Stripper Bowl weekend in South Florida
Adult clubs going big and tiny for Sunday’s game
The Big Game is almost here, putting South Florida in the global glare of big media attention, which draws big celebrities and excited visitors spending big bucks.
Of course, the region’s nationally ranked strip clubs are going large, too, expanding their staffs, touting features such as a 30-foot TV and hiring extra dancers, who can rake in thousands of dollars a night at the height of Super Weekend.
But Sean Bishop is thinking small. Bishop is the general manager at the Gold Club in Pompano Beach, where the featured performer on Super Bowl Weekend will be Tiny Texie, all 41 inches of her. The 38-pound exotic dancer and reality-TV subject performs at the Gold Club ThursdaySaturday.
“It was a play, to see if we can get people to come up this way. It was a move to put us on the map, to have people say, ‘Hey, there’s something going on up there,’” Bishop says.
Bowl 2020
It is difficult to stand out among the dozens of strip clubs from Miami to West Palm Beach, a region that is one of the most lucrative in an $8 billion market across the country. In Miami Gardens, about three miles from Hard Rock Stadium, home to the Super Bowl on Sunday, the 74,000-square-foot Tootsie’s Cabaret is the largest strip club in America.
The landscape of adultentertainment clubs in South Florida has changed since the last time the Super Bowl was here in 2010. The iconic King of Diamonds, a neon beacon off I-95 in Miami Gardens, closed, as did
Pure Platinum in Oakland Park. Its popular sister spot, Solid Gold, reopened in Pompano Beach in 2017. The landmark Pink Pussycat, adjacent to Miami International Airport, hustled to gussy up and reopen in October after being closed for nearly a decade, and Bishop’s Gold Club has only been open two months.
Attitudes have changed as well: One of the most ubiquitous musical performers during Super Bowl Weekend in South Florida will be Cardi B, who is not shy about having used her personality
and promotional skills to go from dancer at an adult club in New York to Grammywinning rapper and female role model.
In the post-Stormy Daniels era, hanging out with porn stars is no longer a disqualifier, and we can thank one of this year’s Super Bowl stars, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garappolo, for making the name Kiara Mia famous. His well-publicized July date with the adult-film actress earned him the nickname “Porn Star Jimmy” from ESPN host Stephen A. Smith.
No word yet whether Kiara Mia will be in town, but Tootsie’s will have two adult film stars onstage Thursday-Sunday.
Double your pleasure
“We came anyway, partly to see the clubs,” says Dean Ensign, from suburban Chicago, during a weekend visit to the Super Bowl Experience at the Miami Beach Convention Center. Ensign and three buddies, all former Massachusetts residents, bought Super Bowl tickets when it looked like the New England Patriots would make their inevitable appearance in the game.
“Clubs here have full nudity and alcohol. Yeah, and there’s good weather,” Ensign says, with a laugh.
It is for men like Ensign that South Florida strip clubs have been preparing since last year’s Super Bowl, and even before, becoming more classy and couplesfriendly, adding dining rooms and sports bars. Gold Rush Cabaret in Miami will host a Super Bowl watch party with a 30-foot LED screen.
Tootsie’s anticipates it will double its business this weekend, with more than 3,000 patrons coming through the door each day, says Ed Anakar, president of RCI Management Services, the subsidiary of RCI Hospitality, which owns clubs across the country. Hence, the club has been hiring and will have twice as many entertainers working, or more than 300 dancers, he says.
A similar effort will take place at another RCI club in South Florida, Scarlett’s Cabaret in Hallandale Beach, especially popular as an after-hours spot, open until 8 a.m. Based in Houston, home to RCI flagship Rick’s Cabaret, where Anna Nicole Smith got her start, Anakar will monitor the weekend’s action at both clubs from his Miami office.
The appearances by adult film stars Reya Sunshine on Thursday and Friday, and Romi Rain on Saturday and Sunday, will add value, but Anakar says Super Bowl business doesn’t need any help. The usual cover at Tootsie’s is $10, and will be $20 this weekend.
RCI bought Tootsie’s during the Great Recession of 2008, but Anakar remembers “phenomenal” turnout at the club during the Super Bowl two years later.
