As some 30 dancers were handed the first employee paychecks ever issued to them by the Penthouse Club one evening in early November, a wave of panic swept the popular North Beach strip club.

“I opened mine in the locker room, and I was shocked,” said a former Penthouse dancer who asked to be identified as Jane. “All the other girls were also freaking out. Me and my friends decided right then that we were done. That was the final straw.”

Historically classified as independent contractors, the dancers were used to walking out of the club’s doors with cash each night — often hundreds of dollars — after their shifts ended. That changed suddenly when clubs across The City began enforcing a California Supreme Court ruling from April in an unrelated industry that set new standards for determining whether or not workers should be classified as employees.

The decision has shaken up the gig economy, but is also having an effect in unexpected places, such as in the hair salons and the adult entertainment industry, where workers have traditionally not been considered employees.

At local clubs, the move to convert dancers to employee status is causing an exodus, with many of them leaving San Francisco establishments.

“This whole business will be completely ruined. The whole point about being a stripper is you go in, get fast cash, no one knows how you’re getting it, it’s not documented and it’s not taken from you,” said a single mother who gave her name as Darla, who also recently cut ties with Penthouse Club. Like other dancers The San Francisco Examiner spoke with for this story, she asked to maintain anonymity for fear of retaliation.

Club owners say the changes are costing them as well.

A sign posted mid-October in the dancers’ dressing room at the Gold Club in the South of Market neighborhood said the club “felt that it was protecting your right and freedom to be an independent contractor.”

“However, as a result of the lawsuits and ongoing demands by the suing dancers and their attorneys, the club is now being compelled by Court order to eliminate the independent contractor option and require all dancers to become the club’s employees,” the sign read.

Axel Sang, marketing director of BSC, confirmed in an email to the Examiner that the dancers were formerly contractors but are now “club employees being paid an hourly wage and commission on dance sales.”

“The BSC-managed clubs now have matching payroll taxes, unemployment compensation, workman’s compensation, Healthy San Francisco costs, Affordable Care Insurance costs, and SF sick leave pay for several hundred new employee entertainers in addition to the hourly wage,” he wrote.

He estimated that 200 dancers have quit their jobs since the change came down at BSC clubs, including Penthouse and Gold Club and said that the change has “dramatically affected the business and the profitability,” costing the clubs “several million dollars” a year.

“A substantial reduction in the number of entertainers performing as well as the substantial increased payroll and other costs makes it very difficult to generate profits,” Sang said.

The California Supreme Court decision pushing the changes in the business came out of a lawsuit brought by two drivers for Dynamex, a same-day delivery and logistics company that converted its drivers to independent contractors in 2004. Under the ruling, workers may now be considered employees if they perform work within the usual course of the company’s business, said David Peer, a labor attorney in Carlsbad who has written about the Dynamex ruling.

“If you are running a strip club, you would think that the dancers are performing work within the usual course,” Peer said. “If the club owners want to play it safe, they should certainly be paying minimum wage and following the wage and hour rules that most organizations follow when they hire an employee.”

Lawsuits alleging improper classification of exotic dancers predate the Dynamex ruling, according to Harold Lichten of Lichten & Liss-Riordan, a Boston law firm representing Uber drivers who claim the rideshare company misclassified them.

“When you improperly characterize someone as an independent contractor you don’t have to pay social security tax, unemployment tax, minimum wage or overtime,” Lichten said, adding that the incentives were “incredibly great” for companies to “misclassify people because they were saving so much money at the workers’ expense.”

Lichten said the Dynamex ruling became leverage in ongoing litigation against Uber, and noted that it should also come as a benefit to the dancers, who now are now eligible for the protections afforded to all employees.

“The concern is that some companies may lower the amount they pay them to make up their losses,” Lichten said. “That would be unfortunate. But on balance, it’s much better to be an employee because you have legal protections.”

However the dancers interviewed by the Examiner said that while they are now entitled to minimum wage, benefits and the option to unionize, the reclassification has done more harm than good.

“Not one of those girls had a check for two weeks over $300. There was a lot of upset. A lot of girls packed up to leave that night. I was one of those girls,” Darla said.

“I can go work at McDonald’s for $15 an hour, and not take off my clothes, and not put up with the crap I put up with as a dancer,” Darla added, noting that all of the Penthouse dancers “have considered leaving.”

