Café Risque: The Story Behind the Stripping

This is a collaboration between Michaela Beeda and Chelsea Hazlett.

 

Blue italic lettering gracefully spells out “Café Risque” off the side of I-75 on the west side of Micanopy. Pink and blue neon lights underline and wrap around pictures of gorgeous female entertainers who regularly adorn the stage. Signs on your way in remind you to mind your manners.

Café Risque is not your average strip club. And it never will be.

While some Gainesvillians look down on the infamous Café, most locals are simply curious. So, we spent some time talking to managers and strippers (and admiring the many boobs and booties) to uncover the story behind Gainesville’s most notorious strip joint.

Cherry

Few women truly make it in the nude entertainment industry and even fewer can boast nine plus years as a manager.

Cherry, Café Risque’s dance and hiring manager, is a significant part of what makes the Café tick, whether in the office or on the stage. Aside from her professional skills, she’s perhaps one of the most delightful humans we’ve ever met.

Her office is filled with guides for the girls and all the traditional business fixings, including a mannequin and a stage light with some sort of purple silicon penis attached to it. She has an air of humble authority, sitting in her leather office chair and speaking to us – mostly naked – about the ins and outs of the business.

Q: Explain the family, like how it all kind of started. You said it started as a café?

Skeeters. Skeeters was a country kitchen that they had. Yeah, there were like five or six of them and then they decided to go into the nudity. Which I don’t know who the original other owner was, but Asher Sr. was the original.

It was called Fantasy Café at one point, which you’ll see in some of those history-type articles and stuff. So then they went to Café Risque and this is where it’s been for probably 22 years.

Other than that, like I said, we’ve always primarily had food and 24/7, so that’s also another oddity.  You never see another 24/7 adult place. So for us, 3 in the morning until 11 is naked waitress time.

Q: So about the hiring process, can you run through that again?

Well you come in, I look at your I.D. and then pretty much get you naked. I’m looking, whenever girls get naked, I’m looking for scars, tattoos, just in general how your body looks as far as — there is no set right or wrong, that you have to have this size or be this tiny. It’s really every individual girl. I mean, does she look comfortable, for one.

You know, girl next door, that is what we want. We want the girl that you could see laying out and oop! she is out of her clothes, okay!

We try to stay away from girls that act too much like divas. It’s a small town place, so that’s the kind of girls that we want, girls that are comfortable being in a diner. But you got big titty places, as far as fancy and VIP, yeah, you’re not going to get that here.

They have a video they watch about 17 minutes long then they have a packet to fill out that is about 15 pages long. So, you really will never ever see that in any strip club ever. Still to this day, I don’t think I’ve heard of another place.

We have a lot of students, a lot of moms and, like I said, you have girls that just travel.

Q: Could you talk about the floor breakdown and what they are and aren’t allowed to do in certain areas?

So you have the main stage here that you perform for 15 minutes every hour. That’s what they sign on for. No spread eagles, no touching the nipples, no grabbing on the roundness of their butt, so that is pretty much, like I was saying, because we are a restaurant.

The floor is considered like the public, so that’s our diner area. Private rooms, like I said, that is between the girl and the customer. So obviously they are going to be grinding, lap dancing or they could be doing a more explicit peep show.

Jersey

We eventually had to let Cherry get back to work and sat amongst other patrons to enjoy a bit of tasteful stripping in between interviews. We knew Jersey, the waitress, was up next to speak with us, but she was having some fun of her own in the private dance rooms.

A few whistles and hoots followed her out of the private room. Smiling, she ties her top back on and makes herself comfortable.

Jersey has been in the business for 18 years. This isn’t her first rodeo, but what makes this ride different are the girls. For Jersey, these girls are like her family.

Q: We’re looking at how things are run and new perspectives. What are your thoughts?

Denny’s with strippers. The food is actually really good, but the girls are way better.

Q: Is Jersey your real name? If not, where did that come from?

It’s not, it’s because Jersey is where I’m from. So, like, when I was going to college here in Gainesville and getting my MA degree that’s what my professors — they all called me Jersey. Because that’s where I’m from, so when I came here and applied, they were like, ‘What do you wanna go by?’ Everyone already knows me as Jersey, might as well just keep the name.

Q: Do you get a lot of girls that come in here?

Oh yeah, I got a lot of couples actually.

And they come in and they see me and I’ll do like a peep show and they can watch or I’ll dance on the husband while the wife watches. Which is, whichever which way they want it is how I do.

After Jersey’s promotion of the food, we knew it was time to head to the kitchen. The kitchen sticks to what it’s good at: breakfast foods, steaks, burgers and appetizers like gator tail and corn nuggets. But to heed the advice of Cherry, we knew we had to try the Risque Special.

Jersey kept our coffee cups full and piping hot so we could truly savor the stack of hash browns, cheese and eggs that is the Risque Special. Considering that the plate was empty in less than three minutes, you could say it’s some damn good breakfast food. And all while watching girls work the stage? Five stars.

Jasmyn

Later that night, we met up with Jasmyn in the dressing room as girls were filing in for the night shift. Jasmyn, an entertainer who has been dancing for 28 years, sat with unshakable poise as we asked her questions about a career that many people would turn their heads away from.

As girls weaved in and out of the dressing room, Jasmyn never kept her eyes off us. Working in the business for so long, naked girls running around changing into sparkly underwear and neon bras becomes routine.

Q: So how long have you been working here specifically?

On and off, I travel. I just went to Vegas a couple months ago. Getting ready to go to Rhode Island next month for a week and then go back to Vegas in January. I was also in dentistry though, for 18 years.

Q: Do you prefer private dances or do you prefer the stage?

I love the stage for the entertainment part, to bring up the energy. That’s what I do. That’s why I kind of go at the end, to bring up the energy and keep it going, but I think for personable reasons, the back. A lot of people are very timid or some guys feel embarrassed if they’re in here so they’d rather be in the back where people aren’t watching them and they can kind of be themselves. Even though there’s nothing going on — there’s no touching — for them it’s a lot more relaxed atmosphere and for me it’s more one-on-one.

Q: When we talked to Jersey, she said that one of her lessons basically for new girls is ‘don’t let the money make you.’ What is one of your lessons to live by within this business?

Well, I have a couple things. One is stay true to your morals. I’m very big on that. At the end of the day, you can’t put a price on your morals.

And two, probably the biggest thing, is first and foremost you have to entertain because they’re here for a show. They’re here for entertainment. They’re here to forget about all their problems.

After talking with Jasmyn, she decided to turn her words into actions by giving us an upbeat, engaging performance. She flipped upside down between two poles and shook her ass to the beat of the music. She gave us luring looks that could make  hearts race and took our faces into her chest. We made it rain with ones and they landed on the ground next to her. She used her clear stilettos to gather her money into a nice pile beneath her.

We ended up leaving the Café with smiles on our faces and excitement in our bones. What other reaction can you exhibit after hanging out with the girls next door?

 

Wednesday nights are College Night and Wing Night. College students can get in free with a student ID while also enjoying all-you-can-eat wings for $8.99

 

Featured photo courtesy of: Unsplash 

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