Return Visit Fizzles

Hadn't been to Hip Hugger for a couple of years because they were one of the last holdouts on allowing smoking, but I'd heard recently that they had changed that policy, so I decided to check it out on the way up to visiting relatives. Got there around 8:15 p.m. on a Monday night and found that nothing else had changed aside from the smoking policy. It's still a rectangular interior with the main bar on one length, the squarish mirror-backed stage on the other, and the darkened area at one end where chairs are arranged for the "private dances;" if there are any VIP rooms in the place, I've never noticed them. A jukebox rather than DJ provides the music, the bartender doubles as a waitress, and the cover is collected by a guy sitting at a regular table near the door, so this is still a no-frills place all the way.

Price-wise, this is the most economical place I've ever been. Evening cover is only $5, drink prices are towards the low end (at least for pop; I don't drink alcohol when I know I've got a 2 hour drive ahead of me), and dances are still only $10 a song. On the downside, dancers going around asking for tips when they get off stage is apparently a regular practice here, which I hate; why tip someone who didn't interest me enough for me to watch them dance at all? That was the other problem this night: out of the seven or eight dancers I saw, only one was even remotely close to suiting my tastes (I tend to prefer short and petite), and she wound up giving dances to the same guy for nearly all of the hour or so that I was there. The rest were too old and/or too big/overweight for my tastes.

I ended up leaving after 75 minutes or so when it didn't seem like the one thin, good-looking girl was going to be available anytime soon. I won't rule out coming back again, as it's a convenient place to stop on the way to/from visiting relatives and I have seen good-looking dancers here before. However, in anything but price it definitely pales in comparison to the better Indy clubs.