What to do with 22,000 $1 bills?

PROVIDENCE — The Cadillac Lounge has its routine down pat: Each Monday, management makes a trip to the bank to get thousands of one-dollar bills. As the week goes on, the Providence strip club will gradually trade all of them for larger bills from customers who want to tip the dancers.

This Monday was no different. Then, just as the strip club was preparing to open for the evening, an armed robber walked in and demanded that the manager hand over the $22,000 in ones that were in the safe, according to owner Dick Shappy.

"It's somebody who knew our routine," Shappy said on Monday night.

The Cadillac Lounge typically opens at 3 p.m.

The Cadillac Lounge in Providence
On Monday, however, "my manager called me at about a quarter of 3, and said, 'I’ve just been robbed at gunpoint," Shappy said. "And I said, 'You what?'"

The manager was counting cash when the robber walked in, Shappy said: "He had about $3,500, we’re thinking, in his hand."

The robber demanded that money, then told the manager to open the safe, Shappy said. He seemed to know the layout of the club, including where the safe was located, and that there would be money in it.

"Twenty-two thousand dollars in ones is very heavy," Shappy observed. He said that the suspect had a large bag and, after taking the money, ran out the back door and headed toward the the train tracks behind Catz Exoticwear.