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)
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)
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.
