Cheetah’s has been my favorite San...

Cheetah’s has been my favorite San Diego strip club for many years. Every couple of years I do a round of visits to the other clubs in the region, and, in the end, I come back here. This ownership also owns the Cheetah’s in Las Vegas and some dancers take a trip that way on occasion. The club is convenient to much of the county, being located in Clairemont Mesa, which is a commercial/industrial area. It is NOT that convenient to downtown or Mission Valley where many tourists stay, but is a 10 minute drive by car or taxi. The neighborhood is clean, safe, well-lighted day or night. The club shares a building pad as part of a strip mall, and right next door is the Bull Pen, a bar and grill owned by the Cheetah’s company. The Bull Pen prepares the food served by the club. You can get a free hamburger or hotdog lunch during the day and even a free steak dinner during the early evening. However, in San Diego, no fully-nude club can serve alcoholic beverages. So you choose between beer/drinks and a fully naked girl on stage. The policy keeps Cheetah’s lower key than some places, and this, in turn, I believe attracts a higher class of dancer. The club has been recently remodeled. The price is moderate. I get a new annual card each year for $25 (?), with which I pay an $8 cover charge each entrance. That gives me two tickets for soft drinks. Additional drinks are $4.00. There are two stages. The one nearest the door is the main stage and the rear stage is put into action only when the number of customers reaches a certain level, usually at night, rarely during the day. Girls sometimes warm up on the back stage and it’s a good place to sit at the tip rail and chat with a girl while she’s doing that, especially if you already know her. There are several spaces to be with girls. The main area is the “Jungle Room” which is a long dimly-lit room with individual booths facing each other on opposite sides of a narrow aisle, where it’s possible to trip over feet. The booths are about 40 inches wide with high walls separating each space from the others and you can see what is going on in the booth across from you. Dances here are a flat $20 each, with a minimum of 5 dances, so it’s $100 minimum to visit here. This gets you a bikini lap dance. More on that later. The other room is less dim and there are several benches all open to view by anyone in the room. Dances are $10 apiece and there is no minimum number of dances. In the remodel there are also a couple of semi-private areas closer to the front door where small groups can get together with one or more girls to celebrate a bachelors party, or whatever. I’ve not used them and am unclear about the pricing for their use. Restrooms are clean. In the evenings there is often a male wash room attendant keeping it clean and offering cologne, and other items for a tip. My understanding is that female customers visiting the club go back to the dancers’ changing area and use the restroom there. Nearest both stages are chairs and a tip rail. Against the outside walls are newly reupholstereded benches with tables in front of them. Between the bar and the main stage is an elevated rail and high stools that I prefer as it gives you a good view of the stage and the rest of the room so you can both check out the stage action as well as keep an idea on the action around most of the club. The remodel has added numerous flat-screen tv’s (maybe a half dozen all tuned to ESPN), a lot of nice lights, and speakers. A disk jockey booth is off to one side. The girls can pick their own music or let the DJ pick for them. It's a classy environment, not dingy or dirty.

From everything every dancer has told me over many years, the management treats them right. Tip-out and other fees are reasonable, nobody is hitting on them, and they get treated fairly. So, many girls have been there for some years. Sometimes they disappear and then they often come back. Many work other clubs first and then end up here if they have the right “stuff”.

The girls: There is a fair mix of very young and less young, but elegant, ladies in their latter 20’s . They rate from a few 5’s to 10’s, with a few absolute stunners, who often are NOT the youngest dancers. I most often come during the day, when it’s lower key. A fair percentage of day girls are students at SDSU UCSD , USD or one of the community colleges. I prefer these as I like intelligent women who can carry on a conversation. I know several who are working on their master’s degrees. My favorites tend to be in their later 20s. They are not full of themselves, know the routine, and appreciate steadies. Many of the customers during the day are businessmen or retirees. Evening crowds tend to younger, touristy, Navy, or groups of younger people, sometimes guys, but also a fair number of younger ladies and couples. Evenings tend to be louder (music and conversation), more pushy by dancers, and more lines for the booths, especially when a Navy ship is in port. Days are slower, quieter, and more conducive to a conversation with a lady. It can be competitive for the ladies, when 30-40 are working in the evening or 15-30 during the day. It is rare that you are left alone to watch the stage without a dancer coming up to engage you (and hope for a dance). This can be annoying to a degree. Every dancer that comes off the stage makes a circuit of the room expecting a $1 tip and some are rather pushy about demanding that tip, even if you are engaged in talking with another lady and didn’t pay any attention to the stage (“Didn’t you see my dances?”. Ethnicity is mixed, but days are typically 95 percent white with a few Latinos or Filipino women. Very few black women stay around long. Evenings are more ethnically diverse, but still 65-70 % white, with some Asian and Latino gals thrown in.