Between our trips to Las Vegas, The Gal and I like to check out some local talent here in Phoenix – but we have to be careful as we are both professionals and we need to keep our anonymity. Last night we decided to take a 35 minute drive out to 44th St. and Thomas to visit Sugar 44 – a smaller club in the East Valley of Phoenix.

I called ahead; asking about any sort of packages available and the hours the club tended to get busy. The club opens at 1pm on Saturdays, and Dustin (may have been Justin?) answered my call. He was quite knowledgeable, friendly – willing to answer all my questions about dances, VIP and club “peak hours”. On the topic of “couples friendly”, he didn’t sound as confident; but assured us there were dancers there that enjoyed couples and others that did not. Sounded fair to us. We printed two “free passes” from the website.

Location and Parking

Getting there required quite a bit of surface street travel for us, so it wasn’t quite as easy to get to. The route provided by Google Maps had us making a sharp right into a neighborhood and it is easy to miss. The reroute forces a U-turn to get into the club.

Most clubs are in rather seedy areas, like Bourbon Street – but Sugar 44 almost looks out of place; it is nestled between a McDonalds and a Wells Fargo bank (which was convenient for us).

This is a very small club; and the parking is commensurate with that. We arrived at about 8:30, and parking was available; but when we left a couple hours later, it was a bit difficult to get out. Parking was free and while the lighting wasn’t amazing, we felt safe (after all, we had a great view of McDonald’s drive through from our parking spot).

The club entrance is on the side, under an awning. The actual entrance was open and visible from the parking lot (The Gal even commented on that) and there was no one outside; including guests, security, hosts, etc. The place felt safe.

Going Inside

This is a very small club. As you go in, the bar will be in front of you with a few TVs above showing sporting events. The bar appears to have seating for about 11 or 12 people and I only saw one bartender through the night.

To the right of the entrance is the curtained VIP dance area.

The DJ is visible to the side of the bar and the main floor continues on to the left. The floor is a bit crowded due to the small size and amount of furniture. We estimated about 12 three-to-four person tables flanking the small stage; which itself had seating for maybe 8-10 patrons. The stage presents a bit of a barrier between the two sides; making the ones against the wall seem more intimate.

A few TVs were affixed around the main floor playing sports. The Gal and I prefer not to be distracted; we love it when clubs have music videos and things that augment the dancers; not pull your attention away from them – but we are discovering many smaller clubs may slant a bit more toward the “bar” side than “entertainment” side.

The Gal and I, as a couple, really don’t like “strip club chairs”; the full back/side high sides that force the chairs to keep their distance from each other. Sugar 44 feature these very chairs. There is “bench seating” along the walls; so maybe if you were brave enough to move some furniture around, you might be able to sit close to your significant other.

There is a single stage at Sugar 44 and it is small – featuring a single pole. There is enough room for a single dancer to do a good show, though, without having to cover a lot of ground to attend to the guests. We really liked the fact that the stairs to the stage are sort of right in the middle of the main floor (usually they are flush with a wall) and it was different to see them getting on and off the stage like that.

The music was reasonably diverse; from pop to rock and a little hip-hop. We appreciate diversity in all things; including dancers and music.

One thing most reviews do not discuss are things like the bathrooms. Fully tiled, two stalls, single sink – great lighting. Very clean. The Gal was pleased.

In many clubs (our favorites included) the DJ is completely unintelligible. You might pick up a dancer’s name or the word “VIP”, but most of the time? You’re not even sure if they are speaking a language you understand. The DJ was actually pretty clear and you could make out the names of the girls coming to the stage. That sounds silly to mention, I know, but at a lot of clubs it is often hard to hear and if you love the dancer performing for you? It is harder to ask for her by name if you would like VIP time.

We’re going to cover the VIP area in a later section of the review.

The Staff and Drinks

We really enjoy meeting and getting to know the staff at the clubs we go to. Pretty simple math (and this doesn’t just apply to strip clubs); be nice and friendly and typically customer service staff will give you better service.

We arrived about 8:30pm (early for a strip club) as we usually do when we’re looking over a new-to-us club. We used our coupons to avoid paying the $10 cover charge (apparently if you bring ticket stubs from any event from that day, they will waive the cover too); the woman at the payment window didn’t seem happy we had passes – The Gal commented on her a bit. She was friendly on the way out, though.

Unlike “more entertainment, less bar” clubs, this was a walk-in, seat yourself scenario. No hosts to guide you in. No apparent security. A guy was hovering in the VIP area; shirt, torn jeans (no judgement there) but there was no way to know if he worked there or was just waiting for someone. No altercations or incidents occurred the night we were there, so we were not able to see how they handled such events.

Obviously, without a host we were not offered a tour or additional information (I’m glad I called ahead).

