| Restaurant Info |
| Delilah's 100 Spring Garden St Philadelphia, PA 19123 (215) 625-2800 www.delilahs.com/ Hours 3001 Castor Ave Philadelphia, PA 19134 (215) 423-6000 thepenthouseclubphilly.net/ Hours |
I commend the man, or woman, who claims to go to the strip club for the food; to The Penthouse for their Stuffed Mushrooms, to Delilah’s for the Chicken Skewers, to Show & Tel for the chicken breasts.
But let’s be honest, no one goes to a strip joint just to satisfy a hunger for food. Chicken breasts have nothing to do with it.But Boobs make everything better, stuffed mushrooms included, right? Or so I’d hoped. I went to two of Philadelphia’s leading strip clubs, The Penthouse and Delilah’s, and sat down for a bite to eat. Two separate occasions, two very different experiences.
The Penthouse is Philadelphia’s newest “Premier Gentleman’s Club,” and the venue is the most extravagant in the city, with a red carpeted entrance and an attempt at a Roman-inspired building a la Caesar’s. It screams Vegas. Just getting there can be difficult. Right off of the Allegheny Exit on I95, it’s tucked away amidst a chorus line of commercial factories. It’s not the ideal location for a restaurant, but for a corporate employee to remain incognito? Perfect.
The Penthouse is big on themes. Tonight, it’s Hot for Teacher Tuesdays, where all the girls dress in tight schoolgirl outfits – their top halves threatening to break free from their little white blouses. There’s no cover before 7pm, so it’s really quite the Happy Hour.
Glancing at the menu, I take notice that most of the meals are suitably “manly” - no meal with fewer than 30g of protein here, I assure you. Have the big grilled Ahi Tuna, a 12-ounce NY strip steak, shrimp & sausage orechietti, or a 16-ounce Ribeye. Little luck for vegetarians; at a place that serves lamb chops as an appetizer, you’re more likely to score with one of the dancers than to score a meal without some kind of meat.Kate*, our waitress of the night, nods in approval of my observation. “You get a bunch of guys in here, and they don’t want to eat eggplant parmesan at the end of the day, they want a steak.”
“So, what you’re saying is that there’s plenty of fresh meat at this place?”
“Of course. However you like it, we have something to suit your tastes,” she says with a wink.
“So, if I were a piece of meat, how would you want me cooked?”
She scoffs, “I prefer the darker meat.”
I order the Penthouse Burger, off of the “eight for 8” menu – eight different items, all for 8 bucks each. It’s a good tactic for them: less spent on food means more spent on the ladies.
The dining area is on a raised platform running along one side of the club. On the wall across from us is a cluster of lights that look a lot like stars. Big, movie-set style industrial spot-lights hang down from the ceiling’s metal framework. We’re provided a good view of the stage. Girls spin around thirty-foot poles in their five-inch heels. I admit that dining in this atmosphere is strictly a novelty. Simultaneously eating while in the presence of naked girls presents a conflict of interests. You’re fulfilling one urge while stimulating another.
I was almost surprised to see my burger arrive. At a place that specializes in “just teasing,” I half-expected the waitress to bring my burger out, wave it in my face and then leave with my money. But the DJ announces that Chef Jeff is cooking tonight and compliments to him, because my burger is amazing. It’s a half-pound, medium-rare patty, with crisp leaves of lettuce and onions. They crowd the rest of the plate with long, thick slices of steak fries. Delicious. Then again, maybe it’s what I’m catching in my peripheral vision that makes it all so delicious.
“There’s one guy who comes in every single day for our filet mignon,” Kate tells me, “and swears he never looks at the girls. If that’s the case though, what brought him in the first place? It definitely wasn’t the steak.” I ask her who typically orders dinner.
“Mostly corporate guys. And some guys who are just friends with some of the dancers, so they come here and the dancers will hang out with them at the booth. They just eat and leave.” Eat and leave. I bet.
We get the bill and it’s not cheap, with my friend’s 10-ounce filet mignon costing $38. Here, a whole new meaning is brought to the phrase, “paying for the atmosphere.”
But not everything on the menu will break your wallet. The Specials Menu lists meals that don’t hover much above $20. On Mondays, the chicken marsala will set you back $12. On Tuesdays there’s Sweet Blackened Salmon for $16; Wednesdays, Whiskey Pepper Chicken for $12. The highest priced item on the Specials Menu – the Twin Lobster Tails – will strip you of $45. But that’s still cheaper than getting a lap dance from a duo of The Penthouse’s ladies, especially if they’re twins.