The vast majority of the strip clubs in San Francisco — 10 out of 12 — are owned or managed by BSC Management. The only exceptions are the Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theatre and The Crazy Horse.

Sang said the company is not paying dancers more than minimum wage because they “are paid commissions on dance sales which in most cases far exceed the hourly wage.”

But dancers said the commission structure for private dances has also been significantly cut.

Policies can vary for each club, but before the reclassification, dancers said if they arrived to their shift early enough they would keep 75 percent of their dance sales — which is where they made the majority of their money.

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A dancer at the Gold Club, who asked to be called Mary, said it had been common for dancers on average to sell around $1,000 in dances a shift and keep $750.

Under the new commission structure at the Gold Club, however, dancers said they keep none of the first $150 they sell in private dances, 40 percent of the next $250 they sell, and 60 percent of sales beyond that.

Some dancers said they must also pay a $100 fee for renting the private room.

Dancers at the Gold Club said they now walk away with only $60 on the first half-hour private dance they sell.

“When I make a customer pay $400 and I see $60 of it, it isn’t computing for me,” Mary said. “We want to do our job, and previously our business was to sell dances. And we still need to make living. But at the same time, where is the incentive?”

Some dancers also feared being classified as employees would mean not being able to pick and choose which customers to serve.

Joe Carouba, an owner of BSC, declined to speak with the Examiner for this story because of pending litigation. But in a deposition he gave in October in connection with a lawsuit filed by Olivia Doe, he said he “firmly believed” dancers should be independent contractors so they can assert more control over which customers they will and won’t serve.

“I think they should control their own sexuality, they should control their own bodies,” he said. “The difference there being, of course, if you’re an employee, you don’t have a choice who you perform for, as an independent contractor you get to choose how you perform, whom you perform for, and what level you’re comfortable at.”

Dancers said many of them were poorly informed and caught unaware when the new contracts were rolled out.

Jane said she was one of the first Penthouse dancers to sign the new contract amid confusion, and wasn’t given a copy or time to review it.

At the Gold Club, Mary said management called dancers into the office in the middle of their shifts, still dressed in bikinis and eight-inch heels, and told them to look at a new contract on a computer screen and immediately sign it. Some dancers had been drinking during their shift, she said.

“We were given no opportunity to look at the contracts or have paper copies beforehand,” Mary said. “There’s really been no communication, no transparency.”

Sang denied the allegations, and said cameras were installed to protect the clubs from legal challenges over the new contracts.

“Signs were posted clearly that the areas were under video and audio surveillance. Each contract signing on video and audio clearly shows each entertainer was required to fully read the contract before signing,” Sang wrote in an email. “On camera, each entertainer was clearly given a copy of the contracts that they signed.”

Dancers said morale has plummeted at clubs across The City. Many are unhappy with how management announced and rolled out the change, but fear losing their jobs if they complain.

Because BSC has a virtual monopoly on San Francisco strip clubs, dancers said if they are blacklisted at one club, they are afraid they won’t be able to work anywhere else in The City.

While dancers across the country have sued clubs saying they should have been classified as employees instead of independent contractors, those who spoke with the Examiner said not everyone wants to be an employee. There are advantages to being independent contractors — so long as they are actually treated as contractors.

Mary said being treated as a contractor would mean being able to negotiate dance fees with clients directly rather than have the club set prices, and to pick which dates and times to work. Previously, as contractors, dancers could pick which days to work, but not which hours.

“Contractors should have autonomy,” she said.

An often-touted perk of being an employee is access to benefits, such as health insurance. But to qualify, employees must work enough hours to be considered full-time — which isn’t practical for most people dancing at a strip club. Dancers said even working three days a week is physically exhausting.

“You do what you need to do to maintain your boundary while making sure they have a good time. It takes a lot of emotional labor to do that,” Mary said. “I don’t think people realize that’s the most difficult part of our job. It’s not really talked about in the public perception of stripping.”

The drastic pay cuts and availability of cheap flights have pushed some dancers to seek work outside of San Francisco, traveling as far as Las Vegas and Reno one or two nights a week while continuing to live in The City.

“Girls are scrambling to find a job to fit their lifestyle or even make ends meet,” Jane said.

The post New guidelines for contractors have surprising penalties for The Metropolis’s strip golf equipment | San Francisco Information appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

As some 30 dancers were handed the first employee paychecks ever issued to them by the Penthouse Club one evening in early November, a wave of panic swept the popular North Beach strip club.

