This is a list of notable strip clubs, both active and defunct. A strip club is a venue where strippers provide adult entertainment, predominantly in the form of striptease or other erotic or exotic dances.
Strip clubs
editMultinational
edit- Deja Vu Services, Inc., is an American company that operates nearly 200 strip clubs in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, France, Canada, and Mexico.[1]
- Spearmint Rhino is a chain of strip clubs that operates venues throughout the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia.[2] The first Spearmint Rhino was located in Upland, California.[3]
Canada
edit
- Vancouver, BC: Brandi's Show Lounge, The Granville Strip and No. 5 Orange are all in downtown Vancouver.
- The Brass Rail is one of Toronto's downtown strip clubs. It is located on Yonge Street just south of Bloor. It is well known as a popular venue for celebrities, especially during the Toronto International Film Festival, which is based at the nearby luxury hotels of Yorkville.[4] Stars that have been observed there include Samuel L. Jackson,[5] Charlize Theron,[6] Alex Rodriguez,[7] and Colin Farrell.[8] The Brass Rail was one of the first venues Paul Shaffer worked in, serving as host and musician.[9]
- Le Strip was a strip club in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.[10] Whilst the club is now closed, former dancers; escorts; bouncers; and promoters of the club, an 18-year-old or older establishment, and the last legal all-ages one of its kind, have expressed an interest within local media of a historical retrospective provided by the City of Toronto concerning the history of licensing of adult clubs and dancers in the city.
- The Zanzibar Tavern in Toronto, Ontario, is an adult entertainment nightclub and local landmark found on Toronto's Yonge Street strip. It is one of Toronto's oldest nightclubs, which celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2020.
- House of Lancaster operated an Etobicoke venue from 1982 to 2017 and operates a Toronto location since 1983.
France
edit
- The Nouvelle Athènes, or Café de la Nouvelle-Athènes, was a café located at 66 Rue Pigalle in the Place Pigalle in Paris, France.[11] It was the setting for many Impressionist paintings, as a result of being the meeting place for painters,[11][12] including Matisse, Van Gogh and Degas.
- Le Crazy Horse Saloon or Le Crazy Horse de Paris is a Parisian cabaret and strip club known for its stage shows performed by nude female dancers and for the diverse range of magic and variety 'turns' between each nude show and the next. Its owners have helped to create related cabaret and burlesque shows in other cities.[13] Unrelated businesses have used the phrase "Crazy Horse" in their names.
United Kingdom
edit
- The Box Soho is a cabaret nightclub located at 11-12 Walker's Court in Soho, London, on the premises formerly occupied by the Raymond Revuebar.[14]
- The Raymond Revuebar (1958–2004) was a theatre and strip club at 11 Walker's Court (now the location of The Box Soho nightclub), in the centre of London's Soho district. For many years, it was the only venue in London that offered full-frontal, on-stage nudity of the sort commonly seen in other cities in Europe and North America.[15] Its huge brightly lit sign declaring it to be the "World Centre of Erotic Entertainment" made the Revuebar a local landmark.
- The Windmill Theatre in Great Windmill Street, London, was a variety and revue theatre best known for its nude tableaux vivants, which began in 1932 and lasted until its reversion to a cinema in 1964. Many prominent British comedians of the post-war years started their careers at the theatre.
United States
edit
- The Admiral Theatre in Chicago, Illinois opened in 1927 as a vaudeville house. it was designed by Gallup and Joy and acquired by the Balaban and Katz circuit. The Admiral closed sometime in the late 1950s, and remained shuttered for many years until opening in 1969 as an all-cartoon venue. Unable to draw the crowds necessary to remain open, the Admiral closed again. In the early 1970s, the Admiral was opened as an adult movie house. After receiving a facelift in the 1980s, the Admiral continues to thrive as an adult venue and strip club. While the interior has been drastically altered, the facade is in remarkably good shape.
- Billy's Topless was a topless bar in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. Operating from 1970 to 2001, it was considered for many years an informal city landmark.[citation needed]
- Cheetah's Gentleman's Club is a strip club with locations in San Diego and Las Vegas, best known for being featured in the 1995 movie Showgirls, and also for having been owned by Mike Galardi, a nightclub owner who was investigated by the FBI with a controversial invocation of the Patriot Act. The Cheetah's club in San Diego is a full nude club where no alcohol is served. It has achieved notoriety for having been frequented by some of the September 11 hijackers.
