Back in the '80's I used to attend seminars at the L.A. Convention Center and I would drive past some of these places on my way home. While curious, I never ventured inside one because I had the preconceived notion that only immigrants and old geezers went to those places and that the women were mostly overweight and over-30 transplants from Tijuana.

Actually, during their heyday in the '30's and '40's they were quite respectable and were frequently depicted in the movies of that era. They were very big back east, particularly in New York. The men, who typically wore suits, would buy tickets which they would give to the hostesses in exchange for a dance. The tickets were 10 cents each; hence they were called "dime-a-dance" clubs. Some time in the late '50's they began a slow, gradual decline to the point where they've virtually disappeared from the scene, with the exception of Honolulu, New York City, Detroit, Oakland (which as recently as ten years ago still had a couple of clubs), and L.A., where they continue to thrive.

My perception of these places changed when I read an article in the L. A. Times Magazine (July, 1990 I believe) entitled "Taxi Dancers." It featured excerpts of interviews with dancers, customers, and then current and former club owners. The article mentioned about four or five clubs but mainly focused on the recently closed Club Flamingo, which was then the most popular club. It said that you could dance with 19 and 20 year old girls and that some heavy petting took place there.

When I finally went several months later I was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of young, attractive girls working there, most of whom were Caucasian. A lot of the customers did look like they may have been immigrants, but they were mostly middle class Asians instead of the working class Latinos I had expected. There were only a few old geezers and a surprising number of men in their 20's and 30's. Contrary to the popular notion that most men go to these places because they're lonely and can't otherwise get a pretty girl to pay attention to them, I'd say most of them go for the same reason I do, which is to have fun. Then there is a surprisingly high number of guys who are just looky-loos.

The format is basically the same at all clubs. Instead of buying tickets, when you ask a girl to dance, she'll take a card from a rack and punch a time clock. For $.40 a minute, which works out to $24 an hour (there's a 10 min. minimum), you can dance and/or sit and talk on couches with the girl(s) of your choice. The standard tip is to match the bill. For simplicity's sake, I round off to the nearest multiple of $5. There's no nudity, but many of the girls wear minis and micro-minis, in a few cases barely covering their asses. Some of them also show generous amounts of cleavage. At Dreamland some of them even wear see-through outfits. The clubs are dry, so the girls can be as young as 18. Most are in their early to mid 20's, a few in their early 30's, very few over 35.

For $24 an hour plus a comparable tip, you can typically (depending on the club) expect light to moderate touching and stand-up grinding, although some girls don't grind much at all and others will do fairly heavy grinding for the same rate. Rubbers are a definite must. Depending on the girl, you can get more, .i.e, feeding and stick shifting. Many girls will let you touch as much as you want, and in some cases, where you want. YMWV.

The clubs pay the girls either minimum wage or on a sliding scale based on how many minutes they dance per week, but, as in the strip clubs, they rely mainly on tips. Unlike strip clubs, these aren't the kind of places girls generally seek out to work at. For one thing they don't advertise, so most people don't even know they exist Most of the girls have limited marketable skills, and, outside of stripping, where else can they make $25 an hour? Some do so because it's convenient (shorter hours, easy money, etc.). Some do it to help pay their way through college.

Due to the nature of the business the girls have to "go along in order to get along" to a certain extent, so that probably explains why they are generally more willing to provide "extra service" than strippers. What exactly does that mean? Unless a girl is a real hottie and reasonably intelligent and a good conversationalist, she will probably have to put up with at least a certain amount of touching and fondling in order to do well. That doesn't necessarily mean she has to let men "feel her up," but if she can't handle even gentle caressing she probably won't last long.

Most of the girls average about $125 or so in tips per night, the more popular ones (not necessarily the nastiest) may average up to $200. On a good night, they may make as much as $300. The good ones have regulars who may tip as much as $100 per hour, and I've even heard of $200 tippers. These "high rollers" are usually Asian, or in some cases, middle easterners. I personally like to match the bill for light to moderate touching and grinding, 1-1/2 times the bill for heavy-duty touching and grinding, and 1-1/2 to double the bill for feeding and stick shifting. That probably doesn't sound like a lot compared to what you'd spend for comparable service in a strip club, but most of the girls seems satisfied with it. Unless a girl actually has sex with you (wear a long coat and you might be able to do it on the dance floor at a couple of clubs), you shouldn't need to tip more than $60 an hour.

