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Twink bar riding the coattails of its well-known name
No longer leather and Levis. No longer even macho. The number of pictures of women and drag queens in their GayCities photo album tells you all you need to know. This is no place for rough 'n' tough guys. There used to be a day when Eagle meant "masculine" but that day is long gone. Now that I've cleared that up, The Eagle is kind of average as neighborhood twink bars go. Same tedious gay dance music as everywhere else. Same mediocre unwanted drag shows as everywhere else. Same underwear nights where too few guys show up in underwear like everywhere else. Same unskilled bartenders as everywhere else. -
Nice place to hang out a while, but not a destination
Badlands is a good bar to meet friends for a drink before you all head out to, say, First Friday. Or to wind down before heading home after a movie. It's just not the kind of place I'd hear anyone say "I came here to hang out all night". Badlands staff are friendly and have solid bartending skills. They have a good assortment of bottled beers you might miss because they're on a shelf off to the side. Customers are low-key and friendly but not really outgoing. There's bar stools if you're solo and a few booths if you're with friends. I went on Latin Night but there were no Hispanic guys to be found. Badlands is a nice enough bar to hang out for a while, maybe chat with strangers a bit, then be on your way. -
Clean, wholesome garage themed bar for gays who would NEVER change their oil themselves
The Garage is clean, well lit, loud with conversation, and full of squeaky clean under-30 gay men, their straight girl friends, and lady boys. Most of them have their eyes glued to their iPhones or are in a booth with their BFF's so there's absolutely no interaction with solo customers. Lots of giggling, pointing and waving, and grand gesturing. I had no idea an auto garage could be so flaming. Bartenders are competent and prices are reasonable. This is absolutely NOT the place to come dressed as a macho auto mechanic from a 1980's COLT Studios video. -
The last bar in town that can be called "leather", just barely
Sadly, there are no leather bars in Vegas. The Eagle went twink a few years ago, and Fun Hog Ranch (or Funhog Ranch if you read the outdoor sign) has leather events maybe once a month and even then they're sponsored by Las Vegas boys of Leather (lower case intentional to show subservience to those who give a damn about such minutia). But it's still a little seedy, a little shabby, a little sleazy in a city obsessed with glitz and glam. The neighborhood was voted Best Block to Get Your Wallet Lifted By A Crackhead. It's also a great bar for professional alcoholics, the bartenders hand out 2-for-1 drink cards faster than hookers on The Strip hand out business cards. Some of the bartenders are good and know classic drink recipes, others will ice your drink no matter how many time you shout "Neat. Neat! NEAT!" So if you want to revisit 1979 but with iPhones, visit the Fun Hog Ranch. -
How can it be a country/western bar when none of the customers are country/western?
Charlie's is a good bar. The bartenders are handsome, friendly, and know how to mix a drink. prices are more than fair. Almost every night has a theme so there's appeal for lots of interests. And they have an underwear night, which might be typical n Las Vegas, but in the rest of the country they're rare. But why are they a country/western bar? Not a single customer wears western wear or a cowboy hat, and the music is strictly mainstream gay dance club tripe. Go, have a good night, enjoy the mix of people. But country/western? Where? What? I just don't get it. -
Faded and jaded
No. Just no. There's nothing that distinguishes the Spotlight from the cocktail bar at a Holiday Inn off the interstate. No style, no theme, no welcoming vibe. No vibe at all except maybe "You're just passing through, why should we try?" The bartenders have the attitude of "What do you want from me, I just work here" and can manage, say, beer or Red Bull and vodka but don't order a drink that has a recipe. My bartender didn't know how to make an Old Fashioned so he asked a senile customer at the end of the bar (why not ask me?) and the result tasted like Robitussin. I'd say The Spotlight is the pinnacle of apathy but they don't even put in enough effort to achieve that. -
Nice beer bar, but NOT a gay bar
Sorry, but in 2014 when gay people are just plain folks who can marry and everything, a gay-friendly bar should not be on a list of gay businesses. If that were the case, every damn bar in Providence would be on GayCities. As a beer bar where anyone with a valid ID is welcome, Trinity Brewhouse is friendly, welcoming, and well run. The beer selection is good and includes old favorites along with challenging local microbrews. The food menu is superb to enjoy with beer and/or share with friends. And prices are quire reasonable even though the Brewhouse is in Downcity. Should positively be a part of your pub crawl night. -
Good enough but deserves some improvement
On the up side, the staff are friendly and welcoming, and the fees are reasonable. There's plenty of off-street parking. Daily themes are fun. Towels and sheets are clean and smell washed. There's plenty of space (perhaps even too much) to wander and meet men. You can get a room with its own shower. I like the cockring-sized glory holes, I can just fit my meat through but then I'm trapped (in a good way) until someone makes me cum. And you can always get a fresh cup of coffee from their Keurig machine. On the down side, A lot could be done to step up from "just acceptable" to "good". It was raining when I visited and the foyer ceiling leaked. There was no hot water in the showers. There were 4 bathrooms, two were locked and not in service, one had no lights and the toilets had overflowed poopy water onto the floor. Cold tile and concrete floors were clammy and slippery with condensation. Duct tape across out-of-service rooms made it look like a crime scene. Years ago there was a small weight room but it's gone now. Someone had pissed on the floor in one of the glory hole alcoves. There are a lot of ways the space could be improved at minor expense and the Mega-Plex has been around long enough to deserve some spiffing up. I know I'd go more if I could get a hot shower and the floors were cleaner and drier. -
Decent watering hole but not as macho as the name implies
The Stable is nice enough but it's bright, sparkly, throbbing with autotuned Top 40 music videos, and completely FLAMING. Not a good choice if you're masculine or prefer men who don't giggle. A friend told me he liked the crowd because they're a bit older (40-ish), but all I saw were 20-somethings and a few 30-somethings trying to pass as younger. Patrons are reasonably friendly but the chit-chat will be pretty light-weight. Well, most of the chit-chat. The guy sitting next to me discretely asked the owner/bartender a question and the owner/bartender LOUDLY answered, describing his problem with colon polyps, and the colon surgery, and the colon healing process, and his concerns about long-term colon function, and his prior history with colon problems. For 5 minutes non-stop. Later the owner/bartender refreshed my glass of water and commented that water was what started his colon problems, he ate a salad washed in local water in Cancun, and at first he thought his colon problems were just indigestion... -
An hour in this place made me die a little inside
It's like they just gave up trying a few years ago. The interior is nothing like what's shown on their website, in fact, I'm pretty sure the pictures are of a completely different facility. There's a room with a sling and a St. Andrew's cross, a dark room with bench seating, toilets, showers, locker room, private rooms, and that's it. No open places to cruise or watch or socialize-- and the front lounge requires cover-up or clothing because security video is recorded there!. No amount of air freshener could mask the stench of desperation. In the era of Grindr, Scruff, Growler, and Hornet, a sex club has to offer something besides the random chance of running into a complete stranger you like the looks of. Maybe some rooms equipped for popular kinks and fetish play? Perhaps some theme rooms for fantasy play? A lounge with no cameras so patrons can actually meet and socialize without worrying about showing up on courtroom video evidence? -
So bright... SO BRIGHT!
