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"We experienced a little bit of a lag in business for a minute. I ask Bradley if The Country Club saw its revenues fall after the policy was dropped. And now, it's very obvious that we're open to everybody and everyone." "You could certainly say that there was a reputation for this place, over a good ten years ago, for being a place that gay men would come and hang out. Kristen Bradley, who has worked at The Country Club since 2010, echoes Weeser. "And if you look hard enough," Weeser says, "there's still a couple places underground where, you know, men can be men." While The Country Club was widely reported to be the only clothing-optional bar in New Orleans, Weeser notes that there used to be a couple other nude-friendly establishments in the city: the Club bathhouse, which has since shuttered, and the nudist bed-and-breakfast The Dive Inn, which dropped its clothing-optional policy when it came under new management. Mixing drinks with the bar's impressive array of flavored vodkas, he adds: "When I started working here, I was constantly wondering, 'How long is this gonna last? Really, how long can we get away with this?'" "That dude's in his undies and he's cool as shit." "Undies are fine!" he beams back at me, and then points to another patron outside.
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"Back in the late 90s, when I was a massage therapist, I had this best friend who used to come here, and he was like, 'Man, you've gotta come to this place.' I came here and instantly fell in love."Ī couple of drinks in, he encourages me to go out to the pool and have a dip-it's a perfectly clear, 75-degree day-but I haven't brought a swimsuit. Like many, Weeser fell for The County Club on his first visit. "There's a few of them out there and I'm not into 'em." He's more of a Rose Kennedy man himself. "I don't believe in weak drinks," he says with a wink. When I arrive, bar manager James Weeser serves me a cocktail that he calls a "mini-Pimm's"-a typical Pimm's Cup that replaces cucumber slices with a jolt of vodka.
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Nowadays, nary a bottle of Rush is to be found on the grounds, but it is full of affable bartenders who are determined to get me drunk before lunch. Indeed, it's no pitch-black fetish dungeon outfitted with sex swings and vending machines full of lube. More than a year after the last swimsuit came off at its pool, I decided to visit The Country Club to see if the hedonistic character of the place had disappeared. After a less-than-thorough police investigation and, bizarrely, enduring a hateful flier campaign against Treme, The Country Club ended its clothing-optional policy for good in November of 2014. That same summer, a young woman named Maria Treme reported being drugged and sexually assaulted there. That was the beginning of the end of The Country Club's golden nude era, though. In the summer of 2014, Country Club frenzy peaked when Beyoncé and Jay-Z stopped by to take a dip-though they kept their clothes on. Even in a libertine city like New Orleans, this was a standout amenity, so much so that this "neighborhood secret," as its website claims, eventually began to draw a dedicated straight clientele as well. One thing that remained constant throughout this was The Country Club's clothing-optional policy in its pool area. Since then, ownership has changed hands several times, and the original footprint of the space has grown to incorporate two adjacent properties. Housed in an Italianate mansion that dates back to 1884 in the quiet but rapidly gentrifying Bywater neighborhood, The Country Club was founded in 1977 and catered exclusively to New Orleans' vibrant gay community. Now it's an "everybody place," as I'm repeatedly told. I'm at The Country Club-New Orleans' famed gay bar, restaurant, and pool-trying to go cocktail-for-cocktail with people who clearly have better day-drinking game than I do. This is just some old-school shade, of course.