Rick's strip club to reopen Friday under new owners

I might go to the grand opening tonight, or this weekend. A month ago I talked to one of the managers of the new club, who is currently a manager of the Deja Vu, Lake Forest Park, just two miles north, on the same street. He said the decor will be elegant. The exact term he used to describe it will be "Moulin Rouge." We'll see what that means.

This past Wednesday night, I was in Little Darlings and a dancer there, who will now work at the new club seemed to think that what was the former VIP room will have a price tag of three dances for $100. I'm not expecting this new club to be like the old Rick's. It will probably just be another, but fancy, Deja Vu club. (Yawn.) It's always been my experience that any new strip club, anywhere, is very careful and cautious in its first year of opening. After that, they tend to loosen up. Here in Seattle, Club Sin Rock is an example. I was just there Wednesday night also, and things are a little more enjoyable now.

Damn. For sure I thought it would become a Muslim prayer center.

Owned by Deja Vu?!? No thank you.

@ CTQWERTY: Deja Vu got its start in Seattle. Its first club, ever, is still open and just up the street in neighboring Lake Forest Park (which I see you've reviewed). That's why there's such a strong Deja Vu presence in the Puget Sound Region. When Dream Girls at Rick's opens tonight, the Vu corporation will have eight of the fifteen clubs in Washington state. (The other seven aren't even that good.) When the former Rick's building was first announced as being up for auction, I e-mailed eight other strip club companies to interest them in the auction, in the hope that the winning bid would come from someone other than Deja Vu. I wasn't successful. I think a Muslim prayer center would have been a better end result.

Ugghh

I haven't had any fun in Seattle since the Ricks-Honeys-Sugars closure, though I've heard lots of great stories about the last night at Honeys. Wish I had been there.

@ ArtCollege: If you liked the stories about the last night at Honey's, a Facebook page was made of it. Many of the dancers who worked that night are shown in photos. Most prominently is Jacqueline (now retired, I believe). See: facebook.com

It's going to be like when Bo and Luke Duke got replaced by those other guys...

CG, that was a noble outreach on your part. TUSCLers should picket the new Rick's for "not being up to standards". lol

You really had to dig to find my old review. That visit sucked. The Vu on the 2nd floor (at the Fish Market) was MUCH BETTER!!! Also liked the new (had just opened) Lil Darlins (just north of downtown).

@ CTQ: I must confess that I didn't read your review. I only saw that you had reviewed the Lake Forest Park Vu (by reading the list of clubs you've reviewed, which is a shorter list than the list of your actual reviews). I definitely WILL go in tonight to see the new club. I don't expect to review it though. But I'll post something here late tonight or early tomorrow.

The trip was interesting enough to write a review, so I did. Look for it soon. Just one observation for now that I'll post here: It looks as if the Vu company is banking on a high-end club in a low-end economy. Dance prices on the floor are $20. each. But, a fairly large amount of the floor area is devoted to dances where the price range is $100. to $600. to get in the door.

I read your review. Given the economy, the VIP dance area seems overpriced. Adding in the mileage factor of the Vu chain in general and Seattle overall, and a guy would have to have no game whatsoever at a nightclub and/or bar to visit the VIP area at the new Rick's. Don't think I'm there yet!

What comes to mind was the scene at the old Rick's: 19-yr old guys sitting in the front row with no money sipping soda, watching the full nude stage dancing. The hostess seated us near that scene and we were almost attacked by the starved dancers (assumption made we were older and had money). I almost lost a nipple on a sneak attack.

@ CTQ. - I agree with your observation. I don't think that their pricing structure fits the current economy. This afternoon I texted with one of the dancers that I got dances with last night to ask her about the level of business last night. She said that she did well, but most of the other girls she talked with didn't. She only saw one customer get dances in one of the private rooms all through the eight hours she worked last night. (He bought a $200./15 min. session.)

I think the club would do better to offer the choice of $30. individual dances in the room where it's currently priced 3/$100. Without this, a customer either has a $20. choice, or a $100. choice. Something in between might be a good offering, just like at up the street.

$200 for 15 minutes? $600 per hour? WTF, over?

Though even at that, it isn't as bad as the last time I was in the Louisville DV. They wanted three hundred for that15 minute room.

They likely knowingly started high with the idea they could always lower it. That is unless the whole financial outlay (property purchase & remodel) necessitated the high-priced VIP.

Did they run any of their flashing blue light 2-for-1 dance specials while you were there?