“I opened mine in the locker room, and I was shocked,” said a former Penthouse dancer who asked to be identified as Jane. “All the other girls were also freaking out. Me and my friends decided right then that we were done. That was the final straw.”

Historically classified as independent contractors, the dancers were used to walking out of the club’s doors with cash each night — often hundreds of dollars — after their shifts ended. That changed suddenly when clubs across The City began enforcing a California Supreme Court ruling from April in an unrelated industry that set new standards for determining whether or not workers should be classified as employees.

The decision has shaken up the gig economy, but is also having an effect in unexpected places, such as in the hair salons and the adult entertainment industry, where workers have traditionally not been considered employees.

At local clubs, the move to convert dancers to employee status is causing an exodus, with many of them leaving San Francisco establishments.

“This whole business will be completely ruined. The whole point about being a stripper is you go in, get fast cash, no one knows how you’re getting it, it’s not documented and it’s not taken from you,” said a single mother who gave her name as Darla, who also recently cut ties with Penthouse Club. Like other dancers The San Francisco Examiner spoke with for this story, she asked to maintain anonymity for fear of retaliation.

People walk by the Penthouse Club on Broadway in North Beach on Thursday, Dec. 20, 2018. (Kevin N. Hume/S.F. Examiner)

Club owners say the changes are costing them as well.

A sign posted mid-October in the dancers’ dressing room at the Gold Club in the South of Market neighborhood said the club “felt that it was protecting your right and freedom to be an independent contractor.”

“However, as a result of the lawsuits and ongoing demands by the suing dancers and their attorneys, the club is now being compelled by Court order to eliminate the independent contractor option and require all dancers to become the club’s employees,” the sign read.

Axel Sang, marketing director of BSC, confirmed in an email to the Examiner that the dancers were formerly contractors but are now “club employees being paid an hourly wage and commission on dance sales.”

“The BSC-managed clubs now have matching payroll taxes, unemployment compensation, workman’s compensation, Healthy San Francisco costs, Affordable Care Insurance costs, and SF sick leave pay for several hundred new employee entertainers in addition to the hourly wage,” he wrote.

He estimated that 200 dancers have quit their jobs since the change came down at BSC clubs, including Penthouse and Gold Club and said that the change has “dramatically affected the business and the profitability,” costing the clubs “several million dollars” a year.

“A substantial reduction in the number of entertainers performing as well as the substantial increased payroll and other costs makes it very difficult to generate profits,” Sang said.

The California Supreme Court decision pushing the changes in the business came out of a lawsuit brought by two drivers for Dynamex, a same-day delivery and logistics company that converted its drivers to independent contractors in 2004. Under the ruling, workers may now be considered employees if they perform work within the usual course of the company’s business, said David Peer, a labor attorney in Carlsbad who has written about the Dynamex ruling.

“If you are running a strip club, you would think that the dancers are performing work within the usual course,” Peer said. “If the club owners want to play it safe, they should certainly be paying minimum wage and following the wage and hour rules that most organizations follow when they hire an employee.”

Lawsuits alleging improper classification of exotic dancers predate the Dynamex ruling, according to Harold Lichten of Lichten & Liss-Riordan, a Boston law firm representing Uber drivers who claim the rideshare company misclassified them.

Silhouettes of exotic dancers outside Centerfolds on Broadway in North Beach on Thursday, Dec. 20, 2018. (Kevin N. Hume/S.F. Examiner)

“When you improperly characterize someone as an independent contractor you don’t have to pay social security tax, unemployment tax, minimum wage or overtime,” Lichten said, adding that the incentives were “incredibly great” for companies to “misclassify people because they were saving so much money at the workers’ expense.”

Lichten said the Dynamex ruling became leverage in ongoing litigation against Uber, and noted that it should also come as a benefit to the dancers, who now are now eligible for the protections afforded to all employees.

“The concern is that some companies may lower the amount they pay them to make up their losses,” Lichten said. “That would be unfortunate. But on balance, it’s much better to be an employee because you have legal protections.”

However the dancers interviewed by the Examiner said that while they are now entitled to minimum wage, benefits and the option to unionize, the reclassification has done more harm than good.

“Not one of those girls had a check for two weeks over $300. There was a lot of upset. A lot of girls packed up to leave that night. I was one of those girls,” Darla said.