- The Clermont Lounge is Atlanta's first and longest continually operating strip club, opened in 1965 and boasts a completely female ownership. Located in the basement of the Clermont Motor Hotel at 789 Ponce De Leon Avenue, in the Poncey-Highland neighborhood, the dive bar[17] has survived multiple attempts at being closed by the Atlanta city government, and has established a nationwide reputation for its kitschy atmosphere and unusual dancers.[citation needed] The Clermont has been featured on an episode of Insomniac with Dave Attell. Celebrities known to have visited the Clermont when in Atlanta include Anthony Bourdain, Colin Firth, Marilyn Manson, Cole Sprouse, Ashton Kutcher, Kid Rock, Steven Yeun, Skinny Lister, Lady Gaga, Eric Roberts, Ming Chen, Jason Zimmerman and the Guys Weekend as well as David Cross and Bombay Bicycle Club. Visitors to the Clermont usually alternate between a few handfuls of regulars and large numbers of college students, newcomers to town, and tourists.
- The Condor Club nightclub is a striptease bar or topless bar in the North Beach section of San Francisco, California[18] The club became famous in 1964 as the first fully topless nightclub in America, featuring the dancer Carol Doda wearing a monokini.[19]
- Crazy Horse Too was a strip club located at 2476 Industrial Road in Las Vegas, Nevada, a few blocks west of the Las Vegas Strip. The club was known as Billy Jo's during the 1970s. In 1978, the club was purchased by Mob member Tony Albanese and renamed Billy Jo's Crazy Horse Too, after the Crazy Horse Saloon, another Las Vegas strip club owned by Albanese. In 1984, Rick Rizzolo took over operations of the club when it was purchased by his father, Bart Rizzolo. Rick Rizzolo was a majority owner by 1986.
- The 1891 Farmers and Mechanics Savings Bank building in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, is a Beaux-Arts style building that formerly served as the headquarters of Farmers and Mechanics Savings Bank. The building is now home to The Downtown Cabaret, a strip club. Architecture critic Larry Millett writes, "If you step inside for a view of the, ahem, scenery, you'll discover a glass dome that once illuminated a 'ladies banking lobby' but is now the scene of activities not everyone would consider ladylike."[20]
- The Gaiety Theatre was a gay male burlesque theater in Times Square, New York City, for almost 30 years until it closed on March 17, 2005. The name on the awning over the entrance was Gaiety Theatre, but it was also called the Gaiety Male Burlesque or the Gaiety Male Theatre in advertisements. It was located at 201 W 46th Street, New York, NY 10036, on the second floor of the building that also housed what was the last Howard Johnson's restaurant in New York City. The Gaiety opened in late 1975 and closed in 2005 and was owned by Denise Rozis, run by both her and her younger sister, Evridiki Rozis.
- The Gold Club was a strip club in Buckhead[21] that operated from 1987[22] until 2001, the same year the owner admitting racketeering charges.
- The Hungry I (stylized as hungry i) was a nightclub in San Francisco, California, originally located in the North Beach neighborhood. It played a major role in the history of stand-up comedy in the United States.[23] It was launched by Eric "Big Daddy" Nord, who sold it to Enrico Banducci in 1951. The club moved to Ghirardelli Square in 1967 and operated mostly as a rock music venue until it closed in 1970.[24]
- The Hustler Club is a series of bars and chain of go-go clubs licensed by Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt.
- Jumbo's Clown Room, often shorthanded to Jumbo's, is a "bikini bar" (non-nude strip club) located on Hollywood Boulevard in the East Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The bar opened on July 27, 1970. It became a strip club in 1982.[25]
- The Lusty Lady is a pair of defunct peep show establishments, one in downtown Seattle and one in the North Beach district of San Francisco. The Lusty Lady was made famous by the labor activism of its San Francisco workers and the publication of several books about working there.
- Magic City is a prominent strip club in Atlanta, founded in 1985[26] and currently owned by Michael “Magic” Barney.[27][28]
- Market Street Cinema was a historical theater located on Market Street in the Mid-Market district, San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1912 by David and Sid Grauman as the Imperial Theater.[29] It was converted into a movie theatre as the Premiere Theatre (1929) and the United Artists Theatre (1931).
- The Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre was a strip club at 895 O'Farrell Street near San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood. Having opened as an X-rated movie theater by Jim and Artie Mitchell on July 4, 1969, the O'Farrell was one of America's most notorious adult-entertainment establishments. By 1980, the nightspot had popularized close-contact lap dancing, which would become the norm in strip clubs nationwide.[30] Journalist Hunter S. Thompson, a longtime friend of the Mitchells and frequent visitor at the club, went there frequently during the summer of 1985[31] as part of his research for a possible book on pornography. Thompson called the O'Farrell "the Carnegie Hall of public sex in America" and Playboy magazine praised it as "the place to go in San Francisco!"
