Club 64 Strip Club Best Owners of the Year
You will be astonished at the ambience and glamorous surroundings inside the Club 64 strip club. 


Jack Corbett

 

Club 64

The Looking Glass Magazine selection of Club 64's, Frank and Sherry Marsala, as strip club best owners of the year has to come as a surprise to many people. Why not Score’s out of New York, or Spearmint Rhino out of Las Vegas or some other very large, well financed and widely known club? Well, for one thing Score’s of New York charges more than $10.00 for a beer and we think that customers are treated too much like a number at Spearmint Rhino or for that matter at any other Vegas Club that we have been to. But in Club 64 in East St. Louis you will never get lost in the shuffle while bottled beer normally goes for $3.00 with dollar a bottle beer specials every Tuesday night. But the overall friendliness you will find here along with the very affordable drink prices are just the tip of the iceberg. You can also have just about more fun here than you can have practically anywhere else. And this is by design. It is because of the owners and what they have done with this place that makes it a Mecca for having as much fun as possible at affordable prices while being surrounded by luscious, delectable babes. Life just doesn’t get any better than that.

Okay, by now I probably have a few pissed off strip club owners upset at me either because they did not win or because they don’t think that Frank and Sherry Marsala deserve the Alphapro-Looking Glass Club Owner of the Year trophy. So calm yourselves, grab yourself a beer, stuff yourselves in your lazy boys and pay close attention to why we singled Frank and Sherry out for being club owners of the year. To sum it up, these are the reasons: 1. Hard work and dedication, 2. A philosophy that puts them light years ahead of their peers, 3. A forte for constant innovation, and 4. A relentless pursuit of excellence. Let me explain.
 

1. Hard work and dedication

First off, any club owner who is unwilling to spend lots of hours tending “the store” is doomed to ultimately fail. When Frank was general manager at the Platinum Club, a position he held for nine years, he was nearly always at the club, working hard until the bitter end. And I do say bitter because the Platinum Club closed between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. I often sat with Frank in his office as he peered deeply into a monitor so that he could keep track of everything that was happening in his club. In a fraction of a second Frank could go from putting the dressing room, to the parking lot  to the bar downstairs, to the bar upstairs, the VIP room’s private area, and so on onto that monitor. He would then use a mouse to zoom in on whatever he wanted to see. But even the most state of the art equipment available isn’t going to cut it if the operator isn’t doing his part. But Frank was relentless and still is.  He was constantly on that monitoring system so that he could stay on top of whatever was going on at the Platinum club. But Frank wasn’t at the club in the afternoons. That job was his wife’s as Sherry was the daytime manager at the Platinum Club.

The Marsala’s have brought this same hard work ethic to Club 64, only this time, they are the club owners.

2. A Winning Philosophy

Several years ago, I wrote an article for both "Exotic Dancer’s Bulletin" and "Xtreme Magazine" about Deja Vu’s chances of emerging triumphant in the very competitive St. Louis Metro East Night Club market. From what I had seen of the Deja Vu Clubs I had visited, entertainers rarely spent much time with any individual customer. Their shifts were kept in a constant state of ferment for one thing. Girls would be constantly called away from their customers on some pretext or another that had been planned by management. One of them was what is oftentimes called “Showtime” when all dancers had to go up on the stage after which they would fan out throughout the room giving short low cost lap dances to the men in the crowd. But it wasn’t just show time. It was all sorts of mickey mouse gimmicks that required all dancers to get up and leave the customers they were with.

Compounding this were the quotas. Girls were required to sell so many drinks, do so many privates and so on. Because of these quotas imposed by management, it became a numbers game with the girls who felt tremendous pressure to approach as many men as possible throughout the evening. The problem is that most men who go to strip clubs do not like being treated as just a number. Particularly the older men who have money and who are willing to spend that money on dancers who make them feel good.

While doing the article I interviewed the General Manager of the Washington Park Deja Vu Club, Mike Oscello the General Manager of the PT’s chain, and Frank Marcella. Each general manager had a different philosophy, and not one of them I’d say was bad, but it was Frank’s philosophy that differed so radically from the philosophies of the other two men. Whereas Deja Vu’s management discouraged dancers from sticking with one man for very long, Frank encouraged it, telling me, “I tell the girls to take their time with the customers. As long a time as it takes. Guys who come to a club such as Platinum Club will often have money and these kinds of guys are not going to put up with girls who are not going to seem genuinely interested in them."

One could call Frank a bullshitter, but upon leaving the club after interviewing him, I asked Sherry how she felt about it. Funny thing is, she expressed the same philosophy almost word for word as Frank’s. Husband and wife did not have the time to get their stories straight so I could only conclude that both Frank and Sherry Marsala were fully committed towards making good on what they had just told me.

The second component of the Marsala philosophy came out when Frank was still GM over at the Platinum Club. At that time all the PT’s clubs, Deja Vu, and Crystal Palace all being the upper echelon clubs in the area were charging $5.25 for beer. Even the lower echelon clubs were charging at least $4.00 for beer.

Frank told me: “I keep trying to get my boss to lower his drink prices. They should be around three bucks. Who in his right mind is going to keep wanting to pay $5.25 for a single bottle of beer?  I wouldn’t.  If I ever wind up owning a club, that’s the first thing I’m going to do.  I’m lowering my drink prices. Period."

And he did.  Because as soon as Frank and Sherry opened Club 64 they started offering bottled beer at $3.00.  And now there’s the dollar bottle specials on Tuesdays, and I’d swear they were selling $1.00 bottled beer on at least one other night as well.  At least once.  

Kiara witih Tiger
Kiara visiting from The Lumberyard of Des Moines, IA with Smoky. 