“We expect this one to be much better. I just think the economy is in better position this time,” he says.
Visit TootsiesCabaret.com.
Not enough girls
When Solid Gold closed in Oakland Park, there was no question that Michael J. Peter, the “godfather” of South Florida gentlemen’s clubs, would reopen. The new spot in Pompano Beach debuted in 2017 with an accent on luxury, offering flambé in a richly appointed dining room, three large jacuzzi pools and a expansive sports bar.
Solid Gold did host Stormy Daniels on her 2018 tour, but will not be bringing in any adult entertainers during Super Bowl festivities.
“I don’t think we need to,” says Andrea Amante, Solid Gold director of marketing, matter-of-factly. Amante expects business to jump 45- to 65% during the weekend and says the club has been hiring aggressively.
Teams from northern states help the bottom line — “If the Pats were in it, we would do really well, crazy well,” she says — but Amante agrees that entertainers in South Florida might earn as much as $1,000 a day this week and $2,500 a day on Super Bowl Weekend.
“I will tell you that the last time the Super Bowl was here, we ran well over 120 girls a night and we didn’t have enough girls. People were throwing money at girls for dances and they had to walk away, because they were so exhausted,” Amante says.
Among the dancers Solid Gold is bringing in is Cassie, an Illinois native who has lived in South Florida and now performs at a sister club, Thee Dollhouse in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Her first Super Bowl will be part business trip, part vacation.
“I’ve got a couple of new dresses, so I’m looking forward to showing them off and having a good time,” she says. “I’ve seen pictures of the club and it looks really beautiful, so I’m getting a nice Florida vacation and making some money while I’m down there.”
Visit SolidGoldFTL.com.
Blue-collar heart
Like many clubs, Cheetah Hallandale Beach has made itself more comfortable for the modern adultentertainment consumer, including a sports bar with 360 degrees of TVs to distract you. During the last Super Bowl, the club was filled to capacity and general manager Greg Jarmon expects more of the same this weekend.
“Anytime you have people coming in from places like California, the discretionary dollars are going to be higher. If New England’s in town to play the Dolphins, you see a spike in the money being spent,” Jarmon says. “I’ve seen guys come in, back in the day we’d call ’em ‘whales,’ and they would spend $4,000-$5,000 just on one girl.”
But in his heart, Jarmon is looking out for the regular guys who built the business. Admission at the Cheetah is typically $5 on Sunday, and while he may raise it to $10, he’s still deliberating.
Those with a Super Bowl game ticket get in free. And the Cheetah still serves free lunch every day.
Jarmon says that discretionary dollars were spread around more evenly during the 2010 Super Bowl.
“We have [tried] to make ourselves an upscale club and attractive to those people who still have discretionary money,” he says. “But at the same time we still cater to blue-collar guys. That’s evidenced by our lunch crowd. We’ll have 90 people for lunch and they’re pretty much in and out. Gotta get back to work, you know?”
Visit CheetahSoFL.com.
‘Like everybody else’
Tiny Texie was profiled this month on the Season 2 premiere of the WE TV reality show “Extreme Love,” which focused on her relationship with her makeup artist-photographer. Texie, who has a rare hereditary skeletal disorder, KennyCaffey syndrome, is the mother of a 5-year-old daughter.
In a recent interview with the Chicago Tribune, the 27-year-old native of Corpus Christi, Texas, said going out is a challenge, especially as a couple.
“We have a lot of people who look at us and, of course, they see me as a person who’s little, who looks like a child. And we have [my] daughter with us, so they say my girlfriend has two children. It’s a big obstacle we do have to overcome quite a bit,” she said. “I’m like everybody else, but I’m not like everybody else.”
Texie will appear at the Gold Club in Pompano Beach Thursday-Saturday. Admission will be $10.
“There is something really unique about her,” Bishop says. “Rather than saying she’s a midget [a word Texie uses in her promotional material], she literally just looks like a tiny person. She looks like a regular person until she walks up to the bar and can’t see over it.”
Visit Facebook.com/ PompanoGoldClub.