DEAR PORTLAND: I live in Seattle, where we have the one of the world’s most recognizable penises—the Space Needle. But aside from overpriced elevator rides and rumors of some crappy rotating restaurant at the top, the Needle doesn’t really do much for the citizens of Seattle. YOU, Portland, you have a much, much more valuable tourist attraction. You have the finest strip clubs in the United States. And unlike Seattle’s negligible four or five joints, your clubs serve alcohol, allow gambling, and the dancers in your fine city seem to actually enjoy what they do (and look good while doing it). In awe of this, my friend Dan Kensington and I spent one weekend as tourists, and tried to hit as many PDX strip clubs as we could in a short 48 hours. Here is our story. (Be sure to share the following information with your fun-seeking friends and relatives visiting you for the holidays.)

Mary’s Club (129 SW Broadway), Friday, 9:46 pm

Every time I’ve been to Mary’s (mother of ALL strip clubs since 1965), it’s packed—full of rowdy laughter and good-time drunkards. There’s a $2 cover at the door and no drink minimum. We sit at the last open table and order two double vodka sodas. The big bearded guy behind us tells a leather-clad hesher that he’s in the band Red Fang. The crowd is a mix of mostly twenty- and thirtysomethings, lots of couples. An impossibly tall, classically beautiful woman with a tattoo of cello f-holes on her lower back picks out a hiphop song from the onstage jukebox. Her booty clap is so refined that each one of her round, muscular butt cheeks operates independently. Kensington gasps at her upside-down pole maneuvers. Some guy sitting at the rack yells, “It’s my birthday!” She leans down, gives him a healthy birthday motorboating with her near-perfect, implant-free double-Ds, and slips off the stage, falling directly on top of him. Boobs still in his face, both fall backward to the floor. With absolute grace, she climbs back onstage. People applaud, nobody laughs, and everyone tips.

Magic Garden (217 NW 4th), Saturday, 12:13 am

We’re starting to get too drunk at Mary’s. We wanna see more. After consulting the handy-dandy map inside free glossy stripper mag Exotic, we note that Magic Garden is within walking distance. It’s also in Chinatown (read: lots of street food and late-night restaurants). Magic Garden has no cover and no drink minimum. Like Mary’s, there’s only one dancer, one stage. The cute but only half-naked dancer seems bored out of her skull. We get cheap strong drinks from a bartender who looks like my grandma Ingrid. We try to ignore the two loud Australians playing pool, who share matching shiny baldheads. We focus on the girl, who ignores the pole and instead lazily writhes around onstage to songs by Black Lips and Thee Oh Sees. Her boredom is infectious.

Spyce (33 NW 2nd), Saturday, 1:35 am

We’re so drunk that we can’t find Ark Angel’s, despite locating it on both of our iPhones. I argue that we should go back to Mary’s. We start walking and stumble upon Spyce. There’s a $5 cover, but I talk the door girl down to $7 for both of us, because it’s about to close. Inside, there are two floors and an obnoxious number of dancers and poles (I think I counted five stages). The girls don’t pick the songs, resulting in god-awful Top 40 dance music. The unbelievably bossy DJ keeps yelling shit like, “Tip your bartender! Tip the girls!” despite the fact that everyone’s already throwing money around like it’s rice at a wedding. We order last-call vodkas—overpriced and underpoured—and watch the women scramble to give sad cheeseballs in bad suits the last few lap dances of the night.

Acropolis Steakhouse (8325 SE McLoughlin), Saturday, 10:45 am

A breakfast at the Acropolis is the stuff of legend for sheltered Seattleites. For 30-some years, starting at 7 am, you can find steak and eggs, steak and potatoes, or a 10-egg omelet with ham and cheese. There’s also a five-pound “Colossal Burger,” 54 different beer taps, and hundreds of different liquors. There’s a fully functioning salad bar that lives underneath a dusty old disco ball spinning like its 401(k) dried up in the financial meltdown. The salad bar sits about two feet away from a stage stocked with fully nude women, who also start work at 7 am. As we order a $10 bacon-wrapped filet mignon and a $7 steak cooked medium rare, one of the dancers comes over to the table we’re sharing with a twentysomething couple who are dipping tater tots into a vat of steak sauce. She turns to dance for them and her butt comes within a cunt hair of the jumbo-sized Heinz ketchup bottle. I look around at the other 15 to 20 patrons all eating huge plates of food and am fascinated by the size of the meat. “STOP LOOKING AT ME!” the pug-nosed owner of one of the steaks yells at me. He pleads with his companions, who look old enough to be his parents, “Why won’t she stop looking at me?!” They leave in a huff and are immediately replaced by three Latino guys who order a five-pound burger and move closer to the stage with its barely legal-looking strawberry blonde. Iron Maiden’s “The Number of the Beast” is blaring on the house speakers. The Latino Moe, Larry, and Curly banter feverishly in Spanish. The girl suddenly grabs a laminated sign that says, “Dancers Work for Tips” and shoves it in their faces, then she storms off the stage and returns with the youngest, skinniest bouncer I’ve ever seen. He takes them aside. They sit back down quietly and share their burger. Curly chews with his mouth open and remains ignorant of the fact that he’s got mayo, mustard, and bun crumbs all over his face. Strawberry is contorting so that she’s upside down, long hair splayed across the bar top, legs spread-eagle around an older Asian man’s face. “Wow, wow, wow!” is all he can say. I take a big bite of bloody steak, and Kensington says, “This is America. You can have whatever you want.”

