Now That’s a Strip Steak

I had called directory assistance to get the number for Nicola, the tony restaurant in downtown’s Sanwa Bank building. Dialing the seven digits supplied by Ma Bell, I stated my request for reservations. “I don’t think you want us, dear,” said a woman’s voice. “We’re a strip club in the City of Commerce, not the place downtown. But we have a lot more fun.”

I think I laughed, which is apparently not the reaction Sandra Waterbury, a part-owner of Nicolas (note the S), usually gets when callers, mostly secretaries making reservations for their bosses, realize they’ve got a topless bar on the line. “They get huffy and hang up,” says Waterbury, who figures she gets an average of four calls a week for the restaurant. Waterbury, who has been in the topless business for 32 years, says when club employees first started fielding the restaurant’s calls, they would actually take the reservations, assuring callers of the superiority of their seating assignments. “We were irritated at the phone company,” she says.

Nicola downtown is very aware of its doppelgnger on the other side of the tracks. The staff occasionally receives calls from people wanting the strip club. But, notes Soyfa Hitchcock, a Nicola manager: “It’s usually men.”