This Japan-Inspired Lounge Is Vinyl-Only

Petoskey — Before Spotify there were these strange little saucers we called CDs. They had colorful designs on one side and a mirror-like surface on the other. People kept them in velcro sleeves attached to the mirror on the roof above the steering wheel for easy access while on the road in 2003. Before CDs there were tapes. Those were pretty good too. The tape got twisted sometimes, and often they got stuck in the tape player of your minivan, meaning you could only listen to the Lion King soundtrack for months on end.

But there was something else, something better, that came before the tape: the vinyl. The vinyl record was an enormous black disc as thin as a credit card and as wide as a serving platter. The fine microscopic grooves etched into the shiny black surface of the record somehow made music, and it was good music. In fact, somehow, despite having experienced incredible technological advancement since, despite having invented the tape, the CD, the internet, and the MP3, we have yet to create a method which surpasses the quality of vinyl.

And it’s for this reason vinyl still exists today. Everyone who knows anything about audio knows that yeah, Spotify and the internet might be quick and easy, but vinyl is clearly superior. It’s why you can actually still buy those huge black discs and why most artists today still release new albums in that old legacy form. And it’s why Malted Vinyl—one of the most unique lounges I’ve visited in Michigan—exists.

Malted Vinyl is a Hi-Fi listening lounge in Downtown Petoskey. “Hi-Fi drinks + Hi-Fi music,” as they say. It’s a supremely cool place and one of a kind in Northern Michigan.

I stopped into Malted Vinyl on a Thursday evening in late March. “Such Great Heights” by the Postal Service was playing on the stereo. A couple was sitting with cocktails on a deep leather couch by the window, a few others were at the bar. Over the next couple hours I hung out, drank old fashions, listened to records, and talked with Melissa and Zach, a couple of the workers, about Malted Vinyl.

Malted Vinyl was founded by Jesse and Missy Leverett, opening Labor Day weekend of 2023. The inspiration came from the Japanese listening lounges of the midcentury, lounges for people who really wanted to listen to music, and really hear the music. Hi-Fi systems, stacks of records, and intentionality. Jesse and Missy took inspiration from this and adapted the idea to suit an American style cocktail lounge. The result is a special balance that you aren’t going to find really anywhere else.

There are around 400 albums at Malted Vinyl. They are lined neatly along the walls, stacked 5 or 6 deep. I could have spent the whole night just flipping through records, marveling at albums I have never seen on vinyl before. Some people do, and when they find a record they want to hear, they bring it up to the turntable and set it behind the next album in line. Soon enough, it will be played, and the whole side will be played.

This is really unique. If you are in any other bar in 2026, the chance that you are going to hear the entirety of an album or half the album or even just two songs from the album back to back is essentially zero. It’s not happening. That’s not how music is played at bars today. Now, it’s Spotify. Rapid fire discontinuity.

Listening to the whole side is listening to the album the way it was conceived. It means experiencing the music as it was intended to be heard. It’s long(er) form. It’s less frantic. It’s anti-algorithm, if that makes sense. In our era of brain-frying 7-second video, listening to a whole album on vinyl is a totally different world.

Zach the bartender told me that what he likes about working at Malted Vinyl is the fact that he gets to hear music he wouldn’t normally listen to. Usually we only hear the hits, we don’t hear the other stuff, but you do when you listen to vinyl. Melissa said that on Wednesdays people bring in their albums from home to play on the stereo. That’s a real cool thing, and of course, unique. Where else are they doing that?

Melissa told me she thinks the clientele skews younger and they are interested in this kind of more intentional, less digital experience. That’s interesting and probably tracks along with a renewed interest in film, camcorder aesthetics, and all things 90s and older. There is among some, a kind of mini-revolt against the smothering effervescence of the digital world. It takes form in different ways, but it’s there.

There are no TVs in Malted Vinyl and it’s great. I didn’t notice it at first, I was just taking the place in, enjoying my drink, and listening to music, but then I realized there were no 78-inch monstrous screens hung over the bar. The game—whatever game may be playing because there is always a game—wasn’t on full blast drowning out everyone’s conversation and tearing at everyone’s eyes. There were no schizoid images flashing in blue light disturbing the peace. There were no ads in our faces.

Just good music, good people, good drinks, and great vibes; exactly how it should be.