Annoying Strip Club Practices ... Part 1: "Wanna Buy the Lady a Drink?â€
Club_Goer_Seattle
Seattle, Washington
Mostly in juice bars, waitresses will descend on a customer as soon as they see one sitting with a dancer and then approach the customer with the question, “ Would you like to buy the lady a drink?†(If the waitress knows the dancer's name, then they will substitute the girl's name for “the lady.â€) This practice is done for at least two different reasons that I have observed. If readers know of more, please chime in.
(1) Dancers are often given a quota of drinks that they must get customers to buy for them over the course of their shift. If they don't reach their quota, then the dancers must pay for the unpurchased drinks themselves. It's a way of increasing the dancers house fee.
(2) Another form of the ladies' drink requirement is a little less intimidating on the dancer. No quota is set, but the dancer can offset her house fee by the amount of money paid by the ladies' drinks she's received during her shift. (Perhaps there is a dollar or drink limit to this.)
Either way, customers are besieged throughout their time at the club to spend money on ladies' drinks. One waitress will come by one minute, and three minutes later another waitress may arrive, and if the second waitress doesn't see a ladies' drink on the table she will ask the customer “Wanna buy the lady a drink?†Some clubs offer different sizes of drinks. Here in Seattle, the Déjà Vu clubs offer either a $10. or $20. ladies drink. That can get expensive fast. For crying out loud, $20. is the price of a dance (which I would normally rather spend my money on)! I sometimes think, just charge the customers $5. more admission at the door, then have the waitresses leave the customers alone at their tables.
Furthermore, the part of this practice that really fries my ass, is once a customer has already committed to spending money on a dancer by buying dances, waitresses will still go into whatever dance area you're in, then interrupt your dance with the dancer and ask “Wanna buy the lady a drink?†Once I've agreed to pay $20. or $30. for less than three minutes of fun, I really don't want to be interrupted by a waitress. I really feel that the club management should at least have a practice of not soliciting ladies' drinks in the dance areas.
Depending on the dancer, and my budget, which varies from trip to trip, I do buy some ladies' drinks. In the past two years, when my overall strip club budget has been much less than it used to be, I have actually found a lady's drink to be a good middle ground situation. I'm always conscious of one bit of customer etiquette: Don't take up too much of a dancer's time if you don't intend to spend money on her. I feel that I'm pretty good about observing this. If I want to spend some time chatting with a dancer, but I'm unsure if I want to buy dances (or underfunded), I have begun to use the ladies' drink alternative to buying dances as a means to spending some money on a dancer in exchange for some conversation time with her.
I intend to write subsequent discussion items on other annoying strip club practices. Hence, this one is labeled, "Part 1."
How do you readers feel about “ladies' drinks,†and how do you cope with, tolerate, or even embrace them ???
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Here in Columbus there are several clubs that try to run this bullshit. Surprisingly there are regulars who come in and spend money on buying lady drinks every week but don't buy dances.
At Columbus Gold a table dance is $12 or a lady drink $20. The dancer keeps $10 either way so I would rather buy a table dance because it is cheaper and I get to sample her dancing. Some dancers however claim "they don't do table dances" so that makes it easy to filter out the ROBs.
Columbus Gold/Rachel's/Escape : Focus is on lap dances but also lady drinks are pushed by the waitresses within a few minutes of a dancer sitting down with you.
House of Babes/Sinbad's/Diamond Jim's: Focus is solely on lady drinks. The lap dance area at Sinbad's is just a fold out chair in the corner that no one uses.
Doll House: Focus is on lap dances and when you buy drinks you have the option to pick if you want it normal price or not. Of course the dancer wants you to usually do the higher price but if she is not an ROB then she won't mind.
However, I've had a waitress ask me do I want to buy a dancer a drink when she see's me sitting with one. It's happened multiple times. So I know exactly what you mean.
Honestly, I've only bought a dancer a drink one time. I'll probably never do it again. But she was a dancer that I received multiple lap dances from in the past and I was just feeling generous that night.
I'll probably be in the minority when I say this, but I feel like buying a dancer a drink just makes one even more of a PL. Does anyone else feel this way? Besides that, the money that you're spending on a dancers drink, could be going towards more LD's. :)
i watch alot of other customers fall into that trap but i mostly avoid it by just telling them no. my idea of a good time isn't wasting my cash on an overpriced watered down drink on some chick that's only sitting with me so that she can meet her quota.
I'm not a fan of this practice.
Like me, gridget does not drink alcohol. When she wants a coke, she just goes to the bar, tips the bar tender a buck and gets the coke free. This saves me the cost of $3.50 plus tip to a waitress. No big deal but considerate of her.
My original ATF kept a bottle of booze in her locker. When she wanted a drink, she just went to the dressing room. Her philosophy was "I won't pay these prices for a drink and I wouln't expect you to buy me one either". Who am I to argue with a lady?
Sat at the bar. An unattractive, overweight WAITRESS immediately sat down next to me. The female bartender asked if I wanted to buy this uninvited waitress a drink. "No thanx, I just want to chill on my own."
I hadn't planned on spending much that nite. Mostly tipped at stage. I was mostly on my way home when a very attractive dancer appeared. We chatted at the bar for a minute (she had me thinking about a dance). Bartender asked the same question. This time I said yes. The drink arrived when a bouncer type guy tapped her on the shoulder and said she had a dance. She gulped down the $10 and never came back :-(
GoVikings: It's happened to me in many clubs: being solicited for ladies' drinks in the lap dance area. Glad to know you have clubs available to you that at least respect the fact that a customer is already spending money on the dancer. Why get greedy and ask the customer to spend more? A waitress should only be in the lap dance area to clear empty glasses.
gillydon: That's the appropriate logic!
ironcat: That's a good approach with the dancer. That's my thinking, too. I just don't usually come right out and say it to the dancer.
shadowcat: I agree. The ladies' drink requirement also spawns poor practices among the dancers that have to tolerate it.
Also, someone else (can't find it now, above) commented about having to buy ladies' drinks, and then the dancer doesn't drink it. I can certainly understand that often dancers don't really want to drink the drink they've just been served, but they have to accept it, or else! Sometime they legitimately get interrupted, have to walk away from the table where it was served, and forget they had a $20. ladies drink bought for them. The common dancer etiquette in this situation, is that the dancer should take the drink with her, out of sight of the customer, and dispose of it (pretending that she actually drank it, or kept it safe until she wanted it).
GSWx4: That's an abuse of dancers--management threatening them with termination if they refuse a ladies' drink.
It is amazing what can then happen in even strict no-contact clubs!!
A couple of times a waitress interrupted as soon as a dancer sat down asking if I want to buy the dancer a drink and I said not right now in one club. After the waitress left, the dancer actually thanked me for getting rid of that particular waitress. I wouldn't be surprised if such waitresses tick off customers before a dancer has any chance to talk or ask about dances.
I do still buy drinks from time to time, but it's not something I'll do often anymore. You have to realize that the girl in many cases may not even want a drink.
But in most cases, the drink hasn't been worth it - so I'm cutting that out of my routine for sure.