There are few mysteries that the readers of this blog cannot solve. I was wondering where in the world a strip club called The Bat Cave was located. I didn't say this but I kinda doubted it was in Los Angeles because I would at least have heard of it. Wrong. It turns out it was in my city…
That ad is dated 1966 which is right when you'd figure someone would open such a place figuring to cash in on the Batman craze. They might even have had their grand opening during the hour-or-so that the Batusi was a popular dance craze.
5521 Sunset would put it, as the ad says, on Sunset just west of Western Avenue. Presently, there's a huge WSS Shoe Warehouse at that intersection and its address is 5525 Sunset. This suggests that The Bat Cave and everything around it were razed in order to build that big building which was a mega-hardware store before it was a shoe warehouse and I vaguely recall there being a giant supermarket there before that. On either side of The Bat Cave were printing businesses as seen in this photo…
I'm also going to guess there are quite a few years between the above ad and the above photo. The law around these parts did not permit nude dancing at clubs in 1966. That caught on in the seventies and it has never been legal at clubs that serve alcohol.
So, to take this way beyond even my level of interest, I'll theorize that the place opened in '66 with ladies as minimally dressed as the law then allowed. At some point, they got rid of their liquor license and whatever clothing the dancers were wearing…and they probably stopped serving food then as well. Neither food nor drink are mentioned on their signage in the two photos we have that promise nude girls within. They didn't take down the neon Batusi sign because it would have cost a few bucks to do this.
And what I can't figure out is why I never noticed this esteemed business establishment. I drove through the intersection of Sunset and Western a lot during the seventies. My daily commute when I was working on Welcome Back, Kotter often took me past that address twice a day. I don't think I would ever have stopped and gone in but you'd think a guy in his twenties who'd read as many Batman comic books as I had would have spotted it and gasped, "The Batusi? Really? They're doing the Batusi?"
My thanks to quite a few folks who sent in info and pics. I got one note from a friend of mine who used to write for the Filmation cartoon studio in Reseda…which is where the 1968 and 1977 Batman animated shows were produced. He wrote that he vaguely recalled that on his way to work there, he passed a bar called The Batcave on the south side of Sherman Way near the intersection of Owensmouth. Maybe there was another Bat Cave there or maybe he was remembering this place on Vanowen between Tujunga and Vineland…
But probably not. That ad is also from 1966 and he would have passed it in the late seventies, plus that address is pretty far from Sherman Way and Owensmouth. There's no longer a strip club at 11220 Vanowen but there is a strip mall.
Google Maps identifies a business there called Major Plaza Upholstery. I have a couch that's getting a bit shabby. Maybe I'll take it in there and ask if they can refurbish it or at least do the Batusi — the dance that no one ever did unless they were being tortured by King Tut. And maybe not even then…