“I can go work at McDonald’s for $15 an hour, and not take off my clothes, and not put up with the crap I put up with as a dancer,” Darla added, noting that all of the Penthouse dancers “have considered leaving.”

The vast majority of the strip clubs in San Francisco — 10 out of 12 — are owned or managed by BSC Management. The only exceptions are the Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theatre and The Crazy Horse.

Sang said the company is not paying dancers more than minimum wage because they “are paid commissions on dance sales which in most cases far exceed the hourly wage.”

Neon signs for adult entertainment clubs light up along Broadway in North Beach on Thursday, Dec. 20, 2018. (Kevin N. Hume/S.F. Examiner)

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But dancers said the commission structure for private dances has also been significantly cut.

Policies can vary for each club, but before the reclassification, dancers said if they arrived to their shift early enough they would keep 75 percent of their dance sales — which is where they made the majority of their money.

A dancer at the Gold Club, who asked to be called Mary, said it had been common for dancers on average to sell around $1,000 in dances a shift and keep $750.

Under the new commission structure at the Gold Club, however, dancers said they keep none of the first $150 they sell in private dances, 40 percent of the next $250 they sell, and 60 percent of sales beyond that.

Some dancers said they must also pay a $100 fee for renting the private room.

Dancers at the Gold Club said they now walk away with only $60 on the first half-hour private dance they sell.

“When I make a customer pay $400 and I see $60 of it, it isn’t computing for me,” Mary said. “We want to do our job, and previously our business was to sell dances. And we still need to make living. But at the same time, where is the incentive?”

Some dancers also feared being classified as employees would mean not being able to pick and choose which customers to serve.

Joe Carouba, an owner of BSC, declined to speak with the Examiner for this story because of pending litigation. But in a deposition he gave in October in connection with a lawsuit filed by Olivia Doe, he said he “firmly believed” dancers should be independent contractors so they can assert more control over which customers they will and won’t serve.

“I think they should control their own sexuality, they should control their own bodies,” he said. “The difference there being, of course, if you’re an employee, you don’t have a choice who you perform for, as an independent contractor you get to choose how you perform, whom you perform for, and what level you’re comfortable at.”

Dancers said many of them were poorly informed and caught unaware when the new contracts were rolled out.

Jane said she was one of the first Penthouse dancers to sign the new contract amid confusion, and wasn’t given a copy or time to review it.

At the Gold Club, Mary said management called dancers into the office in the middle of their shifts, still dressed in bikinis and eight-inch heels, and told them to look at a new contract on a computer screen and immediately sign it. Some dancers had been drinking during their shift, she said.

“We were given no opportunity to look at the contracts or have paper copies beforehand,” Mary said. “There’s really been no communication, no transparency.”

Sang denied the allegations, and said cameras were installed to protect the clubs from legal challenges over the new contracts.

“Signs were posted clearly that the areas were under video and audio surveillance. Each contract signing on video and audio clearly shows each entertainer was required to fully read the contract before signing,” Sang wrote in an email. “On camera, each entertainer was clearly given a copy of the contracts that they signed.”

Dancers said morale has plummeted at clubs across The City. Many are unhappy with how management announced and rolled out the change, but fear losing their jobs if they complain.

Because BSC has a virtual monopoly on San Francisco strip clubs, dancers said if they are blacklisted at one club, they are afraid they won’t be able to work anywhere else in The City.

While dancers across the country have sued clubs saying they should have been classified as employees instead of independent contractors, those who spoke with the Examiner said not everyone wants to be an employee. There are advantages to being independent contractors — so long as they are actually treated as contractors.

Mary said being treated as a contractor would mean being able to negotiate dance fees with clients directly rather than have the club set prices, and to pick which dates and times to work. Previously, as contractors, dancers could pick which days to work, but not which hours.

“Contractors should have autonomy,” she said.

An often-touted perk of being an employee is access to benefits, such as health insurance. But to qualify, employees must work enough hours to be considered full-time — which isn’t practical for most people dancing at a strip club. Dancers said even working three days a week is physically exhausting.

“You do what you need to do to maintain your boundary while making sure they have a good time. It takes a lot of emotional labor to do that,” Mary said. “I don’t think people realize that’s the most difficult part of our job. It’s not really talked about in the public perception of stripping.”