Still not convinced that a strip-club can become a part of someone’s casual dining experience, I hoped the next session of dining at a strip club would prove to be much more eventful. And I would get it at the most popular strip-club in Philadelphia – Delilah’s.
It’s my friend Tang’s birthday, and he vehemently wants to, as he puts it, “make it rain” in the strip-club. And even though I feel that the blatant objectification of women is morally demeaning - not to mention extremely detrimental to my wallet - I’m incapable of conveying this message to my friends, as they are already piling into Tang’s van. Besides, having taken several shots of Tequila moments before, I’m really not in any position to be making judgment calls.
Delilah’s is the name that everyone thinks about when they think of a strip-club in Philadelphia. Just off the corner of Spring Garden St and Delaware Ave, Delilah’s shares a large parking lot with the after-hours club Zee Bar. And an Enterprise Rent-A-Car. I guess after these Johns pledge their bank accounts and promise to whisk these girls “away from it all,” they need some kind of escape car to do so. Which, I don’t know if that’s an insult to the susceptibility of men or a compliment to the beauty of the girls. I get inside and all doubt is removed: It’s the girls. They’re gorgeous.
It’s sensory overload. I’m bombarded with flashing lights and pulsating club music. There are lights in the mirrors, on the ceiling, on the walls. Cocktail waitresses strut by in their tight bustiers.
There is a red and black theme in Delilah’s. Red menus. Black tables. Red and black leather bucket seats. Red walls. The bar area has a glass countertop with red LED lights. Everything is ultra-modern and cool.
I feel like I’ve stepped into a giant pinball machine. A sixty-foot runway thrusts into the center of the main showroom, showcasing a bevy of girls wearing not much more than confidence.
We’re seated on a raised dining platform that wraps around the walls of the club, next to flat-screens playing whatever fight is on. Delilah’s doesn’t have a theme night tonight and I’m a little sad because of it.
The menu has all of the traditional pub fare of burgers, hot dogs, and steaks, but Delilah’s also throws in some serious seafood dishes such as the Steamed Little Neck Clams in a white-wine and garlic sauce that’ll knock your socks off. We order close to everything on the menu, liquor included.
I get up and stumble across the floor in hopes of finding a bathroom, when I bump into a beautiful, petite woman. She has that patent stripper smell: sex, cigarettes, alcohol, sweat, and Victoria’s Secret perfume. In other words, she smells hot.
“What’s your name?”
“Candy.”
“No, but what’s your real name?”
She smiles and leans in, “Jasmine.”
With safety in mind, strippers are warned to never give out any personal information. That’s why they commonly have fake names that are totally unoriginal and easily forgettable. One of the most common questions that a guy will ask a stripper is her real name. Consequently, they’re instructed to have a second “fake real name”. I’ve lost my filter at this point, and can’t help but look like a complete ass for asking.
I depart from Jasmine by reassuring her that I’ll “save her a dance,” and make my way back to our table, which is filled with a silly amount of food that we over-ordered: from their tantalizing teasers menu, Buffalo Chicken Tenders with bleu cheese and celery. The Nachos Grande also turns out to be a crowd favorite. They also carry soups such as Lobster Bisque and Chicken Noodle Soup (if you’re feeling under the weather). Thinking about the weather has me thinking about the rain, which has me thinking about Tang.
I spot Tang by the stage, clutching a fistful of dollar bills in one hand and girl’s butt in the other. He grabs a wad of bills and tosses them into the air, effectively “making it rain” down on the dancers. Needless to say, he has completely lost his mind.
Jasmine has found me and is whispering sweet-nothings into my ear, sounding sultry and drawing out her s’ in a classic stripper voice, pulling on my arm to come join her for a dance. As much as I’d like to, I’m pretty sure I have to escort Tang to a hospital, or at least a bed, pretty soon.
Stumbling out of the club with a full-belly and an empty wallet, Tang and I are completely satisfied with our experience.
Tang asks, “Do you know tomorrow’s forecast?”
“What?”
“One-hundred percent chance of rain!”
He wishes.
So, what’s the consensus? Should you cancel your dinner at DelFrisco’s and instead head over to Delilah’s? With the two experiences fresh in my memory, I arrive at the conclusion that there is only one overwhelming reason to go to a strip club and dining for the sole reason to sate your palette isn’t it. But if you get hunger pangs during your next foray into a gentlemen’s club, grab a bite to eat and you won’t be disappointed. That way, you’re guaranteed to have at least one of your urges fulfilled.
Peter Kim is a Drexel graduate and writer living in Philadelphia. Contact him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Article photograph from The Penthouse website, "Eat Drink Philly" photograph from suvodeb, via Flickr (Creative Commons), "Philly" photograph from camardella, via Flickr (Creative Commons).
