Nikita Kash at www.travelingentertainers.com gave me the heads up on the Grand Opening of this club. I drove by before it opened last week just to scope out the location. It is actually a brand new building about a mile north of Oasis Gentlemen’s Club. A few of the Oasis owners are also owners of this club. Here is the blurb from the Philadelphia Inquirer, scroll down to the bottom.
I arrived at 9:30 for the start of my 10-2 shift. The club is brand new, and yes the tanning bed in the dressing room mentioned in the article is apparently very strong. The club has a great set-up for the owners and the customers, but it is not optimal from the dancers’ perspective.
The Steakhouse is completely separated from the club with soundproof walls, but has several large windows for the diners to watch the main stage. The rest of the main seating area is a huge 100 foot long plus bar. There are two small nooks each with two tables for seating, otherwise you have to sit at the bar. After the three song rotation on the main stages, which is basically an island surrounded by the bar, the dancers do a tip walk around the inside of the bar perimeter to collect their dollars. It reminded me of Mr J’s in Southern California, where after the stage set each entertainer got a dollar from every patron. I think it gives a very personal touch, since every customer gets to meet every entertainer before the lapdance sale pressure. From the dancer’s perspective it gives a chance to pre-screen the guys sitting at the bar before approaching for the lap dance sale. On each of my tip walks I was told to come back when I was done.
There are no main floor dances. How can you when there are no chairs? The bar also made it difficult to approach the customers from the front. Think about it: when you sit at a bar you sit facing forward, and in this case it’s looking at the stage. This forces the entertainer to approach EVERY customer in the bar from behind, which is the worst way to approach someone.
All dances are done in either the $20 couch dance room or the half hour and hour champagne rooms. The club counts how many couch dances each performer sells and takes 25% of all lapdance sales ….and 55% of champagne room time. I thought the 55% cut was a bit high, especially since the base stage fee was $30. At Delilah’s the stage fee is $65, and I can keep 100% of my lapdance and champagne room earnings.
I’m actually quite surprised at the vast difference in pricing structure for similar clubs in the same city. Even though Delilahs has (apparently) the highest stage fee in town, any entertainer who does more than 7 dances in an evening will end up paying more to the house at Christine’s than she will at Delilah’s.
So, this is a no brainer: Panda and Curtis have a business meeting in Philly next week. Given their tendency to spend multiple hours in the Champagne room…should I meet them at Delilahs where I charge and keep $400/hour. Or should I take my generous and loyal clients to Christine’s where the house will charge them $500/hour, and I keep $240?
Tags: christine's cabaret, exotic dancer, strip club, stripper, the lodge, vip room
I think your best bet is to keep the money you are earning to yourself. 55 % is not only ridiculous it’s uncalled for you are doing 100 % of the work and should only tip out who and what you wish. Thank You for the advice last night I am going to have a better night tomorrow I just know it. hugs
It’s kinda standard in Brisbane (Qld, Australia) to hand over half of all your lap dance money to the club in pretty much all the clubs up there. The only ones that do not.. well.. are not exactly ‘high class’.
I have a feeling this club is mainly interested in less experienced, less skilled dancers. Clubs set up like this one tend to work for those types of girls because they don’t have to worry about having to sell too many dancers to ‘make house fee’.
Oh, and if you are ever stuck at a club where you have to approach from behind… approach from the “passenger side” (for here in AU it’s the left side). People are used to having people on that side of them thus it is regarded as a ‘safer’ side to approach.
Gotta love clubs that work for the owners and clients. Let’s not even give a hoot about the dancers (and then they wonder why they can’t attract any ‘decent’ ones and/or have a high turnover).