From the outside, the Century Lounge...

From the outside, the Century Lounge is a very scary place. Bars over windows, a very low-brow sign, and the poverty-stricken surrounding area (near LAX) would seem to be enough to discourage anyone looking for a positive strip-club experience.

Worse, there’s some sort of weird metal-bar prison actually attached to the front exterior of the club, used presumably to temporally incarcerate misbehaving patrons. An “exit” door from the club leads into it; apparently, miscreants are thrown out through the door to the prison, rather than through the real exit, to wait until the police arrive to cart them off to jail. Clever, but kind of scary that such a scheme would be necessary.

On the other hand, the Century Lounge is less than a block from the luxury, 4-star Hilton (what is the Hilton doing in this neighborhood?). And we were at the Hilton for a Friday evening without a car and in need of some serious adventure. So we thought we’d check out the Century Lounge, hoping the police officer permanently stationed in front of it would ensure that we’d survive the experience.