Yes, I'm working at that vegan strip club

New strip clubs open with the frequency of new vegan restaurants in Portland, but to my knowledge the two haven't been combined until this year. Casa Diablo came to my attention when the owner emailed me, and I figured I'd give it a shot. After all, I've never worked in a club on its opening night. And I've never worked with an owner who was so enthusiastic about promoting himself and his concept.

My opinion of the club is, at this point, colored by the grip of cash I've made working there so far, so keep in mind that everything I say is accompanied by a desire to continue a profitable work experience.

That being said, there's been plenty of coverage from all corners of this club, and I'd like to add the stripper's perspective. Here's what it's like to work there.

The building is located in a very industrial part of Portland that is by definition quiet at night. There’s no residential traffic, no other nearby bars or restaurants, and not a lot of through traffic, unless you live in Scappoose. The closest bar is also the closest strip club, the venerable Nicolai Street Clubhouse, about a mile down the road. So any business there depends on the people working during the day. This makes prime hours for the bar between the hours of 2 and 9 p.m., when shift changes happen in the area.

In its previous life this club was a restaurant and it’s still got kind of a strange, Sizzler-esque vibe to the décor. The bathrooms are papered in vintage patterned wallpaper, the furniture is wood, and the walls are brick. One of the waitresses is responsible for stripperizing it somewhat with amateurish devil-girl paintings on the wall, and the VIP area is sectioned off with these curtains, whose religious overtones are a bit much for me at times.




However, I like the VIP room setup well enough. I’ve certainly seen worse.

The stage is great and most dancers there love it. It’s two large square stages with 10 foot – plus tall 2” stationary brass poles (to the layperson, this means they are realtively thick, grippy, and easy to work with, and do not spin on ball bearings), connected by a narrow catwalk. There’s a lot of stageside seating, over 30 seats, and the stage tips have been quite good so far.

The dressing room is very small. There’s four chairs, some tables, and mirrors propped up against the wall. Lighting for the mirrors hasn’t been installed yet. It’s also behind the kitchen, and until the other route is cleared of its construction debris, dancers actually walk through the kitchen to get to the dressing room. There isn’t a separate dancer bathroom so we have to use the main one in the club.

Overall the operation of the club is very much improvised. There frequently aren’t enough dancers on shift, and a permanent DJ hasn’t been hired yet, so when no DJ is there the dancers cue up songs on an iPod. No formal rules have been issued concerning stage sets, shift times, contact, etc. I wasn’t asked for my ID immediately. It’s like the policies are following the practice, not the other way around, where I am of the opinion that this is a good way to let the dancers run your club. That can turn out well if you’ve got smart strippers, or it can turn out terribly if you’ve got crazy ones. There are, of course, some of both here.

And what about the politics? Well, the food is, in fact, vegan, but it’s served on disposable paper plates, which I find to be an interesting philosphical contrast. Other than the food, and a sign in the dressing room requesting that dancers refrain from wearing fur, silk, wool or feathers on stage, there isn’t a militant vegan vibe to the place. Some customers have trickled in thanks to local print and television publicity, but most are just guys in the neigborhood who noticed that the sign out front suddenly read “NUDE DANCERS” a few weeks ago. They aren’t vegetarians but they aren’t put off by someone who is. I mean, they’re ironworkers, but we’re all in Portland here, with its all-encompassing live and let live attitude.

The food itself is vegan Mexican food; enchiladas made with wheat gluten, fake steak and chicken fajitas, pretty good corn chips and beans, and of course a Boca Burger. It's all right. Not gourmet vegan like Nutshell, by a long shot, but when compared to bar food in general it's passable. But you wouldn't want to review this place on it culinary merits alone.

It's also, until January 2009 at least, the only nonsmoking strip club in Portland, which is a unique perk and probably a bigger selling point to the customers than anything else. As long as the dancers aren't doused in Cotton Candy body spray, they have a prayer of not smelling like a bar when they get home.

I’m not a vegan or a vegetarian. That wasn’t a prerequisite for working at the club, and snarky Portland Mercury comments aside, none of the dancers are unshaven.

Over the next couple of months I’ll have a few night-in-the-life-of-the-vegan-strip-club reports. I’d like to say more, but it will keep.