Kid Rock’s restaurant workers asked to go home to avoid rumored Ice raids

The restaurant Kid Rock’s was among several others in Nashville owned by the conservative restaurateur and Donald Trump supporter Steve Smith where undocumented kitchen staff were asked to go home to avoid rumored immigration raids this weekend.

The restaurant – whose full name is Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk Rock N’ Roll Steakhouse, and is licensed by the rightwing musician Kid Rock, who has also become one of the US president’s highest-profile supporters – reportedly found itself struggling to serve post-concert crowds on Saturday night after the order from managers instructing employees without legal status to leave, according to the Nashville Scene.

“Around 9.30pm on Saturday, our manager came back and told anyone without legal status to go home,” one anonymous employee told the outlet.

“Events at the Ryman, Ascend, the Savannah Bananas’ baseball game all let out, and it was crazy busy. But there was no one in the kitchen to cook the food.”

Like Kid Rock, Smith has cultivated a reputation as a vocal conservative, fighting Covid-19 restrictions and backing Trump with campaign donations. Yet the episode appeared to suggest that his establishments – including The Diner and Honky Tonk Central – are partly dependent on the undocumented labor the president has vowed to expel from the US.

An aggressive immigration sweep began 3 May, when state troopers and unmarked Ice vehicles dramatically increased traffic stops throughout south Nashville. The operation has netted at least 196 arrests – including 101 individuals with no criminal history, according to a Department of Homeland Security press release.

Trump and DHS secretary Kristi Noem have publicly celebrated accelerated deportations nationwide, which have ensnared legal residents alongside undocumented immigrants.

Last week, Ice agents visited at least nine restaurants in the Washington DC area.

Service disruptions in Nashville continued through Sunday as fearful workers chose to remain home rather than risk detention.

Nashville officials, including the mayor and multiple metro councilors, have denounced the raids, but the city’s legal director, Wallace Dietz, said local government is “powerless” against state and federal immigration enforcement actions.

According to a Rolling Stone profile of Kid Rock, at his concerts he has railed against “open borders” and echoed Trump’s rhetoric on immigration, including claiming that some are “murderers! They’re rapists! They are! MS-13!”

In 2019, a second restaurant licensed by Kid Rock in Detroit closed amid backlash over a video of him making profanity-laced comments about Oprah Winfrey while apparently drunk at a Nashville event. The Ilitch family, which owned the arena in which the restaurant was housed, announced that Kid Rock, whose real name is Robert Ritchie, had “voluntarily decided not to renew” his licensing agreement for Kid Rock’s Made in Detroit.