Low-key fun in a throwback environment

Had a couple days of R&R in Duluth and finally had the chance to stop into Club Saratoga. Usually my time in Duluth is just a quick stop on my way to some other place up the North Shore so I've never had the chance to check this place out. Dancers are on duty from 4:30 p.m. to 1 a.m.

I've been to a number of Twin Cities clubs post Covid. Here, there really were no precautions because of the pandemic. No need for customers to wear a mask even coming in the door. No temperature check. No extra spacing between tables or bar stools. Dancers are required to wear a mask when dancing on stage, which is weird as the stage is set up to keep a little distance between customers and dancers anyway. There's like patio grillwork around the bottom of the stage. Tippers stand and hand their tips to the dancers. Also, I was there two consecutive nights and the same bartender was maskless the first night but wearing a mask the second. The club is a real outlier in the city as many restaurants are still only doing take-out or delivery service.

This place is a throw-back to a different era with a bunch of kitschy things. Behind the bar is a huge display of bottles with weird oddities sprinkled in like two taxidermied armadillos wearing sombreros and statuettes of W.C. Fields and Mae West. There's also a strange taxidermy display along the back wall of squirrels sitting in miniature recreation of the club's bar. Weirdest of all, the men's room is still equipped with those old time looped cloth hand towel devices. I didn't know those were even still in existence. Cover charge was $5.