At a divey, rural and middle of nowhere inside a warehouse district SC, which was so divey, the building was turn of the century, large detached woof frame house with a porch and black out windows, a creaky floor, and a bar with kitchen cabinets (no gas stove tho). I asked the dancer "So what does the owner of XXXX do about YYYYY?", the dancer responded with calling the owner a "she" and "she sets the rules" and "she wouldn't allow that". Since this is stripper talk, and I was dumbfounded at her "she" I just went along and never asked "is the owner really a woman?" "how can she be running such a place of debauchery?". Or this stripper was drunk and thought the house mom was the owner.
So TUSCL, have you ever heard of a SC being owned by a woman? Any comments in the difference in how a woman owned SC operates vs a male owned SC operates and customer experience differences between the two?
Oh yeah, there's a club owned by a widow of the crazed dude that owned it for many, many years. She was a slut, a former dancer who married her boss. She did a good job running the club after her old man passed on. She got older and finally sold it to a drug dealer who got shot soon after buying the club. What a fine group of people !!
I never knew there was a daughter, Rech. I'll take your word for it, as you say the sons each run one of the clubs. I'll have to look her up when I'm at Bogarts.
The old Wild Goose was co-owned by a sister & brother, neither of which knew what the fuck they were doing. They drove the business into the ground and eventually sold it to a developer who demolished it and put up welfare housing in it's place. Progress. What a joke.
Landing Strip in West Palm Beach was owned and operated by a woman who inherited it after her husband passed away. Unfortunately they were hit hard by the hurricane in 04 or 05 and never reopened.
My one piece of private messaging on TUSCL with a club owner was with a female club owner of one of the small clubs in rural Iowa. I frankly have no idea how, or if, she runs that club anymore.
I believe the world famous O'Farrell Theater is still owned and run by Meta, Jim Mitchell's daughter. You can't tell at all there's a woman running the place vs. a man, at least from a customer perspective.
There was a particularly interesting and unique case in SF for a number of years: The Lusty Lady. The girls unionized, took over ownership and management of the club. This is one of those situations where the girls had their hearts in the right place, but almost painful idealism killed it. They decided not to be shape-ist or whatever, so all shapes and sizes girls were represented -- and as a result, the lineups could be terrifying. They were egalitarian, they all shared all tips -- which meant girls who had individual high earning potential had no motivation to stay. They were against customers touching dancers, so they didn't do lap dances, until their last few years when they introduced it as a desperation move to try to generate more money for the business. Until then, the place was a pure peepshow, with the girls behind glass in a big room, the customers in little phonebooth type cubbies, they'd put in a dollar and their panel would raise for a minute so they could watch the girls and jerk off. The floor in those booths had all kinds of stories to tell, as did the walls.
The only club in the Butte MT area is or was at the time owned by a woman. I haven't been there in about 10 years, so things may have changed. She worked the door, the bar, wherever she was needed. There was another female, I don't know if it she was a partner or an employee. The only male working that I saw was the DJ/bouncer. The lap dance area was right next to the DJ booth so he could multitask.
When you wanted a lap dance you paid the owner over by the front door or at the bar. If you wanted additional dances, then you paid the DJ after the fact.
I knew of a club owned once by a woman that was in Playboy and did a few porn scenes. She danced a lot in Vegas and California, then came back east and took over ownership of a small club in the middle of nowhere. Occasionally she would dance as well. Eventually the building burnt down (hmmm curious, considering it was a cement block building.
I never knew what happened to her (she would be close to 50 today) but if she OD'd in a Red Roof Inn along interstate 70 in Ohio or Indiana I wouldn't be surprised.
IDK much about the inner-workings of SCs – I'm not much of a conversationalist w/ staff nor dancers although it's def a good way to get inside-info – so IDK of any female-owned clubs.
Whether it'd be good or not – I guess it may be like dancers – some are good some are bad – some dancers see things from custies' POV and do great – many see things from their POV and that is counterproductive – i.e. if the female owner does what's best for the custies; then it'll be a good-club IMO; if the female-owner sees things from the dancers' POV and puts the dancers' desires above the custies'; then it would probably be a sucky (in a bad-way) club.
