Nice Party Vibe But Little Action

After checking Club Wax the previous week, my next goal was to check out Club Blaze for the first time. I've been in Atlanta fairly often over the past 30+ years so I've scene the evolution of the scene. For me, the peak was 20+ years ago with the more recent high point being late-lamented Follies.

When I pulled up to Blaze around 8:45pm Monday I knew it was not prime time so I adjusted my expectations accordingly. Pulling in the front parking lot, a guy flagged me down and informed that parking was $20 out front and $10 around the side of the building. It was worth $10 saved to walk an extra 50 feet and the side parking was well lit so that's where I parked. A male and female security duo conducted a brief pat-down and I went in, handed a trashy/sexy cashier at the entrance $10 and scoped the ground floor layout.

The street-level room has a large bar to the left, large stage against the wall dead ahead and random seats and a few booth and tables to the far right. No dancers were on stage; a couple were hanging by the bar and only a couple customers were sitting there.

I immediately headed for the stairs down to the lower level. By contrast it was a party vibe down there: hip-hop banging, maybe 15 customers in the fairly cramped space and about eight dancers. The room is like a small basement rec room; you pass a little-lass fronted shop selling stripper outfits as you come down the hall to the room and to the immediate right is an alcove with a few customers and dancers talking, laughing, drinking and smoking. The bar modest-sized bar is to the left as you enter and dead ahead is a modest-sized stage and pool tables. As with upstairs, no dancer was on stage; a couple dancers were dancing on customers, the rest talking to customers or each other or looking at their phones. The dancers all had either a top off, a bottom off or both off. The whole time I was in the club I never saw a dancer get onstage either upstairs or down.

The atmosphere was like a basement party. I bought a beer and started watching the Duke-Wake Forest game on the t.v., all the while scoping out the talent which was all A-A, all body types and shades, but quality-wise in the 4-6 range. The best of my lot for my taste was two spinner types in animated conversation with a 30-something guy--friend? regular? pimp? hard to say. Buy when one of them took off her top and bottom two feet away from he I made a joking remark with elicited a sour look; either she thought it was too corny a remark or she just wasn't looking for business.