Tonight, I decided to get out...

Tonight, I decided to get out of the house and go to Heartbreaker's. It's been a while since I was down there, and things then were still in flux with the new owners finishing the remodel and (supposedly) setting new price policies for dances. Things are still far from settled, though.

The last time I was there, there was what I guess was supposed to be a "VIP area", a raised are that had been part of the old stage which held a couple of tables and a large flat screen TV. The tables are now gone, as is the flat screen and the carpeting that had been installed. The area is now bare and I get the impression that the management is still weighing their options about what to do with it. I got there fairly early, around 7:30, and there were three dancers working. By the time I left, there were six or seven (getting an accurate count, with dancers going in and out of the "private" area isn't easy). The dancers are now doing two song sets on stage, giving them more time to work the crowd, but less time for you to enjoy them on stage. A major surprise was seeing two former dancers back to work: Juliet and Brooklyn. Both had quit after the club changed owners late last year/early this year, and both had indicated that they were not interested in working in the "new environment". So much for that.

The price policy seems to not be something set in stone, as I was told the last time, but one that the individual dancers set. Some work the time-based pricing, others the per-song. I was told that the time-based prices offer anything up to an hour, though how much such a long period might cost was not discussed (based on the $125/15 minutes scale I was told about earlier, it must be very high indeed!). Full nude dances, for the dancer working per-song, are still $35/song, and topless are still $20/song. The private area has been changed again. Now, there is a heavy curtain over the entrance, but the "cubicles" are completely open, with the "gauze" curtains that had been used to offer a small amount of privacy now gone. There is now a more-or-less permanent watcher stationed outside the entrance to the private area, and he makes occasional checks to monitor how much the dancers working (the house collects $10/song) and to keep the dancers and customers from getting too "friendly". All the traffic, what with dancers bringing customers back and the watcher making his checks, can be more than a bit distracting. I found this out while getting some time in with Hayleigh. She works on the per-song basis, and is still by far the most attractive dancer there. It was a good dance, with as much touching as is allowed.

Is Heartbreaker's better for the new owners? I'm still not sure. Their selection of dancers is still not as good as it could be, given all the college girls at NIU, but it's still close to a match for what's offered in most of the Rockford clubs I've been in. It's nice to see the place cleaner, and if they can ever figure out what they really want the place to be like inside, it could be a very nice club indeed. For now, it's still as I described it, a work in progress.