While Baby Dolls may be the...

While Baby Dolls may be the best strip club in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area (recent LE activity notwithstanding), I believe it's atypical for the area. For the classy, upscale "gentleman's club" vibe that is the true hallmark of the DFW SC scene, the best of these is the Lodge, which I was impressed with my first visit back in 2000.

I got lost going back here earlier this year; even though it's a large club, it's set far from the Northwest Highway, and it's close to an overpass, which kind of blinkered me from moving my head side to side to look for the sign. It's situated next to a big-box store (a supermarket or a Home Depot-type thingy, if I recall correctly) and has a long road leading up to the club and the large, lit parking lot next to it. Valet was available, but on this Thursday night I had no problems finding parking nor walking the 30 yards to the door. Cover this evening was $8.

The setting of the place is what sets the Lodge apart from other clubs I've been to across the nation. You enter into a theme of a hunting lodge/men's-only club, replete with faux-wood walls and, in the case of the smaller room in the back, library cases and dresser drawers. The fact that there's no neon or porn videos on the big-screen TV's (ESPN only) gives one the impression that not only is this place for men only, but for REAL men only, old timers that don't want hard cider and wine coolers available at their hovel (even though they probably are here). In the end the vibe doesn't really matter, but the Lodge appears to really want to make that message clear, and as long as it doesn't detract from me enjoying myself with the dancers, that's a message well-received.