Leave it to Luke Combs to have actual recliners at his new Nashville bar.

“There’s not really a lot of comfortable bar seating for a larger gentleman like myself, so I wanted that,” admits Combs with a laugh during an interview with PEOPLE mere minutes before his sold-out Big Kickoff Concert at Category 10 earlier this month. “I made it happen!”

In fact, the 5 Leaf Clover Sports Bar features a total of 18 recliners, eight big screen TVs, and a real-time sports ticker that wraps around the entirety of the room.

“A lot of times if I’m with friends or family, I really want to go and do the Nashville thing,” says Combs who rocked the Category 10 crowd later that night with a long list of hits from his career including bar namesake “Hurricane,” “When it Rains It Pours,” “She Got the Best of Me” and “Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma.” “I figured there’s got to be other people that would crave a little bit of just calmness amongst the pure chaos that is down here.”

Indeed, Category 10 now finds itself amongst a long list of establishments in downtown Nashville with big names such as Luke Bryan and Miranda Lambert attached to them. But when it came to creating Category 10 alongside the Opry Entertainment Group, Combs says he wanted to make sure that his place stood out from the rest.

“There’s an area that is like a high-end bourbon room, pretty much,” Combs, 35, explains of the intimate and elevated lounge setting located on the second floor called The Still. “When I come here, that’s the place I can bring friends or family. They can go out and enjoy the bar and do the whole deal, and I can still be here and be present.” He laughs, admitting, “I can’t really pop out and hit the dance floor like everybody else, as much as I’d love to. But yeah, it’s cool how you can have so many different vibes in one place.”

Filling the five floors of Category 10 is also a plethora of personal keepsakes from his career that were mostly just sitting in storage until now. “This is a really great place for them to live,” says Combs, who is also the subject of a major exhibit currently featured at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. “I love that people get to see this stuff and enjoy it. I think of musical artists that I love. Seeing that stuff is so cool to me as a fan.”

Nevertheless, Combs says he still can’t quite get used to the fact that anyone would be that interested in all his stuff. “You never think that you would ever be in this position,” says Combs, who admits that the NASCAR hood he was featured on that now hangs on the wall of Category 10’s 5 Leaf Clover Sports Bar was definitely ‘a tough give-up.’ “But I’ve embraced it now.”

Perhaps some of the most special items in Category 10 can be found in the personal black and white family pictures that line the walls of the hallway leading to the 10,000-square-foot rooftop now known as The Eye. “I’m an outdoor guy and I love being outside, so I would say the rooftop on a nice day would be the vibe I would most enjoy here,” explains Combs, who is nominated for Entertainer of the Year and Male Artist of the Year at the 60th annual Academy of Country Music Awards on May 8.

It’s also no surprise that Combs played a big part in creating Category 10’s expansive menu. “I love the trout,” Combs says of the pan-seared trout entrée that comes with lemon sage butter, warm black-eyed pea salad and microgreens. “[Trout] isn’t something you would think about, but it’s very good. And then, I love the burgers, and I really love the ranch flight (that includes buttermilk ranch, cayenne ranch and avocado ranch). I wanted the menu to be big-guy friendly.”

And while Combs says that his career has been filled with a bevy of accomplishments thus far, the creation of Category 10 seems like one of the most concrete forms of his legacy. “When I started, I just wanted to be able to have longevity,” he says. “And I feel like I find that here.”

Category 10 is open for business in downtown Nashville now.