The Painted Lady

The Painted Lady occupies a building with a genuinely wild past — a pre-Prohibition speakeasy (there’s still a hidden staircase behind a bookcase to prove it), then decades as an unnamed bar, then, starting in 1974, Lili’s 21 Club, run by a leopard-print-clad woman named Lili Karwowski who became the den mother of Detroit’s punk scene. The Clash, Iggy Pop, and Wayne Kramer all played the tiny stage here before Lili’s family sold the building in 2002 and it reopened as The Painted Lady under new owners who’d been regulars themselves.

The space still leans proudly divey — black-and-white tile, orange walls, a vintage jukebox, pinball, and PBR both on tap and immortalized as a lamp above the beer taps — and live music still cycles through that same small corner stage. Thanks to its location two blocks from Keyworth Stadium, it also turns into one of the more reliably packed spots in town before and after Detroit City FC matches.

On our radar for a genuine piece of Detroit punk history that’s still a working bar, or for a pre-game drink walking distance from Keyworth.