This Bikini Bar Sells the Most Beer in Wayne County

Livonia — Lake Pointe Yacht Club isn’t quite what it sounds like. For one thing, there aren’t any yachts. It’s not really a club in any official sense. It seems like a simple roadside bar overlooking a small lake, frozen over in winter, with footsteps tracking toward it across the snow covered ice.

The Yacht Club is no ordinary bar, however. It’s a “bikini bar,” the regulars told me. Not a strip club, not a regular bar, but a secret third thing. A local watering hole, but with waitresses in bikinis and lingerie.

From the outside, it looks just like the hundreds of other old bars and restaurants dotting the roadways across Michigan. A wooden building with a small stone entryway, an LED sign out front with scrolling happy hour advertisements, $1 off domestic drafts 4-7 p.m.

On the inside, it’s not that different either. Dark wooden paneling, low ceilings, a long double-sided bar, tables and chairs. Patrons packed in on a Thursday night—perhaps more men than your typical restaurant, but plenty of women joining them too.

Really the only difference is the uniforms of the waitstaff, or lack thereof. Normally it’s bikinis, fitting for the “yacht club” moniker. On Thursday nights, it’s lingerie. Waitresses rushed around carrying burgers and beers in bustiers, thongs, booty shorts, garter belts, and thigh-high stockings.

This is nothing new for the Yacht Club. It’s been this way for 40 years. A bikini bar since its founding, the scantily clad waitstaff seems practically traditional. A nod to a past that was more embodied than the digital age, more human.

Yes, of course the eye candy is a large part of the appeal. I didn’t catch many men staring at the waitresses, though. It’s not like a strip club, where patrons gather around shiny poles on stages to gawk.

It’s more civilized than that. These ladies were working, constantly bustling around bringing food and drinks to tables, mixing cocktails and pouring draft beers. You’d feel weird eyeing them up too aggressively.

No lap dances, either. No physical contact with the waitstaff, from what I could tell. The waitresses were pretty, and their bodies were on display, but that didn’t seem like the whole reason people love the place.

So why do so many people come here if it’s not just to look?

The guys at the bar told me they were all regulars and knew the other guys at the bar by name. The waitresses knew them too, flirting and joking back like old friends. Most of the guys just hung out and drank their beers together like any other night.

A woman danced in the aisle next to her boyfriend, throwing it back to WHATCHU KNO ABOUT ME by Glorilla feat. Sexyy Red. They were with an older couple, seemingly one of their parents.

She asked me not to take her picture. She said she works for a hospital and didn’t want to be photographed at the Yacht Club. Most patrons felt similarly, very interested in my camera but not wanting to be photographed.

The waitresses were different. After chatting up the owner, he spoke to the girls and told me photographs were totally fine. They indulged me for a few photos, posing behind the bar, carrying drinks around. The friendliest girls in Livonia, no doubt. Thanks again, ladies!

An old man sat alone at a high table, having long conversations with his waitress when she came by. When she brought his food out, there was another dish for her too, and she leaned against the table picking away at it with a fork.

I couldn’t tell if he’d bought extra food for her or if she’d just brought over her own dinner. Waitstaff at most restaurants get a shift meal, don’t they?

Simple conversation for an old man, albeit with a pretty young thing. It seemed like an innocent desire. Someone with a pretty face to talk to, in person, a rarity in today’s increasingly atomized world.

He wasn’t the only one making small talk, either. Waitresses lingered around tables more than you’d see in typical restaurants, chatting with the patrons, flirting a bit. Occasionally sharing a few bites of something too. They don’t work for free, but they didn’t seem to hate their jobs either.

I’m sure he left her a nice tip, probably more than expected in a normal restaurant. I would imagine the average tip here exceeds 20%, with more than a few phone numbers written on the receipts.

That didn’t seem to really change the interactions though. Everyone seemed like old pals, the conversations flowed naturally. It wasn’t like strip clubs, where the commercial aspect can put up a barrier and things seem fake.

The appeal of the Yacht Club seemed more on the level of basic human desires than anything elaborately erotic. A beer, a nice meal, conversation with your buddies, the small thrill of making a busty waitress in lingerie laugh.

The thing is, American culture has largely criminalized flirting in public and banished it to the internet. To the DMs, the dating apps, which increasingly leave people unsatisfied.

Young men feel it keenly. Encountering women and flirting IRL grows more rare by the year. Old men, used to a different social context, must feel it even more.

Just as absent is basic conversation, friendship, and nights out away from the screen. Drinking in general is at an all-time low, and younger generations report fewer and fewer of the sort of basic human social experiences that characterize human life.

Something about the stripped away clothing does away with these trends at the Yacht Club. There are fewer barriers to interaction, literally in terms of clothing, but socially as well. Everyone was friendly and relaxed, and happy to make conversation with a stranger with a camera.

That has other effects as well—the owner told me they go through 50 kegs of beer a week, endlessly pouring domestic brews from the taps. That’s the most beer in the county, by his reckoning, and the food seemed popular too.

If you can provide an environment for basic human social interaction in 2026, your business will do well, it turns out. If that means less clothing for the consenting adults on the waitstaff, so be it.

Bikini-clad waitstaff is simply one way to loosen everyone up and shift the social context towards something less formal and more familiar. Sure, some might have moral concerns, but really, it’s practically wholesome compared to the stuff your average zoomer sees online on a daily basis.

If you’re randomly in Livonia and looking for a friendly bar, put on your sailing hat and hit the Yacht Club. You won’t find any boats there, but there’s beer, burgers, and friendly ladies. Three things that, in a very real way, you can’t find scrolling your phone.