An accidental surprise

I have often passed through Astoria and saw a few clubs (Annie's and Desdemona among other's) that I wanted to check out not necessarily for dancers but simply because I have heard good things about the local pub scene.

I entered into Annie's last Saturday as I was thirsty after having been driving all around the coast of Washington and Oregon and needed a break, so went in and discovered this little place that is the perfect showcase of what I think is all wrong with Washington strip clubs, and all that is great about Oregon's ones.

The place is small, yet comfortable, no frills pub with a good selection of beer and not so great cider choice -Angry orchard, why!!!!- but it has this homey feeling from the very start, everyone was chatty and there were plenty of people laughing, so I did not spend more than 5 minutes in silence myself. A very friendly dancer, Isabella, came to me and instead of trying to hammer a dance from the start, started to talk and oh boy, she knows how to hold a conversation. She was friendly, not pushy, nor rushed into the typical Washingtonian 'want a dance?' line after 3 minutes and even though I was not planning and while she is definitely is not my preferred type of dancer, I took her for a couple of dances -no touch- that was extremely enticing and enjoyable ...