children in a cotton candy glow on opening day. That was music to perk the ears of McGlothlin and his Hard Rock brethren.

“It’s Bristol, baby!” McGlothlin said. “The casino is our winning lottery number.”

Associate Editor Katherine Schulte contributed to this article.