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After a few false starts, the Clermont Lounge was reborn as a strip club in 1965, and from the looks of it, some of the same strippers have been around since opening day. The club is located in the basement of the former Clermont Hotel, which was finally shut down in 2009 for violating just about every health code on the books (think bed bugs, moldy walls, and faucets that spewed black water).
The strip club is renowned for its dancers, who don’t exactly conform to modern beauty standards. Blondie, one of the old-timers, has been working the club for over 34 years. She spices up her routines by reciting poetry and crushing beer cans between her breasts. Porscha, another fixture, is in her mid-sixties and has been rocking her Little Bo Peep getup for decades. But even if the dancers’ charms are debatable, a night at the Clermont is widely recognized as an Atlanta right of passage.
If you’re ready to be initited, be sure to come with cash and an empty bladder (the bathrooms are epic in a bad way). And don’t you dare touch the jukebox — the tunes are always chosen by the dancers.
The Lounge is the longest running strip club in Atlanta history, and its cultural significance is unparalleled. So whether you come to see DJ, the long-time Clermont bouncer or the Clermont’s legendary, or Blondie’s bosom, you should walk in with this shirt on (first person to wear this in a photo outside the iconic sign gets a prize!).
