Mpire just opened in the old...

Mpire just opened in the old 1819 space next to Camelot. The interior is very, very nice; wood paneling, moderate light levels, everything clean and new.

The drink prices are high, but the pours are much, much bigger than Camelot or Archibalds. Their "signature cocktails" are $14 plus tax, but they're about twice the size of something comparable at the other downtown clubs. Beer is $10, for bottles or for draft pints. If your choice is a 12 oz bottle of Bud Light or a pint of Dogfish Head for the same price, don't be an idiot. I looked at the food menu, but their "small plates" were $12-$18. Fries ("frites") were $10. I'd be surprised if the value's there.

The dancers were lovely, wearing evening gown-type dresses, cut for strip club work (i.e., showing a lot of skin all over). An array of races/ethnicities, with a couple of black girls, a latina, some blonde white girls, and one girl who looked Persian. She was probably the most attractive of the bunch, but when she wasn't on stage, she looked like she was disgusted to be there. Quite a few of the dancers had similar bored expressions. I don't necessarily blame them for feeling that way, since it was still early and fairly slow, but for a place with pretensions to class, they need to pull off a better appearance than that. The body types were exclusively slender, with no especially large-breasted girls. It was still early, though.