Violet Sanford (PIPER PERABO) is a 21-year-old aspiring songwriter who's decided to leave her small New Jersey town and her overprotective, single father, Bill (JOHN GOODMAN), for a shot at success in the Big Apple. Driven there by her best friend, Gloria (MELANIE LYNSKEY), Violet sets out to storm the record industry with her various ditties.
Unfortunately, she runs into the typical closed doors and setbacks, and even mistakes a restaurant worker, Kevin O'Donnell (ADAM GARCIA), for an industry insider. To make matters worse, her dungy apartment is broken into and all of her cash is stolen. She gets a break, however, when she happens to overhear several attractive young women, Zoe (TYRA BANKS), Rachel (BRIDGET MOYNAHAN) and Cammie (IZABELLA MIKO), comment on the money they made the night before and the fact that Zoe is leaving their fold.
Learning that they're "coyotes" - so named for the notorious bar, "Coyote Ugly," where they work as sassy, strutting bartenders - Violet meets the owner, Lil (MARIA BELLO), and manages to get a job there. Although she's taken aback by the wild, near stripper like atmosphere where the ladies tease and taunt their largely male clientele by dancing, strutting and cavorting atop the bar, Violet soon figures out how to fit in.
She also begins to fall for Kevin, an Aussie who's charmed her from the beginning and pushes her to follow her songwriting dream. The only problem is her crippling case of stage fright when it comes to singing her own songs and the fact that she must perform them in public to be noticed as a songwriter. As Violet attempts to do just that, she must contend with her romance with Kevin, her father's reaction to where she works, and the wild antics and demands of her stint as the newest "coyote."