My wife and I were regulars at Flashdancers for many years and very disappointed when it closed last year. Last night, we finally had the opportunity to check out Sapphire at the same location. Easily, the best strip club we've ever been to in NYC. They've obviously put a ton of money into the place, resulting in a really beautiful ultra-modern facility. My wife used to dance at VIP, Stiletto, Lace, Goldfingers, Hott 22, Smiles, and Gallagher's 2000, where I worked with her doing security and, later, opening the place up 4 days a week and managing the day shift for a few months. She also danced a few nights at Cheetah's, Spearmint Rhino, and (full disclosure) at Sapphire the last time we went out there for vacation about 10 years ago. I'm a writer by profession, and the first paid writing gig I ever had after law school was reviewing these clubs for "Mentertainment Magazine" 25 years ago.
Generally, we avoid "upscale" clubs, because they usually have stricter dress codes, more arbitrary rules in general, and worse staff attitudes than other good strip clubs where the dancers are just as hot but without anybody constantly trying to "upsell" you or whose only function seems to be telling paying customers where you can't sit or stand. This place is the perfect mix of everything we look for in a strip club. The facility is about as upscale as you can get and somebody in management really knows what he's doing by not bothering or turning away otherwise-respectable-looking customers dressed in clean casual clothes, because it looks like the kind of place that would have exactly that type of policy.
At the same time, the place is absolutely perfect for business people entertaining clients. Two of the managers (Roni and Kurt) introduced themselves to us, kind of gave us the "VIP" treatment (without trying to sell us anything beyond letting us know what's available), and provided their cards before we left, telling us to let them know we're coming next time. The club is definitely very couple-friendly. I've never written a yelp review of any type of business in my life, but I genuinely wanted to reciprocate for the outstanding service they provided, so I signed up specifically to leave this review.
The managers, hosts, and bouncers ALL make eye contact and greet you politely and they've obviously been trained to be helpful rather than menacing the way they are at a lot of clubs and for absolutely no reason. The waitresses were attentive without being pushy at all; and nobody ever swooped down on us with a clipboard and a lighted pen to offer us the champagne room the second they noticed us getting more than a couple of dances from the same girl. Nobody ever came over to obligate us (or embarrass us into having to decline) to buy drinks for every girl we happened to sit with for a few minutes, which is something I absolutely can't stand and for which I will immediately cross a club off my list. Basically, the whole staff is on point ready to take care of you but they all stay completely out of your way if you happen not to need anything.
Management has obviously also avoided another common NYC strip club mistake of hiring only a very narrow range of "types" of dancers, which usually reflects little more than the personal taste of whomever is in charge of hiring talent. Whatever your type of girl, they're there, and they're hot; and this was on a Wednesday, by the way. I'm guessing it only gets better Thursday through Saturday. The dancers were friendly and approachable, but nobody rushed over to offer us a dance the instant we happened to make incidental eye contact, either.
My personal style is not to get a lot of dances from different girls, but to take my time finding my strip-club wife (or two) for the evening and let her take all my money if she gives good dances. The first girl who danced for me (a petite curvy brunette from Reno named Aries) was so friendly and into the conversation that I had to remind her (twice) that she was working and that I didn't want to monopolize her time talking at her expense, which is a very welcome change from the more typical 45 seconds girls give you at most NYC clubs to ask you, robotically: (1) "What's your name?" (2) "Where are you from?" and then (3) "Do you want a dance?" and immediately spin around and disappear as though you just farted if you don't happen to want a dance at that moment or from that particular girl.
We probably talked for at least 20 minutes before she did the first of about 8 dances. A hard-body Latina (whose stage name I didn't get) basically glued herself to my wife when she found out that she used to dance and they did their thing, which is always hot to see. One other girl did about 10 dances for me and left me with $5 in my pocket (a petite blonde Korean sexpot named Bora) who was also friendly but all about the dances and wasted no time getting started. Let's just say that she's obviously in the right job. Trust. Me. On. This. read more