@ CTQ: There was only one "house dance" during the hour and twenty minutes I was there. I don't recall that they used the "K-Mart light" (as I like to call it). If the "Dreamgirls" line is an upscale version of Deja Vu's clubs, maybe they don't use the blue light to promote the specials. Speaking of specials, since I last posted here, I've talked to more dancers about opening night there. One rememinded me that on any type of special that the Vu runs, the club takes a cut of the dances given. This also applies to the special rooms I've mentioned. One example is the 3/$100. room. The club takes $10. of that. At the Lake Forest Park Vu, just up the street, many dancers avoid the specials altogether, just for that reason.

No specials!! Lol

Yes, I've seen that behavior before. The San Diego Vu on Midway. The blue lights came on and the gals all rushed to the locker room. The opposite was true at the Fish Market Vu in Seattle. There the gals would all plop down near special time with a guy in hopes of landing a dance order once the deal was announced.

No dance specials at the new Vu?!? If ever there again I'll have to make like the 19 yr olds: spend little, but sit in the front row and drool...

@ CTQ.: I stated that there was one special (a 3/$40., while I was there.) I sense that Stiletto was expressing displeasure over having to give customers specials. Dancers at the Vu clubs here, don't seem to like the specials (usually two for $20. or three for $30 or $40.)because the club takes a cut of that money. I believe it's $10. So they avoid it. I have advice for the dancers that react that way:

1. Honor your employer. The company is giving you a job. You would do well to respect that and at least some of the time, do something nice for your employer, like give customer dances on the specials. It doesn't have to be for all of the specials, just some of them. If a club manager sees a dancer consistently avoiding the specials, I would wonder what that manager thinks of that dancer.

2. As CTQ. alluded to above, I feel the dancers who do seek out customers for the specials are smart. Although the dancer is making less money during that moment, maybe a dancer who gives a special will get a special customer in the long run. I certainly like it when the specials are on. I've met many new dancers during specials, that I am now a regular of. Consumers like a bargain now and then. The dance specials are just that, a deal to get you interested in the company's product.

Strip joint a welcome sign of better times?

The Wrap by Ron Judd

Seattle Times staff columnist

Our long regional nightmare may finally be over.

For three years, we've all been thirsting for a sign that the global economy is on the rebound. And boom, here it is.

Not those record Boeing orders. A grand reopening in little old Lake City.

The return of Rick's Nightclub, the former establishment of the late indicted racketeer Frank Colacurcio Sr., is as firm a sign as you'll find that Americans — at least those of the skeezy variety — finally have loose, dispensable singles in their pockets again.

We wonder, though, why the new owners chose to associate with the joint's criminal past by calling the strip club "Dreamgirls at Rick's" — a name also completely lacking in imagination.

In keeping with our long tradition of just trying to help, we offer a selection of clearly superior marquee choices:

• Rick's Chris Striphouse.

• The Experience Mammaries Project.

• T & A Supply. (Oops, sorry, already taken.)

• The Implantation.

"Honor your employer. The company is giving you a job."

Except that technically in many cases, they are not in fact giving the girls a job, they're giving them the shaft. True, they're letting the girls work there, but they aren't employed, and the fees many clubs charge are outrageous. Many clubs make more off the girls than the girls make.

It's one of the reasons why OTC offers work as often as they do. For me, anyway.

Gee, I didn't think that my commenting on the opening of a new strip club way out of the way here in the northwest of the Pacific Northwest would create so much interest! To those of us here, a new strip club is a big deal. We have so few in the entire state. It's always an interesting subject even if the chain opening it is McStrip Club.

Was it really worth the $2.3 million they paid for the property? Not to mention the rehab costs... How long can they afford to carry it?

CTQ: Your question about Deja Vu's purchase price paid is very timely. I get press releases by e-mail from the Rick's Cabaret International, which has several Texas clubs and many in other states (not related to the former Rick's in Seattle). I just got one anouncing the acquisition by Rick's Cabaret of the Silver City Cabaret, a Dallas adult nightclub. Some fragments from the press release: It's a 54,000 square foot building. (Not all of it used for the strip club.) Subsidiaries of Rick’s Cabaret will pay current owners a total of $12 million for the Silver City property and a separate property just off the busy I-35 corridor that includes a sexually oriented business license, which the company intends to develop in the future. So, it might seem that $2.3 million paid for the Rick's Seattle property may not be all that much in the world of strip club acquisitions. (The Seattle Rick's is a 5,905 sq. ft. building.)

If I remember correctly Rick's Cabaret bought the Indy facility for 1.6 million. That building needed quite a bit of interior work.