The drastic pay cuts and availability of cheap flights have pushed some dancers to seek work outside of San Francisco, traveling as far as Las Vegas and Reno one or two nights a week while continuing to live in The City.

“Girls are scrambling to find a job to fit their lifestyle or even make ends meet,” Jane said.

The post New guidelines for contractors have sudden penalties for The Metropolis’s strip golf equipment | San Francisco Information appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

IIn the days leading up to Christmas 1952, a new hotel opened on the Las Vegas Strip. Texas oil tycoon Jake Freedman dreamed of a Las Vegas resort that would attract all the stars of Hollywood. The Sands was to be the embodiment of his dream. It had lost over $200,000 within the first eight hours of opening. The problem, or at least part of it, was the marketing scheme of offering all 12,000 of its first guests a sack full of silver dollars. But the losses weren’t as great as they meant: All those silver dollars given up meant the crowds came into the desert; The Sands was a hit.

Freedman’s dream resort soon became the center of entertainment in Las Vegas. The architecture and clientele cemented it as a home for cool in the nascent desert city. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and other members of the Rat Pack made the Sands their own playground in the 1950s and 1960s. The Pack’s iconic 1960 caper film Ocean’s 11 was filmed on the property and used much of the architecture as a backdrop. Director Lewis Milestone, who had been making films since 1918, knew the power of great scenery. The same was true of Hollywood’s stars, who flocked to the Sands to let off steam. Central America was not far behind.

Wayne McAllister’s original design was highlighted by a 56-foot-tall sign with the slogan that the Sands is “a place in the sun.” Obviously, the Sands was more than just another casino; It was an actual place, an environment that represented a lifestyle well beyond the green felt. In 1966, McAllister’s shield was complemented by an iconic, 500-room cylindrical tower designed by Martin Stern Jr. The Sands was an American architectural gem from an architectural era that was uniquely American.

Why did the Sands implode in 1996, just 19 days before its 44th birthday and just 30 years after the completion of Stern’s iconic tower?

A shameful end: the Sands implosion on November 26, 1996. (Illustration by Eric M. Roberts)

AArchitecture is a collaborative and democratized art form that draws on past architectural choices to create the present. Any architecture student can debate the importance of studying precedent as part of the design process. Learning from the history and character of a place is essential to successful architecture. When a city – sheltered and supported by its landowners and agents – is so keen to erase its architectural history, where is the precedent to be found? What can an architect fall back on when the design loses its origin?

That was my conundrum when I came to Las Vegas in 2005 as a young architect. The architecture of my city’s past was still alive and thriving as a cultural touchstone—it just didn’t exist anymore. We could talk about it, but we couldn’t see it in all its three-dimensional concrete glory. Between 1993 and 2007, twelve resort properties in Las Vegas were destroyed by an implosion. The past has been erased. This went hand in hand with the design character, style and roots of an up-and-coming western town.

In fairness, the byproduct of all explosive pyrotechnics is a Las Vegas strip that’s constantly being refreshed with modern buildings with modern amenities. Each deleted hotel was replaced with a new property with enough rooms to accommodate the population of many of Nevada’s rural communities. The new structures included innovations in public safety, queuing, signage, fire safety, scaling, and over-the-top extravagance that were an important part of Las Vegas’ growth. Architecture and the world have benefited so much from what Las Vegas architecture has done and learned over the past three decades. But I can’t help but feel robbed of all the history I’ll never see.

WWhen my children were little, my parents were still alive. I cannot imagine starting my family without their help and experience. I could touch both the past and the future; I was a synapse between generations. The presence of my parents gave the children the experience of living roots and their own rootedness. Even now that my parents are gone, I think about how much I would ask of them to see my children into adulthood. But I’m forever grateful that the children had a living touch for a few years, and I know that the years in the presence of their grandparents will forever shape who they are and what they bring to the next generation. My relationship with my middle-class family can never work the same way: In a city overwhelmingly filled with people who have arrived since the Sands fell, none of us will ever have direct contact with the building that has become the center of our has become bourgeois mythology.

