High Heels Saloon review

High Heel Saloon is in the small village of Somonauk in seemingly the middle of nowhere, literally no decent sized city anywhere nearby. Actually, it's not in the best location considering there's a residential area including a school, public library and religious institution very near by. The place is a bit hard to find and doesn't try to draw attention. I'm a bit surprised the place is still around. The parking lot was fairly small and the actual building looks deceptively small from the outside, leading me to think this was a dive bar.

As soon as you walk in, there's a small satellite stage directly to your right along the front wall. Probably not the best place to put a stage; usually you don't have a naked girl so close to you when you first walk into a club, not that i'm complaining. No door person, literally the first people you see are the dancer and any customer(s) at the stage (there was only one at the stage along with another dancer). I eventually walk over to the bar to the right of the stage, where the bartender checks ID and collects a $5 dollar cover. Drinks seemed to be on the moderately higher side. This "lobby" area is fairly decent sized with a bar on one end, bathrooms, entrance, smoking room that leads outside, jukebox and satellite stage on the other end (the longer front end), about 5 or so gambling machines on the other end opposite the bar. There were about ten tables or so with seating for about 30 plus another 5 or so at the bar. The fourth wall/end opposite the entrance separates the lobby from a much larger main area with the main stage (double octagonal stages connected by a walkway very similar to what they have at the Silver Slipper Saloon in Ottawa and PoleKatz in Bridgeview) and an even larger bar that wasn't being used. They can probably seat around a hundred or so in that area fairly comfortably. The private dance area is also in the back of that main area. The place looked decent and clean, but not too fancy. I would say the size, setup, design and quality is actually quite similar to the Silver Slipper Saloon which is a little over 20 miles away south. I would not be surprised if they shared or once shared ownership (similar design, similar name).

There's a happy hour for drinks between 4-7pm Tuesday-Friday (they're closed Mondays) which I missed and apparently it's not really a big draw. There were only a handful of girls when i got there and maybe two other customers. Eventually, there were about 11 girls (by my rough estimate) working that night, which seems like a decent amount of girls on a Tuesday evening. Yet the girls only danced on that tiny satellite stage right by the front door. I guess they only use the main area when they have more than 10 customers. Speaking of which there were only between 3-8 customers the entire two or so hours I was there. Initially, the girls just picked their music on the digital jukebox next to the stage and stepped onto the stage, which was only about a couple feet high with no steps so there really was no graceful way to get onto it. No DJ announces their names, so you had to go to the stage and ask her to find out her name. She danced for 3 songs (full length). This was apparently the best time to get a dance as later when the rest of the girls started hitting the floor, an actual DJ started playing the songs (shortened a bit, but the DJ does talk for a little between songs buying you a few seconds if you get another dance) and announcing the dancer's names and the girls started dancing to only two songs. There are no seats at that dinky stage. Since it's only a couple feet off the ground, you are literally hovering over the girl if you stand there (unless she's also standing up). What I saw most customers (and by most I mean 2 or 3) do was grab one of the cushioned rolling seats away from an empty nearby table and roll it to the stage and sit there. Seriously. If the tables all started filling up, I don't think that would be an option unless you wanted to comically roll a seat from one end of the lobby to the stage, but then I guess they would probably finally open up the main stage.