There used to be a little club in southwest Michigan called Escape Reality. The managing partner was a woman named Teri. She actually has a TUSCL account where she identifies herself by her full name. She wrote a review to promote the club when it opened.
She's a trained chef with a degree in culinary arts from a well known school. So it's funny she ran a dive strip club that served nachos and fried cheese sticks.
She tried making it a "unique" club. She tried theme nights and comedy skits. Stuff like that. But in the end, the place was shut down on drug and prostitution charges. So it wasn't any different.
Estafador: Ya, if most tuscl'ers would have walked into Lusty Lady, it would have been one giant "WTF?!?!"... until you read about how the girls were managing it, then everything clicks into place.
There is a documentary on Hulu.com about the Lusty Lady and it's demise. They refused to buy the building the business was in and the landlord raised the rent beyond what they could pay. (The landlord had other properties being used as strip clubs and he was a guy - so men destroyed the Lusty Lady!!!!)
Good tip, would love to see that documentary. The place was actually a disaster, and in trouble and re-organized as a business multiple times. My sense is, they were in a high-rent highly-desirable area of SF (an area with some of the most expensive rents in the US), and were a low-income business (again, because the product was so unappealing). They were being gifted a low rent, and when rent got raised to more reasonable levels (which was a huge uplift from their current rent), they went under. Just bad business acumen from A-Z...
THAT SAID, deja vu has used dirty tactics for years to drive other strip club business under in SF, which is exactly why they own all but 2 of the strip clubs in SF, it's how they got the property to build Penthouse club. So I have no trouble believing that the pressure and timing came from the the existing strip club business (i.e., deja vu) in the area.
Oh! Lastly, I should say, I'd always rooted for the Lusty Lady, as I root for the other 2 remaining independent strip clubs in SF, since I view deja vu as the evil empire, and they are the proximate cause of SF being one of the worst SC cities, when 15-20 years ago it was arguably the best. And hell, in theory, I especially root for the girls owning their own club and product and retaining all the profits themselves. But the decisions they made ... ugh.
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There was a particularly interesting and unique case in SF for a number of years: The Lusty Lady. The girls unionized, took over ownership and management of the club. This is one of those situations where the girls had their hearts in the right place, but almost painful idealism killed it. They decided not to be shape-ist or whatever, so all shapes and sizes girls were represented -- and as a result, the lineups could be terrifying. They were egalitarian, they all shared all tips -- which meant girls who had individual high earning potential had no motivation to stay. They were against customers touching dancers, so they didn't do lap dances, until their last few years when they introduced it as a desperation move to try to generate more money for the business. Until then, the place was a pure peepshow, with the girls behind glass in a big room, the customers in little phonebooth type cubbies, they'd put in a dollar and their panel would raise for a minute so they could watch the girls and jerk off. The floor in those booths had all kinds of stories to tell, as did the walls.
When you wanted a lap dance you paid the owner over by the front door or at the bar. If you wanted additional dances, then you paid the DJ after the fact.
I never knew what happened to her (she would be close to 50 today) but if she OD'd in a Red Roof Inn along interstate 70 in Ohio or Indiana I wouldn't be surprised.
SJG
Whether it'd be good or not – I guess it may be like dancers – some are good some are bad – some dancers see things from custies' POV and do great – many see things from their POV and that is counterproductive – i.e. if the female owner does what's best for the custies; then it'll be a good-club IMO; if the female-owner sees things from the dancers' POV and puts the dancers' desires above the custies'; then it would probably be a sucky (in a bad-way) club.
She's a trained chef with a degree in culinary arts from a well known school. So it's funny she ran a dive strip club that served nachos and fried cheese sticks.
She tried making it a "unique" club. She tried theme nights and comedy skits. Stuff like that. But in the end, the place was shut down on drug and prostitution charges. So it wasn't any different.
THAT SAID, deja vu has used dirty tactics for years to drive other strip club business under in SF, which is exactly why they own all but 2 of the strip clubs in SF, it's how they got the property to build Penthouse club. So I have no trouble believing that the pressure and timing came from the the existing strip club business (i.e., deja vu) in the area.