Now for a brief capsule of my favorite clubs. There are more than 10 clubs, all located in downtown L.A. Most of them are listed in the Yellow Pages under either "Ballrooms" or "Night Clubs", but only three or four of them are really worth going to, IMO. There are really two distinct genres of hostess clubs, the "mixed" clubs (those that draw a racially mixed crowd) and the Latino clubs, which cater primarily to working class Latinos. I didn't include this latter group in my review because my experience them with is rather limited and, frankly, I didn't think they would appeal to most of the readers of this site. In decreasing order of nastiness, my recommended clubs are:

Dreamland
833 S Spring St, Los Angeles, CA 90014
(213) 689-1280
Cover Charge: $5 after 8:00 P.M. Hours: 7:00 P.M. to 2:00 A.M., every day
Food: Snack bar w/light snacks, candy, soft drinks, etc.
Security parking
VISA, MC, and ATM check cards bearing the VISA/MC symbol, video/pinball games, pool tables, free buffet on Tuesdays around 11:00 P.M. The credit card slips say "Muir Field Productions," a nice, discreet touch. $24 minimum on credit/ATM cards.

This is the only club with two dance floors and two TV rooms, one each downstairs and upstairs. For a while from roughly the middle of '94 to spring '96, before the cops tried to shut them down and they had to install cameras, they were off the nasty factor scale. Used to be I could go there on just about any night knowing there would be about five or six girls who would let me feed to my heart's content. One night I danced with three girls (one at a time) and, um, digitally stimulated all three of them. There was beaucoup stick shifting going on, too. At one point the place was more popular than Flamingo, and, rather than bother dancing first, I just grabbed the first available couch. Management made a token effort to enforce the rules, but because it was good for business they often looked the other way.

Those days are gone, but if you get the right girl you may get almost as good action. Again, YMWV. Upstairs is more popular than downstairs, especially for grinding. The TV rooms are just off the dance floors and have large, overstuffed leather couches that are long enough to lie down on. Even with the cameras, if you get the rearmost couches downstairs and the rearmost and rightmost, frontmost upstairs, you can do some messing around. You have to keep an eye out for security, though. They seem to come around about every 20-30 minutes.

When dancing with a girl I don't know, unless I know she's nasty from having observed her with other customers, I like to talk with her for a while to establish some kind of rapport and get her to feel comfortable with me. I never ask if she'll do such-and-such. Rather, once she seems sufficiently relaxed, I prefer to test her by letting my hands "explore" to see how far she'll let me go. If she lets me slip my hands underneath her skirt and place them on her ass or if she starts grinding me heavily right away, it's a pretty good but not necessarily sure sign that she may be amenable to other "extracurricular activities."

Most girls won't ask for a tip up front. If one does, give her no more than $20 and ask what you'll get in return. You shouldn't have to tip extra just for grinding since most girls there do it anyway. I'd say about 60-70 percent of the girls are Latinas (a fair number of them from south of the border), there's a fair number of Anglos, a few Asians and Blacks. Most are at least reasonably attractive, several 7's, a fair number of 8's, and even one or two 9's. Because of the high turnover in this business I can't recommend any specific girls. A lot of the girls will grind with their backs to you; some will even let you hike up their skirts and grind their bare asses, well, almost anyway, save for the t-back underwear, against your crotch. What an erotic sight!

Nasty factor: three stars (used to be four, **sigh!**)
They also have a lingerie contest Wednesday night around 11:45, with members of the audience serving as judges. This is a good opportunity to get a feel (literally as well as figuratively) for how nasty some of the girls are. It seems like the nastiest ones often win, although some girls claim the management rigs the contests. With the closing of Flamingo the number of girls has nearly doubled (to about 60 on the busiest nights). The girls are required to be there by 9:30; I’d say just before 9:00 is a good time to go. Best nights to go besides Wednesday are Tuesdays (payday and buffet night) and Fridays. There is even a Dreamland page on TUSCL.

There is also a hostess clubs thread on Desperado’s site. If that link doesn’t work, try their mirror site.

Note: Dreamland is not to be confused with Danceland, the Latino club on Figueroa across the street from the Convention Center. I don't care for Danceland that much myself (the place is a dump), but I've heard that some boinking takes place on the dance floor during the day shift (12:30-6:30). This is the only club that opens that early. Quality is supposed to be better at night, but mileage reportedly drops off considerably. Rumor has it that they will be closing and relocating in the fall when the Staples Arena opens.

