There are many of us who drink soft drinks and others who nurse their drinks for long periods of time. Alcohol covers some of the overhead and some clubs get a cut of lap dances and others get a huge cut of VIP. Entry fees help, but the primary income producer is alcohol. Lastly, why do they charge so much for drinks? Because they can!
Some places have cheap drinks; it depends on the club. Overpriced drinks makes any club less attractive and hurts business. Managers can be pretty stupid, as we know.
I asked this question at work once. My manager told me they price them so high because strip club liquor licenses are typically double the amount of "normal" bars. They use the excess amount to pay for the liquor license and stripper tip out fees usually go toward bar renovations and cabaret license fees.
My local club has "Bud", "Bud Lite", and "Yuengling" with naked women for $4.50 a bottle. I don't consider that gouging! In the 1970's, $4.50 for Bud at a club w live musical entertainment - that was expensive to the teen me. If it's about mass consumption at bargain prices - go to the appropriate local bar.
This is the main reason I'm a big fan of BYOB clubs. I know they have to make profit, but I hate spending 6 bucks on one bottle of beer.
I actually paid 9 bucks for a bottle of beer one time in a strip club (Spearmint Rhino). It was in Las Vegas. Yes, I know that should be expected in Vegas, but still, that's ridiculous.
What a stupid question. The drinks are priced high because they can get you to pay that price. They are using the women to make money, and we are totally complicit in it.
So long as there are some bounds to it, I think it is harmless. In California they are not allowed to price the alcoholic drinks for the ladies higher than the drinks for the customers.
The earlier forms of SC's, Go-Go Bars, made a much larger portion of their money off of the drinks. The Brass Rail in Sunnyvale still pay's the girls min wage as they are the waitresses. So there are no access fees. So with just a night time small cover and the bar, they get all of their money.
When Jim and Artie Mitchell started they were just showing movies. But then they added a live strip show, on a stage in front of the screen. They paid the girls $25 per set. There was no tipping. No customer ever got close enough to them to be able to give them a tip.
They finally they decided to let the girls "go out into the audience". This meant lap sitting. What "mileage" there might have been varied. The brothers strictly prohibited FS. They fired any girl violating.
The first group of girls decided among themselves that $1 per minute was how fast the meter should run. Whatever "mileage" was had was always done in the main room, and at that fee. No booths or back rooms, no negotiating fee for service. This is the only way the brothers were able to win the criminal prosecutions which followed.
It was when the girls got to go out into the audience that they stopped paying them and instead had them pay the house. See it is always the owners, staff, and dancers who are splitting up the money pool. But it is easier to enlarge that pool if the dancers are the ones collecting most of it, instead of the doorman or the bartender. This presses the girls harder though. They are more likely to be found doing things which go beyond the rules. The girls who like to work in such environments are going to be of a type much harder to regulate.
Now later San Francisco did change to booths and backrooms. This is because the legal pressure lightened up. Then the girls did change to negotiating in ways that looked very much like fee for service.
Mostly using the booths and backrooms is a way for the house to take another deep cut.
At the most extreme of SF Clubs during the days of least regulatory pressure, the access fees got very high. The girls felt that they were being pressured into territory many of them did not want to enter. Many who came to the no contact clubs in Sunnyvale talked of having left San Francisco, "because I don't like working in a brothel."
The times when girls speak of things being expensive, more expensive, and even more expensive, that is just a way of perpetuating an open ended fantasy. Nothing is actually being ruled out. But because of how they are pricing it, it isn't likely that it happens very often. Some tourists and such come there because they want to be clipped. So manybe then. BUt what they get will always be compromised because the girls are not really in the business of providing that.
If the girl really wants to give you something nice she will do it for a sensible price at the club, or she will offer to do it for you outside.
If she doesn't want to do it, paying her more money will not change this.
As far as the drink hustle when you sit with a girl, it is just another way for the house to put you on the spot and take another cut. Someone posted about the technique of just brushing the waitress off, and then handing the dancer $10.
I've often thought of maybe waiting 'till there was no dancer with me, then picking one of the waitresses and chatting her up. Ask her if she ever dances, or if she is going to, or why not. Tell her how much I would like to see her dance. See if she will sit on my lap. See if she will accept siting tips. See if she will make out with me. No telling what might happen from there. Some of the waitresses look real nice and what conversations I have had with them have been interesting. Those who don't dance are attracted to the sexual currents that are in play. So they are often very flattered if you start treating them like a dancer.
