Jacques Cabaret

Bottom line: Stay away unless your idea is fun is hanging out with bachelorettes.

In Boston for a long weekend, we were struggling to find something of a gay scene for a fun night out. Jacques seemed like an interesting possibility based on an internet search, so we decided to give a go. I love a good drag show.

Yikes. I should have read more carefully.

I'm not sure how much of this can be blamed on the management, but this was a waste of time and money. A $10 per person cover to get in the door seemed a bit much, but that's not unheard of. What I didn't expect was to find the entire bar taken over by 75 straight women from what looked like 3 different bachelorette parties. There was no seating anywhere, not even at the bar, and nowhere to get a decent view of the show. We stayed maybe 10 minutes until it was clear that no fun was to be had that night, at least not for us. The bachelorettes, I'm sure, had great time with the 4-foot tall inflatable penis (I wish I were making that up).

I hope the bar puts our $20 charitable donation to good use.

Despite some objections I had to going here for a (gay) bachelor party, the other members of the wedding party overruled my objections. Good lord I wish they hadn't. I'll give you the highlights (lowlights?):

1. A ludicrous $10 cover. Who are they trying to keep out of a classy place like this?
2. The drag was just slightly below mediocre. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert, but the lip syncing was off (for all of the 2 and a half performers we stayed for), the costumes were meh, and the songs were trite, cliched, and expected. Drag is supposed to be performative and at least engage the audience, and the ladies here seemed stand offish. The almost-entirely straight female audience seemed to be having a better time than the performers. In sum: they just weren't fun.
3. The crowd was 98% heterosexual women. I'm not sure if Jacques ever pretended to be a gay bar, but as the march toward progress continues, so do the stereotypical sorority girls that think we gay men automatically want to be their friends. And this is their ground zero, apparently.
3a. Of the 98% heterosexual women, there were probably like 3 bachelorette parties being caricatures of themselves. I'm told this is typical for the place.
4. I ordered a whiskey and coke, which apparently means (for $5.50) a shot of flat coke, an eye dropper of whiskey, and a dirty ice cube from a snarly bar tender. Now, I'm from Philadelphia, I know a thing or two about snarly bar tenders and generally appreciate them...but here?

In sum, if you want to go to a gay bar, go somewhere else. If you want to see *good* drag, go to a drag night somewhere else. Or skip this all together and give the $10 cover to charity.

Definitely a fun time, any night of the week. The ladies always put on a good show. The drinks are strong and reasonably priced, and there's a server who comes to your table for orders, so you don't have to get up during a performance.

My favorite event here is Perestroika, the first Monday of every month. Katya Zamolodchikova is the inimitable hostess; regular performers are geriatric gem Frieda Fries and around-the-way-girl Nicholle Pride.

Seats fill up quick, so be sure to make reservations ahead of time, especially if you have a party of five or more. And bring ones to tip the bartender, the server, and the performers for a job well done.