I made a visit to Boise...

I made a visit to Boise (Portland is my usual hangout) and I made The Torch my first stop. It was a little perplexing to walk into as I wasn't actually sure that I was in a strip club; there were no dancers to be seen, just a bartender and a couple of dudes at the bar chatting it up with her. I saddled up to the bar and ordered a beer at a decent price –– $4 for a pint of domestic –– and watched the tv for a bit. About 20 minutes in a dancer appeared on the tiny stage in the middle of the room. I'm a big fan of the lowbrow approach to strip clubs, and I was pretty excited for The Torch. That is until I found out that Boise is a bikini only situation (I was unaware of this site when I visited and found it when I was trying to figure out what was up with the bikini thing) which was shocking coming from Portland. For those of you that don't know, Oregon is an all-nude+alcohol state, so to stumble into a bikini-only thing was weird. It was like how strip joints are portrayed on CBS dramas. Needless to say that it wasn't really what I was looking for. I can't hold that against The Torch though; them's the rules as they say. However, when the dancer did come out she was pretty lackluster. Looks were about a 6.5, which is fine. Attitude can make up for a lot. But she spent the better part of the dances talking with two of her friends (non-tipping guy and girl) who were sitting at the stage. Occasionally when myself or another patron would put a few singles down she'd half-heartedly take a spin around the pole and the come grab them, only to return to her friends. All in all a pretty big disappointment. I will say that the bar tender was really friendly and even gave me a buy-back on a mis-pour. I wrapped things up on my third drink and headed out. The bottom-line is that if you're in the market for a dive bar with the hopes of seeing a girl in a bikini then The Torch is your place. But if you're looking for something a little more exciting head on over to the Spearmint Rhino.