I don't think it's as simple as "Because we can!". When we go to regular bars, you have a choice, if you are in a reasonably sized city. Essentially, when you go to a regular bar, they have to have beer at a low price, because they might lose out to some competition bar around the corner. When we go to strip clubs, however, we are going there for the titties and not for the alcohol, so essentially, we are like a captive audience, a lot like going to a sporting event, another place alcohol costs too much. When there is a captive audience, they can essentially charge a lot more than elsewhere, because you can't go elsewhere for alcohol.
Drinks sales are a major profit center not just for strip clubs but for nightclubs in general: a hot regular nightspot in a happening town will also gouge you on call drinks and "bottle service", only without the benefit of nekkid wimmins all around.
As was mentioned it also depends on the market. A club in Vegas or Manhattan may charge twice or three times as much for the same beer as one in Pompano Beach.
Drink sales are probably the biggest money makers even for restaurants including fast-food place like McDonalds.
In most restaurants; if you order a coke or pepsi; they may charge you close to 3 bucks and IDK the #s but I would think that soda may not cost them more than 10 cents (or less) since they get it in those fountain type plastic bags that don’t require expensive bottling.
The electric bills are high in most clubs with so many girls plugging in Hitachi Magic Wand 110 vac models in the dressing room while on break.
Not counting the curling irons and hair straighteners.
I always thought drinks were priced higher in certain clubs because they wanted to keep a certain "crowd" out, while keeping others in. For example high cover, high drinks, paying for seating will keep the younger guys out that won't spend money as much as the older gents, and often are more likely to cause trouble.
You have to also take in account in some areas of the country the real estate the club is sitting on is very expensive, along with liquor license, etc... most clubs aren't selling a ton of food, so drinks and cover charges are probably where they make a good chunk of their money.
Still ever go to a club in Vegas such as XS at Encore/Wynn, Nicky Beach in Miami, Tao at Venetian? Bottle service usually starts at $465 a bottle with a 3 bottle minimum on a busy night. $15 bottles of water and $15 Red Bulls. That will add up quickly, making a $10 drink at a strip club seem like a bargain! lol
Still some nice clubs are reasonable which is refreshing. I was in Pittsburgh a few weeks ago at Cheerleaders and I ordered a bottle of water. Got a Fiji for only $4!!!! I was shocked! lol
You had me for a moment. "Nicky Beach in Miami"? I thought I missed a SC. Then I found a regular club on the beach, Nikki Beach. Never even heard of it. Likely just another overpriced beach ripoff.
In Florida, a normal license can be quite expensive. The number of them available are based on population, and issued once a year via a lottery. If you want one other then that way, you buy/lease on the open market. That equals very costly.
There are a lot of sub-category licenses as well, but in a SC, they would have to have a normal one. Well if 51% of their business is food, there is a category for that. DATY doesn't count! :)
@Papi-
Yes, sodas are the one big profit source for restaurants, as well as convenience stores. I can't remember from my brief days working at 7-11 years ago how much syrup costs and how much profit they make, but I know someone in my current job who used to work at a Kum & Go and he said at least 95% of their profits comes from fountain pop. That seems ridiculous, but that's just the way it is.
20 comments
I actually paid 9 bucks for a bottle of beer one time in a strip club (Spearmint Rhino). It was in Las Vegas. Yes, I know that should be expected in Vegas, but still, that's ridiculous.
What a stupid question. The drinks are priced high because they can get you to pay that price. They are using the women to make money, and we are totally complicit in it.
So long as there are some bounds to it, I think it is harmless. In California they are not allowed to price the alcoholic drinks for the ladies higher than the drinks for the customers.
The earlier forms of SC's, Go-Go Bars, made a much larger portion of their money off of the drinks. The Brass Rail in Sunnyvale still pay's the girls min wage as they are the waitresses. So there are no access fees. So with just a night time small cover and the bar, they get all of their money.
When Jim and Artie Mitchell started they were just showing movies. But then they added a live strip show, on a stage in front of the screen. They paid the girls $25 per set. There was no tipping. No customer ever got close enough to them to be able to give them a tip.