The dunes and their landmark were imploded on October 27, 1993 to make way for Bellagio. (Illustration by Eric M. Roberts)

We have history, of course, the surviving words and facts that are kept on library shelves. We have photos and even schematics. Thank goodness we’re having conversations with the dwindling population of Vegas classic cars who knew the Sands – and, for that matter, the Dunes, the Landmark, etc. – not only by the end, but by the beginning. Most large cities evolve over time, showing the impact of their entire individual history on a particular neighborhood or side street. Great American cities like New York changed building by building over the centuries; Erasures were still painful, but the new usually coexisted with the old, and they communicated with each other as if the old buildings were betraying their secrets to the new ones. Occasionally, whole areas have been swept through a purge, caused either by overzealous urban planning or, as in the case of some European and Asian cities, by war. But these were exceptional circumstances and not the lightly accepted rule of town planning. In other words, Las Vegas is exceptional in many ways: In a span of less than 20 years—roughly 1993 to 2010—my city willingly and without much discussion replaced everything. A generation steeped in history, aesthetics, culture and community has been surgically removed from the heart of Las Vegas. New buildings and designs were drawn from the full. If there were any “sibling” structures left in the Sands, I might not feel this loss as much. But that entire layer of history—the synapse between then and now—was erased.

Nothing has forced Las Vegas into such a radical transformation. It is true that other cities suddenly lost large parts of their architectural heritage and had to replace them not only with new buildings but also with completely new ideas about civic space. In many cases, a fire was the historical reason for the city’s reconstruction. London (1666), Moscow (1812), Chicago (1871), San Francisco (1906; earthquake and fire) had no choice but to rebuild from the ashes. Las Vegas, on the other hand, gave up its old self voluntarily and with great fanfare. The destruction of Las Vegas was accompanied by fireworks, parties and television coverage as our city’s history flashed and then collapsed in embers. There was no mourning period or memorials for the disaster that leveled much of this city. There are no monuments to the buildings that were, to the places that lived and breathed and were the lifeblood of this desert oasis. Today, modern Las Vegas vibrates and hums based on our memories. Our modern buildings soar into the sky, standing square on the throat of our past.

The space-age landmark opened on July 1, 1969 and imploded on November 7, 1995. (Illustration by Eric M. Roberts)

For architects—and, I believe, for the community at large—there are design conversations to be had and lessons to be learned from interacting with lost Las Vegas buildings like the Sands. Today’s design is built on the sum of its history. In my present, a gulf of understanding separates me from the designs of early Las Vegas. In my presence, the long past and my future have been sacrificed on the altar of expediency. The last 25 years have snuffed out the Las Vegas design spark of the previous 45.

I think of other great world cities and the modern buildings they have received, all well past their 44th birthday: the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Space Needle in Seattle, the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco, and Frank Lloyd’s Guggenheim Museum Wright New York City. It would be blasphemous to suggest the demolition of any of these buildings. They are part of the culture and character of the city and skyline.

IDig into the sandy soil of memory and discover the treasures of my design ancestors in books and pictures. Through anecdotes about vintage cars – and in a young city like Las Vegas you don’t have to be that old to be a vintage car – I get to know the disappeared generations of our urban planning. I reflect on old photos and draw the phantoms of our architectural past. When pen meets paper, I imagine the process of creation. The lines form the branches of our civil family tree. A touch of color helps me get in touch with the soul of my ancestors. With pen and brush I bridge the gap and discover parts of myself in these forms from decades ago.

My everyday life goes without parents. Both my biological parents died before I was 40 years old. My architectural “parents”—and aunts, uncles, and cousins—were taken away from me by the demolition man. Nevertheless, I can direct their light into the future. I can choose to learn about them, reflect on the things they taught, and pass those things on to future generations. In cities, just like in families, we don’t really lose what we love until we stop preserving its memory. ◆

Eric M. Roberts is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. History and Art from his forthcoming book 33 Beats of the Architect’s Heart.

The post The Previous Strip Reborn: An architect artist communes with the ghosts of Las Vegas’ imploded lodges appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

If you walked past the Gold Club on a lonely Friday night in downtown San Francisco, you probably wouldn’t look back.

Aside from the royal blue lighting and cursive gold shield, the nondescript gentleman’s club could easily get lost in SOMA’s dark, unlit landscape. After all, management says, it’s the kind of place people go to become invisible. But against the odds, my boyfriend and I end up right there on a cold February night.

We’re not just here for the live entertainment though – we’re here for the club’s legendary fried chicken. For years, the storied $5 buffet lunch catered to San Francisco’s working-class and white-collar elite crowds and quickly became a word-of-mouth phenomenon. I wasn’t expecting to break nearly 10 years of vegetarianism at a three and a half star Yelp strip club this winter, but I suppose God just works in mysterious ways.