Safari Showclub (3000 SE Powell), Saturday, 4:36 pm

Safari advertises a special on a T-bone steak. But we’re here because we read that the jungle-themed club sports taxidermy and the staff periodically feed goldfish to their multiple piranhas. The taxidermy turns out to be a single stuffed tiger that I saw last summer at the Evergreen State Fair. They do have two tanks filled with piranhas, but the fish look as old and toothless as the disco ball at the Acropolis. A babyish girl is dancing to some horrible electronic music in front of four toothless rednecks in Harley-Davidson garb. I’m the only female customer in the whole place. We sip lukewarm beer while an older Asian man sits by himself at the video lottery machine. Kensington notes that there’s always an older Asian man sitting alone, in every strip club, anywhere, ever.

Devils Point (5305 SE Foster), Saturday, 6:17 pm

Feeling down after Safari, we drive to Devils Point. It’s early, and the girls seem to be practicing new moves for each other. The place is floor-to-ceiling black with 100 percent hazy red lighting. It feels like a womb. The girls are playing the Dresden Dolls and old soul records. There’s a giant poster of Bettie Page. Devils Point boasts an affirming retro-feminist vibe—but it’s just too early for this place. Definitely worth a stop during our next trip down south.

Lucky Devil Lounge (633 SE Powell), Saturday, 8:05 pm

Like Safari and the other Devil, there’s no cover and no drink minimum (take note, Seattle). And who knew there was a strip club that makes its own hummus fresh every morning? I’m crunching a carrot and trying to figure out what sort of apparatus the naked girl is swinging on when drunken Santa walks in. He’s got the suit, the boots, the belt, the hat, and the beard. He sits down for a lap dance while Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing” plays. I feel dizzy.

Pirate’s Cove (7417 NE Sandy), Saturday, 10:11 pm

Though Santa tells us it’s not really worth the drive, we leave for Pirate’s Cove. I really want to see this one, because the building is shaped like a giant whiskey jug. After too many pirate jokes, we go inside and DJ Mexi-Dave is playing Alice in Chains. There are no pirates here, just more dancers who are oddly all starting to look the same. I want to drink whiskey, but I’m driving, so I get watery coffee instead. I lose $30 on video lottery games, get kinda down again, or maybe just bored.

Sassy’s Bar & Grill (927 SE Morrison), Sunday, 12:21 am

We ditch the car and take a taxi to Sassy’s. I tell Kensington that this is the rowdiest place, second only to Mary’s—it’s packed. We order two $3 powerfully built vodka sodas, and the first sip makes my nipples hard. The speakers blare Misfits and there’s nowhere to sit. The cowboy in the white leather suit is actually a butch lesbian who’s about to win a fistfight with a Mohawked punker. A bouncer with tattoos covering 95 percent of his face and neck breaks it up. Everyone else is drunk, laughing, and having fun. There are couples, singles, the obligatory lonely Asian man, and even a gay guy watching the three stages. I sit down and turn my head, which almost lands inside a dancer’s vagina. She’s clacking her giant stripper shoes together—in between smacking them on the floor—and repeatedly putting her hoo-hoo in my face. I repeatedly tip her and drink ’til Sassy’s gets blurry and I wake up back at our hotel. On the way out of town, we pass the Occupy protesters. Kensington says that even though we’re 99 percenters, it’s still nice to know that in Portland we can have whatever we want.

46 replies on “Strip Maul”

  1. Kelly, great article, but you come to Portland and you don’t go to the vegan strip bar! WTF? And you don’t choose a Portlander for this week’s Drink of the Week? WTF?