3.  Constant Innovation

Let’s start with those huge 48 inch by 36 inch pictures I shot for Frank and Sherry they have hanging on the walls of their club that can be seen from well over 300 yards out by car traffic coming up route 3. The pictures are backlit and cost $160.00 for a single print. Originally I shot ten girls. So the Marsala’s didn’t even blink an eye about spending $1600.

But it was Sherry who expressed to me just how sharp the Marsalas are: “It is something special we are doing for the girls so they can get some recognition and to know that we do care,” said Sherry.

To my knowledge not one other club in the entire St. Louis Metro East ever did anything like this.   I've also noticed uncommon loyalty to Frank and Sherry by many of the club's dancers.  Such loyalty is not by chance.  It is inspired by the owners. 

Then there’s that pretty room just off the back of the club. The room is long and narrow. There are upholstered couches in it and tables. Dimly lit inside, this narrow room is reminiscent of a forgotten era, from years in the past, hardly ever to be revisited. Unless you take a trip out to Club 64.

But guess what? That pretty little room started out not long ago as a trailer off a semi truck. Yep, you heard that right, a trailer–one of those things truckers haul all their cargo in. Frank and Sherry had bought it along with a few others they are using for other things for just $400.00.

I remember the first days when Club 64 got its start under the Marcella’s as Mustang Sallys. It had been just a roadhouse karaoke club called Magoos. But it had great location being just a half mile off interstate highways 55, 70 and 64. It has and still has an East St. Louis address. For one thing East St. Louis has a widely known reputation for crime. And to those acquainted with this particular area of East St. Louis, the area immediately surrounding Magoos was very unsavory indeed.

I’m sure it didn’t cost Frank and Sherry an arm and a leg to buy the place. The pair started having karaoke. And then they tried a few other things including a swinger's club. Meanwhile Frank started on his addition, which was to start out as a large backroom for the main bar. Frank did most of the work himself, and spent a lot of time doing it.  And knowing Frank, I’m sure he enlisted the help of a few of his friends volunteering their labor for free or at least at low cost.

I’m willing to bet that Frank and Sherry’s cost for building the new addition was just a fraction of what most clubs are willing to spend, but what they ended up with was stupendous. They put in a bar, one of those bars that has plenty of atmosphere like you will sometimes see in the movies. They put a stage back there. Then came the winding staircase and the fireplace.  Let me tell you, the place has atmosphere such as no other club in the area has.

Frank and Sherry are the club’s owners. Period. Now that period amounts to one helluva lot, so let me explain. I once brought in a tiger into the club, with Frank and Sherry’s permission of course. It was a white tiger. A cub weighing just thirty pounds. And we had that white tiger club running around loose throughout the entire backroom area. Kloey Love was featuring at Club 64 that night and Kloey just loved that tiger. Couldn’t get enough of it. So did all the other entertainers. And so did Sherry Marcella along with all the club’s customers.

Now just try going to a large club chain and tell the powers that be there that you want to bring a tiger into their club. They are going to wind up telling you no. And the reason is going to be “Fear of lawsuits”, a fear that is entirely justified by the way. Seriously, who in their right mind is going to allow a tiger in their club?

But Big Daddy did when he was owner of Big Daddys in Missouri and so did Frank and Sherry. This is because all three surmised that although a large tiger is potentially very dangerous a thirty pound tiger is likely to pose minimum risk. Moreover, they could be there to judge for themselves if things were under control or likely to get out of hand.

The upside to all of this is that tigers are fun. If you don’t believe me, just try playing with one. So if people see a tiger in a club and they get the chance to get up close and personal with it, they are going to tell all their friends: “Guess where I was last night? Club 64 and they let a tiger in there. Too cool man. Great place. Let’s all go there sometime.”

My point here is that with a relatively small club such as Club 64 where there is just a single owner, the buck stops with that owner (Frank and Sherry).  They can turn on a dime to meet new conditions and situations without having to go to a board of directors or an absentee owner who doesn't always agree with them.  This ability to turn on a dime illustrated here by their ability to instantly approve a tiger being on their premises gives  smaller clubs such as Club 64  unprecedented opportunities to push the creative envelope as far as they dare.  And when it comes to daring, the other clubs in the area cannot come close to the Marsalas. 

4. The Relentless Pursuit of Excellence

I have seen Frank actually get out a tape measure at 3:00 a.m. so that he could take measurements in his club to see if he could move a state to a new location. I’ve seen the man constantly observe his place in the late hours and I could almost see the wheels turning as he thought about new ways to improve its appearance. Then I’d come back a couple of days later and see that he had made some rather substantial changes, and mostly for the better.

And Sherry’s the same way. Just work with her as a photographer for instance. The woman has exquisite tastes and when she’s working with an entertainer who’s shooting for me, she’s like a relentless drill sergeant seeking all the right angles and  right looks.

“Put that lock of hair over your left shoulder,” Sherry might say to a dancer. And then, “Now raise that right shoulder to emphasize the left.”

I remember that first time I discussed photography with Sherry when she was managing down at the Platinum Club. She wanted me to get shots of the St. Louis Arch and then to shoot a long legged dancer whose image I would transpose over the St. Louis Arch.  And I remember how detailed Sherry got with me. It should be a blonde and she should be wearing a certain type of outfit. I knew then that I’d be dealing with a real pro anytime I’d be working with Sherry Marsala.

I will have to say that working with Frank and Sherry has made me  a better photographer. And it’s been fun. So if you fault me for choosing them as club owners of the year, I only have this to say to you: “I’ve always enjoyed working with people who are really good at what they do, and Frank and Sherry are the best.”

To view pictures of the last Club  entertainers Jack photographed just two weeks before permanently moving to Thailand

 The Jack Corbett Pattaya Advisory
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