When we arrive around 8:30pm, a young security guard with plastic earphones escorts us inside, much like a host at a Sunday brunch. After we pay for the $25 covers, he seats us at a candlelit table overlooking the stage, where a tall, lithe woman in 6-inch Pleasers pole dances to R&B.

In many ways I feel like I’m in a casino or maybe even on a cruise ship, except there are naked women everywhere. Some sneak across the stage like panthers; others spread their limbs like petals to the sun. To our left, a performer slides down the pole with ethereal grace while another is showered with cash.

Scenes from the Gold Club in downtown San Francisco.

Images via Yelp

The “legendary” fried chicken at the Gold Club on Howard Street in downtown San Francisco. The buffet has been suspended during the Covid pandemic but is expected to return.

Images via Yelp

Scenes from the Gold Club in downtown San Francisco.

Images via Yelp

(Images via Yelp)
(Images via Yelp)

After we’ve ordered a bucket of fried chicken, a medium-rare burger, and two mixed drinks, I sit onstage and hand a few bills to a woman in a scarlet bikini. “What’s your name?” she asks, revealing a mouth full of green braces. I tell her and let her know that I’m actually a reporter and would like to interview her for a story – but only if she’s interested, of course. She gives me a confused look and quickly collects the dollar bills.

She is not.

A few minutes later, the waiter reappears with the long-awaited bucket of chicken and a vodka soda. Aromatic vapor emanates from the paper wrapper; it smells amazing. I carefully peel it apart, rip out a wing and bite into it.

A lot was going through my head at that moment—but all I could really say was, “Holy s—t.”

Somehow it’s even better than I imagined: the meat is so juicy and tender that it elegantly separates from the bone; Meanwhile, its golden outer layer is thick, crunchy, and hearty. This is hands down the best fried chicken I’ve ever eaten.

My southern friend’s medium-rare burger doesn’t matter, either. It’s rich and simmers in fat – the chef went light on the sauce, but he believes it was a deliberate effort, as the meat speaks for itself. The dish “sang”, as he likes to say.

It’s still unclear exactly how Gold Club chef Chris Hui learned to make chicken so dangerous.

He says he got the job by accident in 2015, and though he’s worked in restaurants since high school and attended California Culinary Academy, he didn’t expect to work at a strip club — and neither did he expect to to run a hugely successful fried chicken buffet that sometimes brought in 300 patrons.

“It was like a madhouse here,” he tells me on the phone. “It was exciting and crazy, but it was definitely crazy.”

A plate of fried chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, and a martini at the Gold Club in San Francisco on February 28, 2023.

Magali Gauthier/Special for SFGATE

Chef Chris Hui cooks garlic green beans at the Gold Club on February 28, 2023 in San Francisco.

Magali Gauthier/Special for SFGATE

Chef Chris Hui serves mashed potatoes at the Gold Club on February 28, 2023 in San Francisco.

Magali Gauthier/Special for SFGATE

(Magali Gauthier/Special for SFGATE)
(Magali Gauthier/Special for SFGATE)

Tragically, the buffet was shut down after the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, but according to Hui, the club plans to revive it one day. He is also well aware of his enduring cult status.

“I know everyone’s always talking about fried chicken,” he says, politely adding that it’s not his “favorite dish.” “I’ve been watching this thing for years.” What’s really underrated — and hasn’t changed, he says — is the $15.95 prime rib special.

Though Hui doesn’t work on the floor, he’s also seen many high-profile athletes over the past decade, including controversial boxing champion Floyd Mayweather and “professional sports players who are very local.” He won’t reveal who, but says they visit him regularly.

“I talk like that, you know, maybe once or a couple of times a month on a rotating basis, almost,” he says.

And honestly, if I could make it rain like Rick Ross, I probably would too — there’s something really pleasant and confusing about eating at a strip club.

More than once our romantic dinner was interrupted by the booming “Clack! click! Clack!” interrupted. of a stripper banging her stilettos against the stage while doing the spread eagle. I watched a woman to my right build a house out of dollar bills before throwing it on a girl’s ass and decorating the stage with money. And when an EDM remix of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” crescendoed shortly after, an ardent viewer actually rose from her seat and screamed the chorus with her fist. I felt like I was overdosing on Benadryl.

