XX CLOSED RG1 2RB Wellington, Reading

[pleasure_seeker]

Tease agency have a new pub venue in Reading, the Wellington, on their website. 3 shifts per day, every day throughout August.

Wellington, 225 Southampton Street, Reading

[Victor23]

Seems a bit ambitious to start off in August of all months (holiday season etc) with three shifts a day, but good luck to them. A dancer who used to live in Reading recalls the pub as a bit of a dump about a mile from the station and not far from the university, with bus stops very close by. Parking is very difficult. She's not going to bother with it until she sees how things work out as she's fed up with travelling out to pubs etc and barely covering her expenses (which can include a taxi home).


Vic

[charming]

Must say have visited this pub recently and got to say its at best a dive. Apart from visiting the girls there is no way you would go this venue, have to sharpen there act up im afraid.

[Victor23]

Presumably there's a floor show? What provision is made for private dances? One girl told me that the afternoon shift has already been reduced to two girls, so really one has to get there for, say 4pm, to catch the second shift an hour later (or go along for the second and third shifts), to make a visit worthwhile.

Vic

Just checked the Tease website and of the 18 dancer slots for today (Sunday) and the next two days, 16 are "TBAs" - not very encouraging. I don't recognise many of the girls who are named for the rest of this month, but there's one worth seeing and another to avoid. (The latter is OK when there are several other girls dancing but a bit of a pain on a small shift.)

[Victor23]

I diverted off the M4 to pay a visit. But for just one dancer (out of two shifts) it would have been a waste of time and petrol. My worst visit to a strip pub ever. Everything - apart from the one girl - was poor to awful.

£2 entry, £1 floor shows, £15 Victoria-style private dances (get a token from the barman), 1 private booth.


Vic

[pleasure_seeker]

Worst ever? Surprising…Tease dancers usually pretty good. Any chance of some more information? No one has reviewed this pub before so it would be good to have some description of what it is actually like.

[Victor23]

Oh all right, Pleasure Seeker, here are some details, mainly because I see that there may have been an ambiguity in my last post. There were five girls there over two shifts, of whom one was very attractive, another OK but colourless.

I left my car in a supermarket car park about 500 yards from the pub and on my walk up (and in a recce of the locality) couldn't see anywhere much else to park, though two of the dancers did find somewhere. By the way, driving from the south if you overshoot the pub you end up in a triangular one-way system.

The Wellington is being refurbished, so entry was through a wooden side gate, where I was "greeted" by two doormen who relieved me of £2. The bar itself is OK but with a limited range of drinks. The gents had no hot water or soap, though the hand drier did work. The woodwork looked as if it was being prepared for re-decorating.

There were three fully curtained booths, but one was used by the girls for changing and another had no chairs in it.When I went for a second dance with the attractive girl, one of the staff bounded over and said something that neither I or the girl understood. Her English is excellent, but she took him to mean that I could have only one private dance; I'm not sure about this, as when I flourished the token he seemed satisfied and went off.

I was the only customer there for an hour or so, but around 4 several guys came in wearing hi-vis trousers covered in oil (and smelling of it, one dancer said, who later gave one of them a dance). Later on eight or ten more guys trickled in, representing, how do I put this, the lower end of the social spectrum.

OK, the pub may look better when it's been refurbished but I'm not sure that the clientèle will improve and I can't see the afternoons getting busy. The other places I've been to in the afternoon this year (Vic, Woolpack, Bar, both White Horses) all seem quieter, with the WHHW faring the best. Unlike all these places, there's no sign outside proclaiming that exotic dancing takes place. It's quite close to the university, though I don't think that the return of students will make much difference.

I guess if you live in the Reading area, it's somewhere to go and far cheaper and almost certainly less cheerful than the two lap-dancing clubs in the town centre.

But within 20 miles or so you've got the WHHW, Tiffany's in Aldershot and the Flags.

