the ultimate strip club list

a guy's guide to strip clubs

July 9, 2008  •  Vol. 15, Issue 190

I made a recent visit to Sonny's. First the preliminaries, cover charge was $9 and it was $4.50 for a bottle of beer. Now on to the important stuff, the girls were attractive for the most part, I'd put most in the 5-7 range, there were also a couple 8-9's wandering about. I was surprised by the increased number of black dancers since my last visit, I don't mind that, it just surprised me that there seemed to be so many more. They've added some sheeting in front of the VIP area along the south side of the building which I found to be a welcome addition as I don't think it's too much to expect a bit of privacy in exchange for the increased dance prices (the prices there are 4 dances for $100 as opposed to the $10 floor dances and the $20 bench dances), I got several dances in that section and I was very pleased with the contact level. Overall, I had a good time, I'll be back.

Shows promise, but a short trip there left me a little confused... Consider this a preliminary review. I went for only about 45 minutes one recent weekday afternoon a little after five o'clock. Chuckled at the pat down on the way in with a magnetometer....umm, ok... that's a new one for me... as was the sign posted about not wearing gang colors. Hello, in Chandler? Well, I am new here. Anyway, its not huge but people were friendly enough; I was served a drink right away. There were about five or six patrons while I was there, and I think there were about eight dancers in the room. I thought the girls looked pretty good. They were doing one dancer on stage at a time, for two or three song stretches. Most tended to just pull their tops down or to the sides when getting topless on stage, which I thought was a little odd. None of the girls looked like they were in the wrong profession. But the big mystery was why the hell they weren't working the room AT ALL. They'd emerge from a dressing room to go on stage, then leave the stage back to the dressing room, or the ladies room, or go sit at the bar... There must have been five or six of us guys sitting there the whole time I was there, and I only saw one girl ever approach any of us... and she went and sat by him and it seemed like she knew him. There were a couple guys at the bar, that some of the girls seemed to be sitting with/talking to. But they weren't working the room for dances, and it wasn't like the dollars were pouring in when they were on stage.... I'm not complaining, really -- it was a sparse crowd at an "off" time of day, so, whatever. I'll try this place again, just for some variety from Christie's, where I nearly always go.

This place has high turnover so it is hit or miss but sadly, mostly miss. On the upside, the positives are : cold beers, decent looking bartenders and servers, some drink specials during the week. The negatives are the DJ, the volume of the ghetto music, and of course the wanna-be security. The grindage factor here is very weak mostly due to the "I couldn't pass the Police Academy but now I'm a bouncer at a Strip Club" factor. If you get lucky, you might find a young newbie who doesn't mind bending the rules, otherwise I'd look elsewhere in Phoenix (and the rest of the country).

On my recommendation I went here with some friends of mine last night. It turned out to be a terrible experience and very different from my previous visit to Sonny's 4 years ago. The one nice thing I will say is that the club was completely redecorated on the inside from my previous visit and that was nice.

Where to start...well this was a Saturday night and my expectations would be that the best talent the club has to offer would be working. That being said I would have to say that many of the girls working that night were simply sitting at the bar or sitting at tables with other patrons, potentially "regulars" not doing any dances unless it was their turn on stage. The dances on stage were pretty boring for the most part as well, lacking any energy or innovation.

In addition to that the ladies working were not as physically fit as you would expect at a strip club on a Saturday night. Sorry, not trying to be mean here, but when you are paying to have a woman strip for you, you have come to expect a certain level of physical perfection. The best looking women in the club were the wait staff.

Now, this is not to say that I would not have happily purchased lap dances from some of the ladies working that night had I been given the opportunity. The simple fact is the entire time we were in the club only 2 dancers stopped by and neither dancer was very attractive nor a good dancer. I have an issue with a club where the management only allows the ladies to pay attention to a certain crowd of "regulars" or "high rollers" and not work the entire club during the course of an evening. I don't know how you plan to build new "regulars" if you piss off others that come to the club and don't receive any service. Watching ladies just sitting at the bar not doing anything until their turn on the stage just takes away from the whole experience, especially since it leaves a big, red, chair imprint on her ass while she is dancing...

All in all this was a terrible experience and I will not be going back any time soon. I will take my money to Christie's Cabaret, where the lap dances are the same $10, the women are gorgeous, and they pay attention to ALL the customers in the club.