They finally they decided to let the girls "go out into the audience". This meant lap sitting. What "mileage" there might have been varied. The brothers strictly prohibited FS. They fired any girl violating.
The first group of girls decided among themselves that $1 per minute was how fast the meter should run. Whatever "mileage" was had was always done in the main room, and at that fee. No booths or back rooms, no negotiating fee for service. This is the only way the brothers were able to win the criminal prosecutions which followed.
It was when the girls got to go out into the audience that they stopped paying them and instead had them pay the house. See it is always the owners, staff, and dancers who are splitting up the money pool. But it is easier to enlarge that pool if the dancers are the ones collecting most of it, instead of the doorman or the bartender. This presses the girls harder though. They are more likely to be found doing things which go beyond the rules. The girls who like to work in such environments are going to be of a type much harder to regulate.
Now later San Francisco did change to booths and backrooms. This is because the legal pressure lightened up. Then the girls did change to negotiating in ways that looked very much like fee for service.
Mostly using the booths and backrooms is a way for the house to take another deep cut.
At the most extreme of SF Clubs during the days of least regulatory pressure, the access fees got very high. The girls felt that they were being pressured into territory many of them did not want to enter. Many who came to the no contact clubs in Sunnyvale talked of having left San Francisco, "because I don't like working in a brothel."
The times when girls speak of things being expensive, more expensive, and even more expensive, that is just a way of perpetuating an open ended fantasy. Nothing is actually being ruled out. But because of how they are pricing it, it isn't likely that it happens very often. Some tourists and such come there because they want to be clipped. So manybe then. BUt what they get will always be compromised because the girls are not really in the business of providing that.
If the girl really wants to give you something nice she will do it for a sensible price at the club, or she will offer to do it for you outside.
If she doesn't want to do it, paying her more money will not change this.
As far as the drink hustle when you sit with a girl, it is just another way for the house to put you on the spot and take another cut. Someone posted about the technique of just brushing the waitress off, and then handing the dancer $10.
I've often thought of maybe waiting 'till there was no dancer with me, then picking one of the waitresses and chatting her up. Ask her if she ever dances, or if she is going to, or why not. Tell her how much I would like to see her dance. See if she will sit on my lap. See if she will accept siting tips. See if she will make out with me. No telling what might happen from there. Some of the waitresses look real nice and what conversations I have had with them have been interesting. Those who don't dance are attracted to the sexual currents that are in play. So they are often very flattered if you start treating them like a dancer.
SJG
As was mentioned it also depends on the market. A club in Vegas or Manhattan may charge twice or three times as much for the same beer as one in Pompano Beach.
In most restaurants; if you order a coke or pepsi; they may charge you close to 3 bucks and IDK the #s but I would think that soda may not cost them more than 10 cents (or less) since they get it in those fountain type plastic bags that don’t require expensive bottling.
Not counting the curling irons and hair straighteners.
You have to also take in account in some areas of the country the real estate the club is sitting on is very expensive, along with liquor license, etc... most clubs aren't selling a ton of food, so drinks and cover charges are probably where they make a good chunk of their money.
Still ever go to a club in Vegas such as XS at Encore/Wynn, Nicky Beach in Miami, Tao at Venetian? Bottle service usually starts at $465 a bottle with a 3 bottle minimum on a busy night. $15 bottles of water and $15 Red Bulls. That will add up quickly, making a $10 drink at a strip club seem like a bargain! lol
Still some nice clubs are reasonable which is refreshing. I was in Pittsburgh a few weeks ago at Cheerleaders and I ordered a bottle of water. Got a Fiji for only $4!!!! I was shocked! lol
You had me for a moment. "Nicky Beach in Miami"? I thought I missed a SC. Then I found a regular club on the beach, Nikki Beach. Never even heard of it. Likely just another overpriced beach ripoff.
There are a lot of sub-category licenses as well, but in a SC, they would have to have a normal one. Well if 51% of their business is food, there is a category for that. DATY doesn't count! :)
Yes, sodas are the one big profit source for restaurants, as well as convenience stores. I can't remember from my brief days working at 7-11 years ago how much syrup costs and how much profit they make, but I know someone in my current job who used to work at a Kum & Go and he said at least 95% of their profits comes from fountain pop. That seems ridiculous, but that's just the way it is.