Like a Route 66 Ghost Town -- This Place Used to Be Nice

I write this review with a heavy heart. The Night Before Lounge used to be my favorite local haunt, but dynamics have changed wildly in Lincoln in the last two years. This review feels more like an obituary than a recommendation. My evening starts by walking in to find there is no one checking ID or taking cover charges at the door. There had been like a $3-$5 cover after 7:30 pm previously, so I wait around for a minute, but the only people in the club are one dancer and one patron. Where is everyone on a Friday night? I give up and walk to the bar ordering a single bottle of domestic beer for $6 when help finally arrives. The club's decor is maybe a cross of cheap imitation Vegas strip club glam and dive bar neon signs--it's not bad but not great. Eventually I see the long-time bartender, a few more patrons arrive (more sit at the bar than by the stage), and the dancing rotation gradually comes out of hiding from behind the curtain in the back. There were only four girls in rotation on a single stage, each doing four-song sets (self-programmed in the system, no DJ). That's a long time to wait if you don't find the dancer attractive, and I didn't find half the rotation attractive. The dancers that were acceptable looking were short on energy and enthusiasm. I asked the bartender about the girls coming in the late shift, and it sounded like there might be 6 by the end of the night, but I didn't recognize any names I thought were worth staying around for. I ended up leaving for another club where I had a great time.

Lincoln strip clubs will always be limited by city ordinance requiring pasties and prohibiting touching, but I used to frequent the Night Before because it still presented a decent value proposition. When you didn't want to leave town (especially when you wanted to stay in walking distance), the $6 beers were made worth it by extremely attractive talent and mind-blowing lap dances. Those factors have changed. I started visiting the club regularly in early 2012 and I have fond memories of an energetic, sometimes nearly packed club. Over the last four years I had favorite dancers that were in the 8-9 range, with one near-ATF who was an absolute 10. After a night of drinking, for $20 a song you could get a series of quite high-mileage lap dances (often ending in LDK). There were plenty of nights I dropped between $100-$200 there. But as I mentioned, local dynamics shifted. The Foxy Lady, which was previously a burn-your-clothes-after / "run away!" club, was renovated in by late 2014 into The Foxy, a decent competitor. Then something happened in early 2016 where the atmosphere of the club shifted dramatically. I overheard from the bartender, and I was informed directly by a dancer, that there was a LPD bust with multiple violations of the touching ordinance. I couldn't find anything in the local paper or online, but it was as if the club was given an ultimatum to change or be closed down. The club became very strict on lap dances, and it doesn't take an investigative journalist to figure out the results. Dancers weren't bringing in the same level of income, and the total hotties moved or retired. Attendance dropped, and the girls who stayed had an attitude that they'd only put as much effort into their dancing as the tips they were getting. I have literally seen a dancer start to do glute kickbacks (yes, the gym exercise) on stage during her routine when there was no one left sitting on tipper's row. The writing was on the wall by the spring of 2016, but I decided to give the club one last chance last night. Sadly, I cannot recommend. It's like a route 66 town that's become a ghost town--there are memories, and that is all.