Vic

[pleasure_seeker]

Thanks for replying to the request (which was all it was) for more information, Victor23.

Good to have a detailed review of the venue.

[Victor23]

Odd and/or interesting. The Wellington no longer appears on the list of Tease venues, but is included on "Today's Dancers", with five "TBAs" for today, I write this at 1920 in the evening. Whereas all the girls working at the Flags today are named. Given my misgivings about the place, I wonder if there are problems getting girls to work in Reading. The Tease website is usually kept up to date.

(Just to go off topic, if Lorraine's website could have been bothered to let me know who's at the Nag's Head tomorrow, I might have made an effort and gone along - got two hours to kill. Actually same applies to the White Horse Shoreditch, though it is easier for me to take pot luck there.)

Vic

[Victor23]

Spoke to a Tease dancer last night, who said that dancing has stopped (already) at the Wellington. When she was there, just three guys came in all shift. She also referred to a "no publicity" rule, which may have been on the council's insistence. Strange that the place thought it could become a dedicated strip pub, so excluding people who just wanted a drink (unless they coughed up £2 entry). Not that there was scope inside for partitioned customers, like at the Vic, Woolpack and WHHW.

The girl reckoned that dancing might return, but I would think on a much more limited basis.


Vic

[Victor23]

A dancer tells me that Promises are now supplying the girls. Wonder how long it will take them to update their website to give details - it still "promises" that the next event at one its venues will be coming later in 2010. Also wonder why this Forum doesn't have a link to the website?

Vic

[The Great Smell Of Brute]

Also wonder why this Forum doesn't have a link to the website?

It does, here; you'll find it under The Auditions, in the General section.

[Victor23]

Ah, there it is! Not sure how many us would look there (obviously I didn't), especially as the last post in Auditions is almost a year old. Surely more logical to include it with all the others under "Rota for most pubs/agencies"; at least Promises' website is live, unlike several listed there.

Vic

[Victor23]

The other day work to me to within a couple of miles of the Wellington but wasn't tempted by a return visit. Last night at another venue a dancer who had worked there when Tease was supplying the girls said that she had walked out mid-shift it was so bad there and that the landlord was being greedy when it came to house fees.

I'm slightly curious as to how the original arrangements (three shifts a day) have developed or, should I say, regressed. Still no mention on the Promises website and one girl said the agency hadn't mentioned the Wellington to her.

Vic

[Victor23]

Spoke to a dancer who'd worked at the Arms just once and she reckoned that it was now up for sale, and not necessarily as a pub. I did a Google and came up only with this, about the landlord - "a 22-year-old qualified tax barrister" - who has three other pubs.

http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/s/2099 ... at_the_bar

Quite what experience he had of running pubs at 22 I don't know, but the dancer said he had little idea about strip-pubs. Whether or not it was licensed (one of the comments to the article suggests it wasn't), I don't know. but it was never publicised except briefly on the Tease website.

So how Sharma expected a strip-only pub with a down-market clientele to prosper I don't know. Even established places are quiet most afternoons and unlike the Vic, WHHW and Woolpack there was no scope for people who just wanted a drink.

There may still be dancers there at some time or other, but even if they are don't bother going unless you happen to be within a mile or two anyway.

Vic

[Victor23]

Just to confirm my last post, I went past the site today, and the pub is closed and the building for sale. A couple of hundred yards away there's a shabby Brazilian bar and had the dancing succeeded perhaps some homesick girls might have lingered there.

Vic

[pleasure_seeker]

Closed and re-developed into flats and a retail unit.

Report

[Victor23]

"Building work is well underway at the former Wellington Arms pub in Whitley Street despite its owners not yet knowing what the ground floor will be used for." (The ground floor was where the short-lived stripping took place.)

Article

[Victor23]

To become a bakery

The exterior (which has been "re-worked") looks far better than it did on my one and only visit.

Perhaps one of the most inept attempts to run a strip-pub...