Foxy's "Ultimate Strip Club" on Junction Citys Washington St is tucked away on a strip of abandoned…read morebuildings, hole-in-the-wall bars and struggling local shops. The outside appears small and worn, with classless mirrored windows and an old sign with missing letters.
Go ahead, your mind says, give it a try. After all, sometimes these places are gems.
Nope. Not this place.
$3.00 entry fee at "night", unless the place is dead. You're greeted by a wooden window frame without security. Walk right in to a single pool table and a long wooden bar. A trodden middle aged man with a crooked smile and a floppy hat gives you a side ways look while a heavy set bartender looks up from her seat at the bar instead of behind it, bats her lashes and barely says hello.
Reluctantly, when she realizes that an empty strip joint hasn't chased you off- not yet- and gets up to slowly walk behind the bar, asking you what you nees. She shoves a Styrofoam bowl your direction with pretzels in it after serving you up.
Go ahead, take it in. Behind you, in front of the smooth wood bar there's a cheap painted back plywood wall acting as the privacy rooms for the special moment. The carpet is that tough cheap office carpet that often smells like a mixture of mold and puke. To your left is the stage, boarded with mirrors (at least they're clean) framed by carelessly placed red lights. The floor is black, and two poles sprout from it. They're brass and vanish under commercial ceiling painted black, and like all commercial ceilings, they're broken and bowed. You notice something missing...
There's not a single dancer there.
Under the stage in the scrawny bar are placed round tables fit for two, crammed together uncomfortably. Music plays on a single tower, and cautiously you look for a DJ, you see his box. It's made of plywood and plexyglass. It's wide open and empty. Just then, the sound of Pandora commercials comes on. You realize that the Playlist comes from a free application, and it's not even premium. What happens when the dancers dance? Do they break on a commercial?
After 30 minutes of sitting there, you realize this let down isn't going to get any better. The bar tender senses this and taps the bar. Without a smile, she promises in a thick broken accent that the dancers will be out soon. She walks to the back and reappears.
Benefit of the doubt, you wait.
And wait.
And now your drink is long gone and there's still not a single dancer. Not a single patron other than you, uncomfortably sitting there. The bartender senses you'll be leaving, and doesn't even offer another drink to trick you into staying.
So you get up and snap a picture, realizing that it's generally a no-no in one of these places, yet there's not even signs that say not to take photos. You leave, slowly, hoping for any sign of employees, for now you are the only patron, as even the floppy hat man has left.
The bartender is playing pool alone, and doesn't even bother to tell you bye.
