The strip club situation in Vancouver...

The strip club situation in Vancouver officially sucks (also see my review of the No. 5 Orange Club.) Brandi's is located on the fifth fllor of a building in a nice downtown area. I went to Brandi's under the impression that the stage show was rather extraordinary based on the advice of some locals. I have to admit the girls were some of the best pole dancers I've ever seen - I could really tell that some of the girls had put some thought and practice into their routine. The standard operating procedure seemed to be remaining all clothed during the first song, getting topless during the second song and finally getting nude during the third song. The girls were all very attractive but they almost all had fake breasts which is not really my thing. Although most of the customers were seated at the stage, there wasn't much tipping going on. Every once in awhile a customer would tip a 5 dollar bill to get the dancer's attention for a short while. Don't the people at the Canadian mint know its kind of hard to tip strippers without a paper dollar bill? Okay, now here is the big problem with this club, after a girl would finish her set they would take a 4 or 5 song break. Did I really pay a fifteen dollar cover to stare at an empty stage over half the time? Apparently yes. Waitress service also left something to be desired. When I first arrived I sat for a good 20 minutes with no one coming by. Finally one of the other patrons had finished his drink, got tired of waiting and got the attention of the waitress who had been chatting with the bartender the whole time while a room full of customers sat drinkless. So when she finally did come by I ordered a $8.50 beer and waited awhile to get it since the waitress had a lot of drink orders to fill after she had sat there chatting with the bartender for so long.

I didn't have a very good experience here and I wouldn't go back. It was so frustrating sitting there watching a bunch of customers stare at an empty stage especially after a high cover charge and especially with the difficulty of getting a drink in a reasonable time frame. Aside from the athletic and entertaining pole tricks there wasn't much else to get excited about. I cut my visit short and didn't bother to get a private dance but based on everything else I really doubt I missed anything special.