Club Flamingo

This club recently closed, but they are supposed to re-open at a new location near 17th and Los Angeles St. in June. They have an information hotline at (213) 748-2512 and a website at http://clubflamingo.com  

Club Fantasy
307 W 4th St, Los Angeles, CA 90013
(213) 620-9572
Cover charge: $5. Hours: 4:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., every day
Food: Snack bar w/light snacks, candy, soft drinks, etc.
Security parking
VISA, MC, and ATM check cards bearing the VISA/MC symbol, video/pinball games, no pool tables. $24 minimum on credit/ATM cards.

Located across the street from the Bunker Hill project, it has a somewhat better locale than most clubs. This is actually a fairly classy looking club as these clubs go, and the clientele as well as the girls are a cut above most clubs. The quality of the girls is second only to Starlight. Most are 7's and up, there are several 8's, and a handful of 9's. There are more Anglos, too, although I've noticed a number of ex-Dreamland girls there recently. Some of the girls even wear long gowns or pants (yawn). You'll just have to go by instinct in picking a girl. They have picked up a lot of ex-Flamingo girls, so they may have as many as 80-90 girls on the busiest nights (usually Tues. thru Fri.) The girls get their pick of three shifts to work: 4-10, 6-12, and 8-2. They have to be there within a half hour after the shift starting time or they don’t get paid for their minutes.

Weekends are slow before 8:00, especially before 6:30. During the week there may be anywhere from 8 to 18 girls by 4:30. The dance floor action is not as nasty as Dreamland, but the couch action is better. I have eaten at the "Y" there with several different girls. At one time I would have said only about 10% of the girls provided "extra services," now I'd say that figure is closer to 20, 25, maybe even 30%. Still, that means that two-thirds to 70% of them don't. For messing around, get the frontmost couch to the right of the TV or the one in the northeast corner (to the left in the far back as you enter the club). Security doesn't come around as frequently as at Dreamland. There used to be very minimal grinding, but lately I've noticed some of the girls have gotten a little more aggressive. Still, nothing like at Dreamland. There are no cameras.

Nasty factor: two and a-half stars.
One of the girls told that there is illegal activity that occurs after hours. I assume she was referring to girls going home or to motels with customers. Sorry, I can't recommend any motels in the area.

Club Starlight
1224 S Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90015
(213) 747-7653
Cover charge: Unknown
Hours: Most likely 7:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m.
Food: Unknown, they do serve soft drinks, so they probably have a snack bar
VISA, MC, and ATM check cards bearing the VISA/MC symbol

I can't really say this is one of my favorite clubs since I only went there once several years ago, but I felt it was still worth mentioning. At that time it was $26 an hour to dance with a girl. I don't know how much it is now This is the plushest and most expensive club in L.A., and the only one that has valet parking. I think they do have a TV room.

It caters predominantly to affluent Asian men. Unlike the other clubs, you don't select the girls. When a group of customers comes in (they usually come in small groups, although don't feel shy about going by yourself), there are a couple of "mama-sans" wandering around who will go and pick girls to go over to their table. I'm told the girls sit behind a glass partition that allows you to see them, but they can't see you. If you see a girl you like, call one of the mama-sans over, tell her which girl you want, and slip her a $5 or $10. The girls range from very attractive to beautiful; most of them are Caucasian.

Nasty factor: ??
Like I said, I only went once and the mama-sans didn't pay any attention to me, so I never actually danced with a girl. I've met several girls who used to work there who've told me they quit because management, shall we say, strongly encourages the girls to "date" the customers, if you get my drift. I've recently been told that the dates occur during club hours, although most clubs prohibit dancers from leaving with customers during working hours. The dates are set up by the club and are not cheap, about three Ben Franklins for one hour, with the girl keeping two.

If you're not Asian, wear obviously expensive clothes when you go there (assuming you have some, of course). Even a suit wouldn't be overdoing it. Otherwise they might think you're a cop. Note: this is the only club for which this advice applies. There are girls at the other clubs who, when they see a "suit," will try to "work" him for as much as they can get out of him. They try this tactic on everyone basically, but in particular middle-aged men.

The LA Weekly recently did a cover story on these clubs.

Disregard what it says about tipping "at least 50 percent of the bill." That information is inaccurate. Also the Paradise Club is now closed. There are a number of points in the article that I disagree with (too many to address here), but the one I most vigorously disagree with is that guys go to these clubs "to fall in love." Just like the strip clubs, these clubs are primarily about fantasy. Yes, some men do become attached to the girls and I've even heard of marriages between customers and hostesses, but these are not places to go looking for a girlfriend.  

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