- The Palomino Club is a landmark North Las Vegas strip club. Since 2006 the club has been owned by Adam Gentile.
- RCI Hospitality Holdings, Inc. (previously Rick's Cabaret International, Inc.), through its subsidiaries, operates strip clubs, nightclubs, sports bars/restaurants, and a media and convention company that serves the adult club industry. RCI went public with an IPO in 1995 is listed on The NASDAQ Global Market under the symbol RICK.
- Sapphire Gentlemen's Club is a chain of strip clubs.
- Scores is a strip club in New York City. During its early years, it was known for its celebrity clientele, which included Howard Stern, Russell Crowe and Jason Giambi. At its peak, it operated in two locations in Manhattan and licensed its name to strip clubs in five other cities. The club has been beset by legal problems over the years, which have included ties to organized crime, tax evasion by its top executives, and club-sanctioned prostitution.[32][33]
- Tootsie's Cabaret Miami is a large adult entertainment club in Miami Gardens, a suburb of Miami in northern Miami-Dade County, Florida. It is the largest strip club in the world at 76,000 square feet.[34]
- Ziegfeld's/Secrets was a dual-themed nightclub in Washington, D.C., with Ziegfeld's featuring drag queens, and Secrets featuring male strippers. The entertainment venue first opened in 1980, was forced to close in 2006, then reopened in a new location in 2009. The second location was closed permanently in 2020.[35]
Oregon
edit
- The Carriage Room was a strip club in Portland. The bar and restaurant closed in 1988.
- Devils Point, Portland
- Jiggles, sometimes called Jiggles Strip Club,[36] was a strip club in Tualatin, Oregon, in the United States. In March 2014, Jiggles received media attention when Jake Stoneking, a 19 year old diagnosed with medulloblastoma, included a visit to the club on his list of activities to complete before his death. The club shut down and the building in which it was housed was demolished later that year.
- Mary's Club is the oldest strip club in Portland, Oregon, and among the oldest in the United States. In 1954, Roy Keller bought the business from Mary Duerst Hemming, who owned and operated Mary's as a piano bar beginning in the 1930s. Keller initially hired go-go dancers as entertainment during the piano player's breaks, later hiring them full-time because of their popularity. Topless dancers wearing pasties were introduced in 1955. The club also featured comics, musicians, singers and other acts. All-nude dancing began in 1985, after a judicial ruling against City of Portland ordinances banning it in venues which served alcohol.
- Silverado, formerly known as Flossie's, is a gay bar and strip club in Portland, Oregon's Old Town Chinatown neighborhood, in the United States.
- Stag PDX, or simply Stag,[37] is a gay-owned nightclub and strip club in Portland, Oregon's Pearl District, in the United States. The club opened in May 2015 as the second all-nude gay strip club on the West Coast.
- Three Sisters Tavern, sometimes abridged as Three Sisters and nicknamed "Six Tits",[38] was a gay bar and strip club in Portland, Oregon, United States. The bar was founded in 1964 and began catering to Portland's gay community in 1997 following the deaths of the original owners. The business evolved into a strip club featuring an all-male revue. Also frequented by women, sometimes for bachelorette parties, Three Sisters was considered a hub of Portland's nightlife before closing in 2004.
See also
edit- List of strippers
- Bada Bing! – a fictional strip club from the HBO drama television series The Sopranos
- Sex industry
Human sexuality portal
References
edit- ^ "Home". Deja Vu Showgirls. Retrieved 2016-12-17.
- ^ "Lord of the lap dance". The Observer. 2002-02-02. p. 12.
- ^ "Spearmint Rhino Opens New Northern California Location". Spearmint Rhino Gentlemen’s. Retrieved 2021-10-28 – via prnewswire.com.
- ^ MacInnis, Craig. "A poseur's guide to the Toronto Film Fest." The Vancouver Sun. Vancouver, B.C.: Aug 26, 2000. pg. E.13
- ^ Benaroia, Iris. Rail Tale; Waitressing at the notorious strip club is an education in crass costumes and celebrity carousing National Post. Don Mills, Ont.: Feb 9, 2008. pg. TO.14
- ^ Zekas, Rita. "Distant stars." Toronto Star. Toronto, Ont.: Sep 7, 2005. pg. E.01
- ^ Govani, Shinan. "From Death Star to a love nest ." National Post. Don Mills, Ont.: May 31, 2007. pg. AL.3
- ^ Zekas, Rita. "The latest edition of The Stripping News;" Toronto Star. Toronto, Ont.: Sep 10, 2002. pg. D.03
- ^ English, Kathy. "Letterman's sidekick is still a Thunder Bay boy." Toronto Star. Toronto, Ont.: Jul 21, 1985. pg. D.01
- ^ "...Starvin' Marvin's Strip Joint Which Opened Up A Few Doors From Le Strip". Calgary Herald. 1971-05-02. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
- ^ a b Guides, Museyon (2011-07-01). Art + Paris Impressionists & Post-Impressionists: The Ultimate Guide to Artists, Paintings and Places in Paris and Normandy. Museyon Inc. p. 183. ISBN 978-0-9822320-9-5.
