New Name, But Not An Improvement

Though I have lived only 5 minutes from Babes for the last decade, I have only ever visited it a handful of times because I've never been impressed by the experience.(In my tiering of Indy's strip club scene, it marks the low end of the middle tier at best.) It got new ownership and renamed itself Jiggles in the wake of COVID closures, so I decided to give it another chance around midnight on a recent Saturday night.

The club is apparently owned by the same person/organization which operates the Jaguar Gentleman's Club (formerly Harem House) just down the road, and entrance here will get you a wristband that's also good for entrance there on the same night.(Not as good a deal as it sounds, since I've long found Harem House/Jaguar to be one of the most pathetic clubs in the Indy scene.) The inside is a mid-sized rectangular room with a sectioned off area in the back for couch dances; if they even have a VIP area, I've not seen it on either this or any previous visit. New ownership didn't change the interior much, as it still features a single double-pole stage in the middle with a bar off to one side and a separate counter for requesting 1s. (That, I think, is new.) The one new feature I did like - which Jaguar also has - is a board showing the dancer rotation; I have rarely seen this feature in clubs and wish more would use it. DJ also seems to be automated now. Tables are a mix of regular low round tables and high-chair tables, with a small reserved seating area.

During the hour or so I was there with an out-of-town friend, the eight dancers present rotated onto stage every two songs, entertaining a crowd about the same size as what the better clubs would have on a slow weeknight. (This put the place at maybe half capacity, if that.) All of the dancers were black, which my friend (who has visited the club more often than me) said wasn't entirely typical; he said there's usually one or two white girls in the mix. Consider that the club used to be more of an even racial mix, though, it marks a decided shift that may or may not be intentional. While I have gotten satisfying dances from black girls on several occasions, that's not normally my thing, and at best only maybe one of these dancers even slightly interested me. She was preoccupied with the same guy the whole time, so I left after about an hour without having spent anything more than the entrance fee and cost of one drink. Guess the club hasn't changed much at all.