  6. Mary’s is disgusting, and I’ve been twice and it’s been relatively empty.

    If this is a feature article, why not go into a *tad* more detail about each place?

  7. I work at Acropolis and I know the dancer you are speaking of. She is a great dancer and works really hard work 5 days a week, 2 to 3 shifts a day! I know her age, not a minor BTW.
    I know girls that work at all those clubs! We are HOT, talented, smart, strong, sexy and are loyal to our fellow stripper!!!! I would be so upset if I read this and was spoken of the way you made the strippers seem lazy and bored!! LAME LAME LAME review!!

  8. @Sydney – I don’t get it it. What did she say about the Acrop that was so bad? She didn’t say the dancers looked lazy OR bored, there. She made the dancer sound hot.

    Reading skills, maybe?

  9. @8: “The girl suddenly grabs a laminated sign that says, “Dancers Work for Tips” and shoves it in their faces, then she storms off the stage and returns with the youngest, skinniest bouncer I’ve ever seen.”

    Get it it now?

  10. I would like to write one of these, but only hitting the strip clubs on Barbur Blvd. Just workin’ my way slowly west until I’m in Tigard, at which point we all know we’ve gone too far.

  12. A shame you didn’t hit Devil’s Point later in the evening – it’s by far the best strip bar in PDX in terms of the total package – ambience, service, dancers, etc.

  13. @Sydney, that doesn’t seem like a bad thing the stripper did more a bad thing the dudes that weren’t tipping did. Not sure if serious….

  14. What a unique article! Something about how many strippers there are in Portland! I am shocked and really want to hear more about your unique perspective!

  15. This would work as a blog post, but as a news item? Seriously guys? These are one-time impressions from someone who clearly doesn’t know shit about strip clubs or strippers, which can be an interesting perspective, but is not a top story. Most of the author’s comments aren’t even about the clubs. I don’t really care for a non-substantive “guide” shit-talking local businesses on the front page of the merc. Take Rocket up on her offer, she’s more than qualified.

  17. You came to Portland for the entire weekend and all you did was go to strip clubs? Wow, get a life. If you can’t get real dates or see some of the other sights of the town, don’t feel like you have to go pay women to ogle you or pretend to like you since you brought your dollar bills out.

    There are a lot of “un-trashy” people in Portland who can fill you in on many great things to do and places to go see, and it would make for a much more interesting article. Strippers are sluts for rent and it really shouldn’t take up your entire weekend…but it sounds like you have nothing better to do anyway.

  18. yes, there are other things you could do, like sit around and be super-judgemental of folks, like supernovae. sluts for rent? classy.

  19. It sounds as if you were either too drunk or too ignorant to truly experience and remember most of these clubs. The only rack you mentioned sitting at was at Sassy’s, the last of your tour. It doesn’t seem fair for shitty reviews to come out of your lack of interaction. If you’re bored, then maybe you’re boring, right? Come down again and do it proper. Get chummy with the dancers and really experience the awe, the wonder, the beauty and maybe you’ll understand a bit more of why Portland is a fuckyeah! city. And FYI, there isn’t a pole at Magic Garden for the dancer to ignore, and there is a one drink minimum. Pay attention Ms. Journalist and keep your notepad handy! And @supernovae – please, for all of humanity, stop being such a square. You probably need a lap dance more than anyone reading this page.

  20. Oh also, Sandria, the girl from Mary’s whom you went out of your way to mention had “implant-free double-Ds?” Yea those are implants, champ.

  21. @Sydney – Yeah, Joe Joe said it. That’s not a complaint about the dancer. She made it sound like that girl was working hard. The “bored” dancers were over at Magic Gardens. Just admit that you can’t read good, and went off half-cocked.

  23. When I first moved to Portland I was shocked at the number of strip clubs infesting what was an otherwise beautiful city. As a woman with a high degree of self respect the mysoginistic frat boy mentality of the men in this town was appalling. Any time I’m in the vicinity of a strip club men seem to think it’s a license to ogle and make crude suggestions. This article trivializes a sad exploitive industry catering to socially immature males who can’t form normal relationships with women. Portland seems to have a very high number of these kind of men.
    If people want to do something positive advocate for strong zoning laws to discourage the proliferation of these clubs.

  24. Seriously, discourage the proliferation of these clubs? Go back to whatever conservative Midwestern shithole you came from and save your self-righteous judgements for someone who cares. Just because a female is comfortable with her sexuality and chooses to capitalize on her sexiness through her own free will and provide a service to grown people choosing to pay for the service doesn’t mean she doesn’t have self respect. It’s pretty hypocritical to be judging the people that you are claiming to support through your feminist mentality.