By 10pm the place was packed with petrified couples, fintech brothers and voyeuristic loners. In between, I watched as stoic security guards literally mopped up mountains of stray dollar bills, convincing me their jobs were way cooler than mine. The atmosphere is casual, erotic and fun.

The “legendary” fried chicken at the Gold Club on Howard Street in downtown San Francisco. The buffet has been suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic but is expected to return.

Image via Yelp

Make no mistake though, this place is not for suckers: the chicken may be $20, but whatever entertainment you spend is between you and God. I tried to buy my friend a dance later that night but to my dismay I only had about $30 left so we split it 50/50. There must be some German word for that feeling, I thought, along with the complex range of emotions that follow when the card is turned down twice at the club.

The manager, probably feeling sorry for me, kindly offered a lap dance and drinks on the house. A few minutes later we were approached by a tiny, cheerful blonde from San Jose. I like her: she is spirited, listens to rap and has a small tattoo in the form of a crown on her chest. She says some girls commute all the way from Sacramento to perform at the Gold Club and it’s her favorite place to work.

As she dances for me in the corner, I ask her what her biggest annoyance is. “Whenever guys try to grab my pussy!” she says without missing a beat. “Wow, that sucks!” I scream. She looks at me while angrily shaking her butt and gesturing as if to say, “I know, right?”

Cars drive past the Gold Club in San Francisco on February 28, 2023.

Magali Gauthier/Special for SFGATE

I gave her my last wad of cash and walked back to our table, silently praying I had enough money on my Clipper card to get me home. She told us to come back sometime and in my heart of hearts I felt it was sincere – but whether that’s true or not doesn’t matter. As we thanked the staff and left, the doors closed behind us and we were back out on the quiet city streets.

Maybe what is gold stays.

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Kaiseki Saryo Hachi, one of the Bay Area’s rare kaiseki restaurants, is set to move from its current home in a mall in Burlingame to a new eatery in Saratoga next year.

Husband and wife Shinichi Aoki and Yuko Nammo have taken over a tiny room in 14417 Big Basin Way, where they plan to move their gourmet restaurant in July. They’re building an intimate space with no more than eight counter seats and a couple of tables for more direct interaction between customers and Aoki, the former chef at San Francisco’s Michelin-starred Hashiri. He will continue to serve an ever-changing selection of sophisticated dishes using both Japanese and local produce, from tender baby abalone to poached tomatoes with blanched English peas.

The Chronicle’s restaurant critic, Soleil Ho, called Kaiseki Saryo Hachi a true hidden gem with Michelin-starred culinary art: “Imagine going into a neighborhood café and finding Alain Ducasse cooking behind the counter.”

Kaiseki is a multi-course Japanese menu that highlights seasonality and different cooking techniques, from steaming to grilling. Reservations for Kaiseki Saryo Hachi’s one-night seating are selling out fast.

Duck, sweet potato, shiitake mushroom, eel and other dishes are served at Kaiseki Saryo Hachi in Burlingame.

Carolyn Fong / Special on The Chronicle

Nammo said they felt a bit limited in the burlingame room, which was originally their ramen restaurant and is not meant to function entirely as a kaiseki spot. They switched to making kaiseki when Aoki lost his job during the pandemic. The couple have always wanted to design their dream kaiseki restaurant but were “so used to being turned down by landlords looking for tenants with deeper pockets before the coronavirus,” Nammo said. You stumbled upon the new room on a recent trip to Saratoga; The landlord happened to be there when they passed and was ready to pick them up in the face of retail vacancies forced by a pandemic, Nammo said. Before purchasing the new premises, the couple had spent time in Saratoga and visited Hakone Gardens in Japan. Nammo also made Japanese macarons there for tea ceremonies.

The couple plan to decorate the new space with local wood, as well as Japanese ceramics and antiques they have collected over the years. Saratoga restaurant will have a new name, likely Aoki, but the couple have not yet made up their minds.

Kaiseki Saryo Hachi will continue in his current space until they can open in Saratoga. They treat it as a kind of pop-up, experimenting with different dishes to see what goes down with customers and what they should bring to the new place. Last week they served an entire menu dedicated to the specialty of premium Japanese prawns.

Elena Kadvany is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: elena.kadvany@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ekadvany

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