Former Strip Club Getting Renovated on M Street – To Become The Mpire Club

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by Prince Of Petworth — August 9, 2013 at 11:30 am 16 Comments

1819 M Street, NW

Thanks to a reader for sending word that the former strip club and long vacant building at 1819 M St, NW (just west of Connecticut Ave.) has a boatload of permits:

photo-4

I walked by and the space has been completely gutted. One of the permits lists the tenant as “The Mpire club”. I’m guessing it will remain a strip club?

Recently JP’s strip club reopened after a fire and long closure in Glover Park.

Anonymous

I didn’t know there we so many strip clubs in DC? Is this a strip club with boobies and who-who’s or pee-pee’s and kiwis?
Anonymous

Wait, is Camelot gone?
- saf
  
  I think this used to be King Arthur’s.
- abefroman329
  
  Used to be the 1819 Club. I’d say it’s been closed for around 10 years.
Anonymous

This is a few doors down from Camelot, which is still open. Wait, so there are going to be 2 strip clubs within a few feet of each other now?
- thebear
  
  They’re exempted from the proximity law because the licenses for those locations were issued before it was on the books.
Anonymous

Let’s just hope it’s not a restaurant. I don’t think I’d want to eat there.
- anon
  
  “Strippers do nothing for me. I like a strong, salt-of-the-earth, self-possessed woman at the top of her field — your Steffi Graffs, your Sheryl Swoopeses. But I will take a free breakfast buffet any time, any place.”
  
  -Ron Swanson
thebear

Long ago (back in the early 1990s) you couldn’t watch channels 9, 5, or 20 (probably 50 as well, but who watched it then?) after 11PM without commercials for “Joanna’s 1819 Gentlemen’s Club” in heavy rotation. She was a mess. Wrinkled from too much sun, booze, and tobacco. Looked like she was pushing 70 but made up to look like she was 50. (Think a cross between Miss Kitty and Granny Clampett.) Perhaps she was only in her 50s but ridden hard and put up wet. Even if I were het, a broad like that wouldn’t have lured me in. I worked across the street at 1850M in the mid-90s. The guys who went there when it was still Joanna’s were mostly 50-60-something overweight bureaucrat and lobbyist exec types. I recall hearing there was some financial dispute between her and the other owners, she was kicked out in 2001, and it became just the 1819 Club. The clientele became mostly 20-something Ward 8 and “Ward 9” gangstas and was raided every few weeks for outstanding warrants, assaults with deadly weapons, and drug dealing. I think it finally went bankrupt in 2003 or 2004.
- Emmaleigh504
  
  Interesting. (comments like this are 1 reason why PoP is such a great blog!)
  - Anonymous
    
    +1 Love the colorful history!
- Anonymous
  
  Thank you thebear! Love hearing about such history.
- BitterElitist
  
  My doctor is in 1850, I wonder if he spends his lunch hours there…
Joe Flood

Mmmmkay?
kook47797

” Perhaps she was only in her 50s but ridden hard and put up wet.”

the best thing I’ve read all week.
- figby
  
  Not remotely misogynist. Thanks. Sorry she wasn’t young and hot. Then it would have been OK.

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