  25. The last time I was in a strip club was in L.A. in 2001, and Jeff Combs was there too. Long story.

    Oh, I did accidentally walk into the club on lower Hawthorne once.

  26. Hahahaha.. michaeljordan, as if women who put their ass in men’s faces for money is classy. It’s just as classy as the men who have to “pay” women to touch them and titilate them. So, it doesn’t sound as if you have any conception of the word classy.

    Besides, if the women have self respect why don’t they get a job that actually pays “Paroll Taxes” for god sakes. The trashy club owners employee the strippers as “contractors” so that they can skimp on their wages and skip out on paying taxes (Helloooo, IRS! hint, hint). If a stripper has a brain then she can probably find a job that pays better and doesn’t necessitate catering her ass to pathetic men who can’t get real women to touch them.

    Yes, please, zoning laws can be improved to keep the trashy establishments that cater to trashy people confined to one area that we don’t all have to walk by and see.

  27. Why are people taking off their clothes? Its SO COLD right now! Shouldn’t they wait until the hamster in my head stops turning its wheel of fortune? And what about that Newt Gingrich, huh? Is he a living doll or what! Man what I wouldn’t pay to tip his rack!

  28. FUCK, THESE COMMENTS ARE LAME. I GUESS THE PEOPLE WHO DON’T REALIZE THE AUTHOR OF THIS ‘ARTICLE’ IS A WOMAN ARE KIND OF FUNNY… BUT STILL NOT REALLY.

    SCREW IT. LETS MAKE UP A NEW STORY TO WRITE COMMENTS ABOUT!

    GEORGE W BUSH IS THE BEST PRESIDENT EVER. NAZIS ARE FUNNY! HOLOCAUST NEVER HAPPENED. I DON’T CARE. LET’S GET JIGGY WITH IT.

  29. I can count the number of times I’ve been in a strip club on one hand–but this hand-wringing about “pathetic men who have to pay women to touch them” is silly. It’s like condemning restaurant patrons as sad people who have to pay someone to cook for them.

    Yes, your mother makes soup for you because she loves you. But I work in a restaurant: the cook doesn’t love you. The cook makes soup for you because he gets paid to make soup. Does that make every restaurant meal a cheap and disgusting experience for you?

    Strippers are professionals, doing work that pays better than most other jobs they could find in Portland. If they do it well, more power to them. As a group, they are “exploited” only in the sense that anyone who does something for work that he wouldn’t do for free is exploited. That covers most of us, I think.

    The critical comments here mostly seem to reflect a visceral discomfort with sex, wrapped in superficially plausible self-justifications. If you don’t like strip clubs, don’t attend–but it’s absurd to critique them on the grounds that the girls only strip because they’re payed to. That’s how every other business in town works, too.

  31. Simple point: Feminists and neighborhood activists are right: Strip clubs invariably bring down neighborhoods because they attract douchebags who are loud, ill-mannered, can’t handle their drink and sexually immature. Ask any strip club owner, mobbed up or not, where they live and whether they’d let their children go to a school near a condom-strewn parking lot and most will admit they wouldn’t. Another point: Forcibly pimping women out is exploitation, but strip clubs are women exploiting men, period. You are using your looks to get money out of a sucker who secretly fantasizes he may wind up in bed with you. Hence “VIP” lounges and lap dances. The whole industry is based on cock-teasing and loneliness and anyone who tells you different is in denial. I have no problem with strip bars existing, but most — though not all, Mary’s is a great exception — are shitty places staffed by rude assholes where ignoramuses actually like nu metal and dancers don’t know how to dance but do know how to rifle through other dancers’ purses for money and drugs when they’re not looking for a towel to wipe down the pole. Now, would you please get out of the way, Venus is about to dance, and your pants-saggin’ down ass is in my line of sight!

  32. You come to Portland & only have the time to hit a handful of the most popular clubs? I hit that many in just a few hours. Real investigative work would’ve taken you to at least 30 strip clubs in 2 days-easy. And yes, we Portlanders already know all about these clubs. Tell us something we don’t know. Courtney Love used to works at Mary’s? We know, but it wasn’t mentioned & that the Acrop is Marylin Mansons favorite strip club in Portland while Magic Gardens is Lemmy’s. I hope this article was published in The Stranger where it might be relevant.

  33. A night at the strip club once in a while can be great fun but being a titty bar connaisseur is pretty fucking pathetic. What a waste of money.