- ^ Adamson, Melitta Weiss; Segan, Francine (2008-10-30). Entertaining from Ancient Rome to the Super Bowl: An Encyclopedia [2 volumes]: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 389. ISBN 978-0-313-08689-2.
- ^ Jinman, Richard (19 July 2017). "Christian Louboutin brings the Crazy Horse cabaret to Australia". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 22 Octobber 2017. Retrieved 22 October 2017.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|archive-date=(help) - ^ Rushe, Dominic; Kennedy, Maev (January 28, 2011). "New York's most risque cabaret to open in London". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 April 2011.
- ^ Philip Howard (14 February 2004). "Farewell Raymond's Revue Bar, stripped of the bare necessities". The Times. London. Archived from the original on 4 September 2008. Retrieved 2010-10-30.
- ^ "David Lynch's Banned Bovine". ABC News. February 4, 2006. Retrieved March 11, 2022.
- ^ Hunter, Marnie (2019-02-01). "Landmark Atlanta strip club meets boutique hotel". CNN. Retrieved 2023-07-19.
- ^ "Nudity, Noise Pay Off in Bay Area Night Clubs", Los Angeles Times (February 14, 1965) Page G5.
- ^ Donchey, Sara (19 November 2022). "Pioneering topless nightclub named a San Francisco 'Legacy Business'". CBS News. San Francisco.
- ^ Millett, Larry (2007). AIA Guide to the Twin Cities: The Essential Source on the Architecture of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Minnesota Historical Society Press. p. 35. ISBN 978-0-87351-540-5.
- ^ "CNN.com - Sex, sports and the mob: The Gold Club trial - June 15, 2001". CNN. 15 June 2001. Archived from the original on 2021-11-28. Retrieved 2023-08-24.
- ^ Orrick, William H. (18 September 2013). "Gold Club-SF, LLC v. Platinum SJ Enter: ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR A PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION". casetext. Retrieved 3 October 2024.
- ^ McLellan, Dennis (2007-10-16). "Enrico Banducci, 85; owned hungry i nightclub". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2016-05-23.
- ^ "Hungry i Closes For Good On Coast". The New York Times. 1970-01-05. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-10-22.
- ^ "History". Jumbo's Clown Room. January 1, 2010. Archived from the original on March 11, 2022. Retrieved March 11, 2022.
- ^ "Make it Reign: How an Atlanta Strip Club Runs the Music Industry". GQ. July 8, 2015. Retrieved March 11, 2022.
- ^ Friedman, Devin (8 July 2015). "Inside Magic City, the Atlanta Strip Club that Runs the Music Industry". GQ. Retrieved 26 December 2018.
- ^ "In Da Club". de Volkskrant (in Dutch). 23 September 2017. Retrieved 26 December 2018.
- ^ "Let's Break Down the History of the Market Street Cinema". Curbed SF. Retrieved 2015-10-24.
- ^ Steinberg, David (September 8, 2004). "Lap Victory". SF Weekly.
- ^ "Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre History". Retrieved December 23, 2017.
- ^ Italiano, Laura (April 24, 2008). "A Pole-Ax for both NY Scores". New York Post. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
- ^ Garib, Andrew S.; Sherman, William (December 11, 2008). "Famed sex den Scores, once a top moneymaker, can't jiggle out of financial troubles". New York Daily News. Archived from the original on December 14, 2008. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
- ^ "World's Largest Strip Club is Tootsie's Cabaret in Miami!". 14 November 2023.
- ^ "Ziegfeld's-Secrets 'closed for good' at current site". Washington Blade. 2020-05-01. Retrieved 2020-07-19.
- ^ "No more wiggles at Jiggles: Tualatin strip club torn down". Columbia, South Carolina: WISTV. July 7, 2014. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
- ^ Acker, Lizzy (June 10, 2015). "Stag: Bar Review". Willamette Week. Portland, Oregon: City of Roses Newspapers. Archived from the original on July 19, 2015. Retrieved July 6, 2015.
- ^ Beck, Byron (August 23, 2006). "The Other Jefferson Dancers". Willamette Week. City of Roses Newspapers. Archived from the original on July 15, 2015. Retrieved July 14, 2015.