Our server for the night, Savannah I believe, showed up right away and we started a tab. They will take your credit card and ID and hold on to it for the duration of your visit (this is typical).

We liked her. She took good care of us – and we are very low maintenance guests (we didn’t ask for anything special, didn’t ask her to break bills for us, etc.) There were a couple of lull periods we didn’t see her, but she was friendly and very personable. Didn’t probably hurt that we tipped her well through the evening too.

Between us we had three or four well drinks, some diet soda (one of us had to drive) and a couple of glasses of water. Soda was $5, drinks were $9-10. They didn’t offer any sort of “date night” packages or small group offerings like Cheetah’s has, so we just ran a tab. They do have bottle service for large groups, though.

The drink quality overall seemed okay; they got The Gal and I in a happy state – so the drinks did their job. The fact she commented they weren’t as good as some of the other clubs? I felt it important to mention here.

The Talent and Couple Friendliness

We like a real diversity in club talent. We love variations of styles, body shapes and sizes — we really enjoy getting to talk to them and get a sense of their personalities, too.

The Gal likes girls 😀

It could have been an off day/month – but there was a pretty small pool of dancers when we arrived (understandable – we were early).

We got there at about 8:30pm and there were maybe 5 or 6 dancers on rotation. By 10:30, there were probably 12.

Overall, we found the diversity and “quality” of dancers overall to be “fair”. Most ethnicities were represented and there was a good range of body types; large and small breasts (real and fake), short and tall (hard to tell with those stripper boots) … what we didn’t see were more to the extreme sides; the “beach blondes” nor “pierced tattooed bad ass brunettes” The Gal loves so much. The “girl next door” was missing too.

The Gal and I love a great pole work show (one of the things that keeps us going back to Palomino time after time). We would say Sugar 44 has above average pole work. Several dancers were extremely energetic and performed very well. There wasn’t a ton of what we call “sensual dance” (that’s cool; we prefer the pole) but if you’re looking for that lusty, gyrating, slow move? We didn’t really see that. We do recommend Bourbon Street for this – this seems to be more their thing.

The dancers as a whole were “6s” and “7s” (in comparison to our other experiences) with a few exceptions on either side of the spectrum.

The club is low pressure for us as a couple. We were only approached once, Dar(?) and she was extremely friendly. We bought her a drink and chatted her up for awhile. The Gal wasn’t feeling like dances yet; we were just scoping (with plans to return for more VIP experience).

I’m not totally surprised, though. Our particular situation is different. We are a couple and we focus on my wife as the target for dances and attention. This immediately puts us into a different category. Not all dancers are comfortable with couples in general (I know, there can be a lot of drama here; respect and understand) and even more aren’t “into girls” even if they will dance for them on demand — they may not really know how to give the right attention to a woman.

My bisexual wife likes dances from girls who like girls.

I wouldn’t put on the billboard “couples friendly” – but there were couples – just not many. We’ll get a better feel for this when we return to Sugar 44. I wouldn’t recommend going here as a first time couple (go to Cheetah’s instead).

All About The VIP

While we didn’t have any VIP dances this visit, we did get a bunch of information to share with you.

At bigger clubs, signs are posted clearly for the pricing for various services and durations. I had called ahead and got that information; that guy outside the VIP area did work there and I asked him to run down the VIP stuff for me again.

VIP access requires a “wrist band” – something we’ve never seen before. The bands are $20 each; payable to the bar. These grant you access to VIP areas.

Once you’re banded, the dancers will give you private VIP for $25 per song (seems on par with other clubs we’ve been to). The songs do not seem “unnaturally shortened” here, so you will probably be getting a good three minute dance.

There are two VIP areas; one to the left of the entrance, and some behind the DJ. There are also “Champagne Rooms” (we did not get to see them).

The VIP area across from the bar has a large privacy curtain and appears to be able to service 8-10 guests and their dancers; each appeared to have a very small divider between them but otherwise it wasn’t anything special. I am not sure it would be comfortable for couples in there. I’m hoping the area behind the DJ offers something more couple friendly.

Unlike many clubs we’ve been to, there are actually table/floor dances available at $10. We observed a couple dances and it looks like if there is a more secluded place on the floor, she will take you there.

We’ll update this review when we actually get VIP time.

Mileage

Another big consideration from clubs is “mileage”, right? How much you’re allowed to touch and interact during dances.

Since we didn’t get dances during this visit, we cannot comment on the mileage experienced.

When we return to Sugar 44, we’ll get more dances and update this review accordingly.

We’ll Be Going Back!

The club is ok for couples; perhaps with repeat visits we’ll get more attention like the “regulars” seemed to get. We were treated well by staff and talent.

We will definitely return for another visit.