  36. I fully agree with Quadrant’s comment, it was spot on. As far as the article is concerned, Penthouse magazine already did the PDX strip-club article a couple of years ago, and did a much better and more thorough job. Glad you had fun here in Portland. Next time, hit Devil’s Point around 1am.

  37. Hey Feminitsche – Guys in Portland aren’t any more sexist than guy anywhere else. There’s just more of them. Population of this metro area is close to twice what it was 20 yrs. ago. What gender do you think prefers to move here? It’s not exactly a destination for 20 something year old supermodels. It is a magnet for young guys looking for the recreation. Guys are a lot more tolerant of rainy gloomy weather, hot chicks aren’t. Bottom line: Strip clubs are succesful here because the customers are here. Guys that can’t find women because there aren’t enough single women to supply them. Single bars are skewed toward single men so the guys end up in strip clubs at the end of the night. Simple as that.

    I have nothing against strip clubs but this article was kind of boring.

  38. I’m with Concur….titty bars are a waste of money. But Mary’s used to be a cool spot when I did go every now and then. That door cover was rediculous tho and what was funny was the strippers putting coins into a onstage jukebox for their dance music!

    I used to sit at the bar only and chat it up with the dancers on break. Most of those girls I talked to have been through some fucked up shit….pretty but damaged.

  39. What a boring/useless article, except for the trashy ones of Portland who actually attend/work these clubs.

    Everyone knows that strip clubs are just dive type bars with slutty dancers (“artists” they like to describe themselves..whatever) who don’t use their brain just their asses, and pathetic men who can’t form a real life relationship with a woman so they go on these pretend jaunts as if a women shaking an ass in your face for money means you are special.

    Even one of Portland’s own club owners knows this, he was quoted in tits and sass saying this “the owner of Casa Diablo, dressed like an aging Juggalo in his custom-made “Casa Diablo 666 jersey, says, “Real men don’t buy girls… they just rent ‘em!”.

    Exactly, sluts for rent and pathetic men. Please use your brains and grow up, don’t stay trashy forever. There’s a real world out there that needs smart people, and we know they aren’t strippers. What was that url? ..rockethascrabs? haha

  40. This article was boring. The comments are slightly more entertaining.

    I love how ignorant people are about the reality of strip clubs. Most of the complaints sound like they were made by boring women who sit at home since they shat out a kid a couple years ago. Now they are jealous of anyone who still has a good time.

    Oh, and to the cunt attempting to talk shit about Rocket. I’m sure that you go to comment boards because everyone else in your life is sick of hearing your bullshit opinions. We don’t need them either. Stick them up your fat ugly ass.

  41. haha, juancarlo, nice to hear that you love the strip clubs and all the trashiness that goes along with them, but really who cares?

    My note about Rocket is well formed since everyone knows that strippers are usually paid for more than dancing and invariably have crabs, etc.

    I’m not afraid to voice my opinions. I don’t sit at home and don’t have kids..I have a good job that I acquired after a good education and due to using my intelligence (unlike strippers). Although I do have very good measurements..so perhaps you’re just reflecting your own “fat ugly ass” into comment boards. One is as one says.

  42. PDX my dear, I’m glad that you have a nice ass. Mine is quite lovely as well.

    Your argument that “everyone knows that strippers are usually paid for more than dancing and invariably have crabs, etc.” is like saying that someone who smokes weed obviously shoots heroin and sucks off truckers for crack.

    Maybe you’ve had a bad experience with strip clubs. True, some are shit holes full of dumb skanks. Others are gems full of bright young women and happy customers having the time of their lives. You owe yourself a trip to Devil’s Point on a Friday night. Watch a fire dancer perform to Slayer and tell me that isn’t art.

    Or don’t. I want my spot at the rack.

  45. I’m sorry for any comments I made about Rocket that apparently some took seriously. The opinion that strippers likely have STDs is foudned on the evidence of prostitution rings found in strip clubs, especially here in Portland. You can easily look up those news stories and investigations by the FBI, Police. The club owners and managers are usually sumbags who charge money for these prostitution “shows”. It’s terribly sad for the women who have to work there. Anyway, I never said that a specific stripper actually had a disease, just that it may be likely with the evidence pointing to the job in question. This is common knowledge.
    Love, PDX

  46. WOW am I missing something here. Wasn’t this supposed to be a casual tongue in cheek article. How did it become the message board for the Portland Debate Team. LOL you people really need to relax and argue over things that might actually mean something.

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