In 1965, with $1,800 in savings, Larry Flynt made a down payment on a bar in one of Dayton’s working-class neighborhoods. He knew what his target, the working-class man, wanted. He set up horseshoe stakes and picnic tables and named it Hillbilly Haven. He gave the people what they wanted and with the profits he bought a second and third bar, both of which were incredibly successful.
With a different kind of place in mind, Flynt opened a fourth bar and called it Whatever’s Right. He sought to give this bar a “more elegant atmosphere” and geared it towards a more affluent and upscale male patron. One reason for the venue’s popularity and success was a dance floor filled with attractive hostesses whose job it was to dance with the patrons. He realized that if fully-clothed girls made him good money then semi-clothed girls would make him even more, so he opened the first Hustler Club in 1968. The Hustler Club turned into a huge success and quickly became a chain in Southern Ohio with eight clubs and more than 300 employees.
Always the entrepreneur, Flynt began publishing the Hustler Newsletter containing information about his various clubs to keep people informed and coming back. By 1974 the Hustler Newsletter had morphed into a full-fledged magazine, HUSTLER. A year into publishing, HUSTLER was grossing more than $500,000 per issue. Later that same year, with publishing profits far surpassing those of the Hustler Clubs, Flynt decided to get out of the bar business and be a publisher full-time.
For almost thirty years the Hustler Club name lay dormant. In the early eighties, Larry Flynt Publications began to license the Hustler Club name to establish new locations across the country. Attending the opening of the Hustler Club San Francisco in March 2002, Flynt said, “There’s a difference between style and class. We want this club to be about class.” So the HUSTLER legend continues.