Gloss white walls, colorful accent paint, mirrors, tinsel, shiny tchotchkes, and intense halogen lights will scorch your eyeballs. Bring your sunglasses. Good beer, staff was proficient but busy discussing business, bar duties, upcoming schedules, etc. instead of paying attention to customers. Overall the bar is nothing special, mostly a nearby place to take a break from the drag shows next door. But it won't work. They come over and make the rounds telling customers to go next door to see (and pay for) the drag. Think about it, faux ladies, doesn't my being somewhere else tell you I don't want to see the drag show? -
Pretty good for an old-school men's bar
The new incarnation of the Eagle is pretty good. It feels like it's 1983 again but in a good way, installing a cell phone jammer would be better still. Little bit macho bar, little bit leather bar, little bit neighborhood bar, they'd do well to have a dress code on busy nights to keep the metrosexuals out. Staff are friendly and welcoming. Drink pours are insanely generous but the bartenders all vary on quantity and price for the exact same liquor. My well whiskeys were 5 ounces for $5.75, 4 ounces for $7.00, 6 ounces for $5.00, 4 ounces for $7.50... Cover charge $5 on Friday and Saturday nights, if the owner enforced a standard pour and consistent prices he'd make enough extra profit to eliminate the cover charge (do the math). Impressive DJ booth and sound system for such a small dance floor that nobody dances on. The Eagle is a good bet to become your "go to" bar. -
All things to everyone = Nothing to anyone
Jon Taffer, the host of the TV show "Bar Rescue", says "Bars can’t be something to everyone, they need to be everything to someone." Sidewinders needs to take the hint. The owner/operator Koi Le has succeeded in making his bar nothing to anyone. Is it western? Dance? Twink? Leather? Sports? Drag? Well, it's a little of everything but not enough to have a defining personality. Or personality of any kind. And it's amazingly inconsistent for a bar that's trying to cover all bases. There may or may not be a cover at the door on any given night. Your bartender may be prompt or completely absent. Your drink may be over-poured or under-poured (sorry, has never been dead on for me). The music may be selected for the night, or cable feed, or a random MP3 library. The leather event you attend may be followed immediately by a drag night. The professional drunks who won't leave you alone may be belligerent, or trashy, or just tacky. You roll the dice when you go to Sidewinders, but rest assured, it'll never be more that merely average. -
Little to offer besides smoking
If this private club lost its smoking permit the bar stools would be empty overnight. The bartenders are competent and friendly and remember guests and their drink preferences, and that's good. But the hospitality ends there. Because of the bizarre business model (they're classified as "lodging" through some strange twist of logic at City Hall) it's never clear who the managers are or who's responsible for the lack-luster offerings. The interior resembles a VFW hall right down to the folding tables. There's someone who knows how to double-click an MP3 file masquerading as a DJ, the music selection is complaint driven. A middle-aged lesbian will go will go to the booth and complain "Why haven't you played this song yet?" and it gets played. Then another middle-aged lesbian will go to the booth and complain "Why haven't you played THIS song yet?" and so it goes all night long. Too many patrons come from Santa Fe and make it clear they're fabulous because they come from a small town overrun by Californians with no gay bars of its own. Groucho Marx once said "I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member" and ASC's patrons should have taken the hint. -
An Embarassment
It takes a lot of gall to charge $10 to get into this dump. The raw space is pretty cool but what the owners did with it is pathetic. The dance floor is made of OSB, the chip-board used to build houses. You'll recognize the furniture from Big Lots. Are those shower curtains hanging from the rafters? Cocktails are served in the flimsiest plastic cups, shots are served in the tiny bathroom Dixie cups your dentist uses for mouthwash. The DJ's are perpetually stoned or whacked out on X and spin the most tedious 90's dance tripe, the effects lighting comes from Spencer Gifts. Half the patrons are fat straight girls accompanying their twink gay boy friends. If you have any self-respect you'll skip this tacky disco and instead hang out at one of the sidewalk hot dog carts and laugh at the tragic klub kidz staggering in and out of EFFEX.
