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Who owns Coyote Ugly Saloon? Women remove bras and carry out 'call of shame' the next day at gin joint

The 2000 cult Hollywood movie 'Coyote Ugly' made almost $113 million and generated interest in the bar all around the world
PUBLISHED JAN 29, 2023
Liliana Lovell opened Coyote Ugly Saloon in 1993 and now has 27 locations around the world (Instagram/@coyoteuglyusa)
Liliana Lovell opened Coyote Ugly Saloon in 1993 and now has 27 locations around the world (Instagram/@coyoteuglyusa)

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: The infamously bawdy East Village gin spot Coyote Ugly Saloon in NYC is decorated with thousands of bras that inebriated ladies have drunkenly removed. Some, however, change their minds and call the next day to beg to pick up the thrown undergarments.

“It was almost like the Call of Shame: ‘I left my $90 Victoria’s Secret bra. It’s, you know, a 34C. Could I get it?'” Owner of the bar Liliana "Lil" Lovell, who marked the bar's 30th birthday on January 27, gave this explanation to New York Post. She added, “So they’d come back to pick up their bra, get drunk again, and leave the bra they had on.”

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Who owns the Coyote Ugly Saloon?

The Coyote Ugly restaurant was founded by the brunette beauty, Liliana Lovell and her ex-husband, Tony Piccirillo, in 1993. She made the decision to hire only women, who dance in the bar while wearing cowboy boots. “Women just made more money … it’s as simple as that,” she said. “I’d like to pretend it was some feminist agenda, but that’s just not true.” Back then, obtaining a liquor license required them to provide food service. “We put a microwave behind the bar and … a can of like chili,” she recalled. “We just did it in case [an inspector] came in.”

The brassieres were placed in a bag and later misplaced by the bar's porter during the 2014 renovation of the original tavern on First Avenue between Ninth and 10th Streets. “He actually went to bring them to the cleaners or something like that,” Lovell, 55, explained. “And all the sudden, we go to reopen, I’m like, ‘Where are all the bras?’ So we had to start from scratch.” They now hang on the back wall of the 'honky-tonk' after it relocated to East 14th Street in 2021.

There used to be actual fire pouring from Lovell's mouth because the area is so volatile. “I was a good fire breather … you drank [151-proof Bacardi Rum] and you spit out into a flame and that would blow fire,” said Lovell. She further said, “I opened in Kyrgyzstan. I didn’t even know where Kyrgyzstan was.”



 

She has made some intriguing observations over the course of her more than three decades in the bar industry. She claimed that in New York City, bartenders never miss work because their rent is $2,000 per month. Her New Orleans bartenders, however, may be inventive. “They’d call in sick: ‘Lil, I can’t come in today. I had rough sex with my boyfriend and one of my fake boobs popped,'” she said. “I had one girl … say, ‘My boyfriend locked me out of the apartment and I’m naked and he chopped off my fingers'.”

The Westchester native and NYU graduate began serving beverages in her early 20s while working as a bartender at the 'Village Idiot' at night and for a brokerage firm during the day. “I made $250 a week on Wall Street,” said Lovell, who now lives in San Diego. “But, you know, as a New York City bartender, I could walk home with $1,000 on a night.”

Elizabeth Gilbert, a former Coyote who later wrote the memoir "Eat, Pray, Love," penned a GQ column in 1997 that was jam-packed with tales from the bar. The 2000 cult Hollywood movie "Coyote Ugly" was based on it. The movie, in which Maria Bello played Lovell, made almost $113 million and generated interest in the bar all around the world. Now with 27 locations across the world, the saloon keeper has made over $1 billion in sales. However, she claims that the film wasn't entirely factual. “There’s one part … where she buys the whole bar a round. I would f.....g cut my finger off before I did that.”

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