An evening that improved over time

Purple Diamond is about a twenty minute drive from downtown Memphis. It's right at a highway exit loaded up with hotels, fast food places, and such. The neighborhood didn't feel sketchy at all. While the drive was easy, the club itself was a little hard to get to. It's not terribly visible from the road and you have to kind of wind into it from a smaller road. Turning at the BBQ place seemed to do the trick. Once there, the parking lot was well lit and at least casually watched by the doorman inside the glass doors. Entry cost $17, which was a $7 cover and two drink tickets paid up front. I just used mine on water, so I don't know what breadth of drinks the pre-paid tickets are good for.

Inside the club has a long, narrow "catwalk" stage surrounded by seats and running parallel to the bar. It usually had a pair of dancers on it. To the right side of the club is a larger almost semi-circular stage in a corner, with a set of tables. The ceiling was a little lower than I expected from the outside. This made the space feel a little more closed in that it might otherwise, but it wasn't oppressive, at least at first. As the night went on and the volume inevitably went up, the more confined space was nearly deafening.

The stage show was mediocre. There was a lot of butt shaking, both standing and from the floor, but not a lot of dancing or pole tricks. The dancers themselves, however, were pretty fine. There was a good variety of ethnicities, and decent variety of body types. There were a few assess that looked augmented, and a couple pairs of fake breasts, but most of the bodies were natural (excepting tattoos). I had several dancers stop by my table, and they were all friendly. Only one led with "wanna dance", and a couple sat and chatted for some time before bringing up dances.