Dear Spearmint
Rhino,
Congratulations on the opening of your new club in downtown
Los Angeles. If it is anything like the other clubs in the
Spearmint Rhino chain, particularly the well-run City of
Industry club, I'm sure I and other members of the Z-Posse can
expect an upscale atmosphere, comfortable chairs, a rockin'
sound system, dynamic lighting effects, beautiful AND talented
dancers, weekly visits by our favorite adult film stars, and a
number of other special touches that the Spearmint Rhino chain
has used to "elevate the game" in the world of live
adult entertainment.
I think I would not be alone, however, in stating that I am
not a particularly big fan of the Van Nuys club. It seems to
me that you have poured thousands of dollars of radio
advertising since it opened a year ago, but have not addressed
some of the problems posted on this web site and expressed to
employees at the Van Nuys club. I, for one, would hate to see
the same mistakes made at your new Los Angeles club.
Therefore, if I may be so bold, I would like to make a couple
of suggestions:
1. COUPONS. Please remember that, even though your new club is
part of an established chain, it is still a NEW club. That
means that it is important to establish goodwill toward
patrons all over again and build a customer base. When the Van
Nuys club opened, it took almost 10 months for Spearmint Rhino
to print a $5 off coupon that could actually be used at a time
of day in which someone might actually want to go to a strip
club. (If memory serves, I think the coupon was invalid after
6:30 p.m.)
2. DEEJAYS. Once a club has been around for a while, patrons
might grudgingly accept deejays cutting songs short, but you
certainly shouldn't start off that way. Thanks to some of the
engineers on this site, we're all too aware of the "per
minute" breakdown of a lap dance, and we know that a
3-for-1 with 3:00 songs isn't an appreciably better deal than,
say, a single dance to the uncut version of "Stairway to
Heaven".
It's understandable that the deejays (who all seem to have
attended the same strip club deejay school) want patrons to
get excited and keep the energy up, but the problem with an
upscale club is that we're not going to "hoot and
holler" like the cast of HEE-HAW. Sorry, but your deejays
add insult to injury by than deriding patrons for not
applauding (oddly enough, sometimes before they've finished
playing the shortened song that catches us by surprise when it
ends so soon).
3. DANCERS ON STAGE. There should ALWAYS be a dancer on the
stage. No exceptions. Ever.
4. WAITRESSES. We don't mind a two drink minimum, but please
don't have the waitresses bring both drinks out at the same
time. Also, pouncing on us to buy drinks for the dancers after
a lap dance is the surest way to piss us off.
5. STAGE LIGHTING. Call us old fashioned, but we customers do,
periodically, like to actually be able to SEE the dancer on
stage. Lasers, fog, strobe lights and all those other goodies
don't hold a candle to the saline- and silicon-enhanced
special effects we paid to gawk at.
I'm sure my fellow members of the Z-Posse can give you some
useful insights to pass along to your Spearmint Rhino-Los
Angeles managers, as well. These little criticisms aside,
please bear in mind that our objective is to make your strip
clubs the best that they can be. If they weren't already
pretty close to perfect, I don't think I would bother with a
posting like this.
Thank you for listening. |
