The Pendulum Room South - A Swing Club Review

This Friday night Mrs. Gentlenibbles and had the opportunity to check out a relatively new Swing Club to the Houston lifestyle scene. We attended a birthday party at the Pendulum Room South, and as we promised in our post following the outing here is a review of the club.

Unfortunately, our review of the club is not going to be to pretty, but here it is:

To begin with, before going to the club we looked it up on their website. It is not a bad website and does provide the basic information to find the club, but that was it. It had no pictures, detailed information, and a overall pretty cheesy website design. We were unable to determine for sure whether their bar was setups only or full service, we had to make an assumption that since they did say they were an off premise club they most likely had a full bar. Mrs. Gentlenibbles had trouble getting a good idea of what type of attire would be appropriate, since they had no pictures from any events or descriptions. They did have a dress code stating what not to wear, but it did very little to help us get a feel for what the atmosphere would be. If we were brand new to the lifestyle and were considering going to this club, the tremendous lack of information on the website would most likely have us looking somewhere else, or worse keep us from getting up the courage to even find a club at all. On a scale of one to five, we give the website a 2/5.

Even with consideration of the poor website, we had a lot of motivation to see this club for ourselves. Not only were we going to a party where a lot of our friends were going to be, but this new club is relatively close to our house. The club we usually go to is over an hour from the house, and this one is less than fifteen minutes away. Mrs. Gentlenibbles and I crossed our fingers and with anticipation headed out the door to the Pendulum Room South.

Things were pretty ugly from the start. The club is in a pretty rough area of town close to Houston’s Hobby Airport, and worse it is actually attached to a Strip Club. When we pulled in the parking lot, we were forced to Valet, which is a huge pet peeve of mine, especially if the place is a little “rough”. After valeting the car for ten dollars to a guy in jeans and a t-shirt, we stood in front of two doors and had no idea which led to what. We took a guess and picked the one on the left only to find both doors go to one entrance-way that contained an unmanned metal detector and two more doors leading out. Feeling a little bit like we were in a carnival madhouse, and with not an employee in sight to help I peaked in one door to find a very “rough” looking strip club. I assumed and hoped that meant the other door must lead to the Pendulum Room.

With a sigh of relief we found the Pendulum Room behind door number two. I will give it credit, that is was much more presentable than the strip club next door. It had a nice sized dance floor with one large bar, and nice furniture scattered throughout the club. Since, we still had not seen any employees we just made our way over to our friends and started socializing. It was here that we found the one bright spot in the evening, our waitress Christy. Christy was cute, friendly, relatively prompt considering the crowd size, and never once had to ask our names for the tab.

After a few minutes a gentleman wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and sneakers carrying arm bands and a money bag comes around collecting our twenty five dollar door fee. Keeping in mind he is wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and sneakers here is a couple of quotes from the small amount of information the club provided on their website;

“Sneakers and/or flip flops or beach shoes are not acceptable footwear.”

“Men may not wear shorts. Shorts are allowed on women only if they are in good condition and appropriate to the environment”

I like those rules, as I believe they really help the classy atmosphere at a club, but this is the first time I have been to a club where the employees are not subject to the same dress code.

In conversation with the beach clad gentleman, I was told they did not take credit cards for admission even though they had a credit card machine at the bar that I had already seen used when I opened my tab. I was informed it was no problem, I could walk to the strip club next door and use their ATM. And since the ATM was going to charge a six dollar service fee, I would receive a coupon for a free drink.

Sounds easy enough so I head over to the other club, but I first have to get my credit card back from the bartender. At the bar I had to wait about ten minutes for the older somewhat lethargic barkeep to finish opening one of the registers before he was ready to help me. When he finally came over I explained what I needed, only to be told I would need to tell my waitress. Fortunately, Christy happened to be close so she told the gentleman my name so he could go get my credit card. I was not totally sure why I could not tell him my name, but figured it was a security issue. That is when the bartender goes over to his pile of credit cards and promptly brings me someone else’s credit card and drivers license. After repeating this scenario several times he finally asks my name again and goes back to his stack of cards. He then realizes the other friendlier, quicker, and cuter female bartender on the other side must have it. So I walk over to her and after about a thirty second conversation have my credit card and I am on my way to the strip club.

As I am exiting the Pendulum Room into the entrance-way two very interestingly dressed gentleman walk in from outside. Dressed in what can only be described as the best “Pimp” outfits I had ever seen with canes and all, they proceeded in front of me into the strip club. Instead of walking around the unmanned metal detectors like everyone else was doing, they chose to walk through it and promptly caused it to squeal as each one strutted through. Looking around and realizing, once again that no employees were around to care I followed the two into the strip club.

I was relieved the ATM was right next to the entrance-way of the club, and quickly got my cash and headed over to find the “beach bum” to get our arm bands and the freedom to enjoy such a great place. The rest of the night went pretty well and we had a great time.

At the end of the evening, as we were leaving we went to get the car from the valet. Standing outside all the customers of the swing club were mixed with the clients of the strip club next door. Picture this, a bunch of drunk single men who have been staring at tits and ass all night and going home alone. Now add to the picture several young attractive swinging females standing there as well waiting on their cars from the “overworked, ten dollar per car, t-shirt and jean clad valet”. It took right about .002347 seconds for the cat calls and comments to start, but don’t worry they quickly stopped after the ten minute wait for the car was over and we were able to get out of the parking lot.

Once again, Pendulum saw no need for any employees, bouncers, or security to be around the door as both clubs were closing and emptying all at once. The absolute most important characteristic of any lifestyle environment is safety, and for the first time since entering the lifestyle there were several times when Mrs. Gentlenibbles and I felt at risk.

So lets get this disaster over with and tally up the scores…

Website (2 / 5)

Club Location (1 / 5)

Club Design (2 / 5)

Cost (3 / 5)

Security (0 / 5)

Atmosphere (2 / 5)

Overall (10 / 30 or 1.7 / 5)

I can assure you, we were really wishing for this club to be a hit or at least somewhat acceptable. Unfortunately, the Pendulum Room South failed miserably at almost every place it could, except for the sexy waitress. The inside of the club was actually relatively nice, but unfortunately due to what appears as general apathy by the ownership, it is just now worth enduring everything else to see the inside. The atmosphere was fun, but everyone we talked to was there for the party and most of them had not been there before. I do not think I can give the Pendulum Room South credit for that.

If you have been to the club, and had better experiences or even worse, let us know. We want to be fair, and as I stated earlier we were rooting for this one. I am not sure any amount of great stories will ever be able to get us back to this club.

Vote in the Pendulum South poll below to see what other readers have thought!

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