Many young professionals find themselves traveling a lot, and oftentimes they, or their hosts may suggest an evening of male adult entertainment or what is referred to in a very euphemistic way as a visit to the "gentlemen's​ club"

Few activities are as prone to exotic idioms and local customs as this, yet knowing what to ask for or suggest in a meaningful way could be very useful for everyone involved. Without going into the dirty specifics of local lore, we all know what we're looking for, nothing illegal or soliciting, just plain male adult fun.

In the US for example, one does not go to the "gentleman's club" unless you're writing a police report. You go with your pals to the "tittie bar" (California) or "nudie bar" (well understood all over the US). The gentleman's club is something altogether different in the UK, and surely not what you'd expect.

So, how do you refer to those establishments in different Spanish speaking regions?

Muchos jóvenes profesionales deben viajar mucho, y con frecuencia -ya sea ellos o sus anfitriones- se verán en la situación de pedir o sugerir una tarde de entretenimiento adulto para caballeros, lo que eufemísiticamente se llama "visitar un club para caballeros"

Pocas actividades son tan susceptibles de conocerse por regionalismos o modismos exóticos como ésta, y el saber que pedir o como sugerirlo, sería utilísimo para todos los involucrados, sin tener que abundar en los sucios detalles de la usanza local, todos sabemos a lo que nos referimos, nada ilegal o procuración de blancas, simple y llanamente entretenimiento para adultos.

En los Estados Unidos uno no va al club para caballeros, a menos que lo estés relatando en un informe policial. Uno va con sus compas al tittie bar (California) o al nudie bar (en todos los EEUU se entiende) . Sin embargo el club para caballeros es algo totalmente distinto y seguro no lo que esperabas en el Reino Unido. Entonces la pregunta es

¿Cómo se le llama a este tipo de establecimientos en distintas regiones hispanoparlantes?

  • Several times you say "well, we understand ...", but the truth is: I don't know the concept. How does a tittie bar differ from a gentleman's club? – Rodrigo Apr 10 '17 at 21:17
  • They don't. The point is to avoid the sterile and aseptic "gentleman's club" and discover the way locals refer to this kind of establishments, in Spanish of course. One example: while visiting Chile, I couldn't fathom why on Earth would one want legs on their coffee, and why were my friends "on the know" so enthusiastic about it. Then we walked in to the place....And I was enlightened (Cafe con piernas) – hlecuanda Apr 10 '17 at 23:09
  • This question is not clear. Do you want to ask where to find a strip club? Topless dancers? Lap dancing? House of prostitution? Do you want to understand when someone invites you to go along? – aparente001 Apr 10 '17 at 23:35
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    @aparente001 I agree. I think that he wants to know if there is a single name (at least per country) to encompass all these kinds of places. The problem I see for this questions is that probably you'll need some sort of community wiki answer were people add whatever they know about a certain country. But I believe there is not a single name nor a single kind of such places in each country. I have been told about Chile's café con piernas but AFAIK there is no prostitution involved there. It is like Chile's version of Hooters. So I believe this question might be too broad to be answered. – Diego Apr 11 '17 at 2:13
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    I agree with @Diego, this is a case in which the term can vary greatly among regions (even within the same country), and it is not clear if you refer to places where sex is involved or it's just a matter of watching a girl pole-dancing with or without clothes, or doing streap-tease, lap-dancing, or others. It can be a very funny question to answer, but maybe you will need to refine it a bit to make it less broad. For instance, in Spain a house of prostitution is colloquially referred to as a puticlub. But there are other terms for other kind of clubs for adults. – Charlie Apr 11 '17 at 6:54

Me voy a animar a dar una respuesta local para España, tomando como punto de partida que hablamos de locales donde no se comercia con sexo. La verdad es que es curioso porque preguntando por aquí la gente no conoce un nombre coloquial concreto para este tipo de locales. Aquí lo que se ha estilado de siempre ha sido directamente el puticlub:


De puta y club.

  1. m. coloq. Bar de alterne donde se favorece o se ejerce la prostitución.

Sin embargo, desde hace algunas décadas empezaron a aparecer locales más "suaves" (por decirlo de alguna forma), en los que poder ver espectáculos para adultos sin tener que llegar a serle infiel a tu pareja. Los locales de este tipo son los que la gente no sabe denominar, aunque un término que ha aparecido conversando con mis colegas ha sido American show, por aquello de que este tipo de espectáculos se ha importado de Estados Unidos, o se han hecho famosos por las series y películas de allí.

Buscando un poco más, en el diccionario también aparece:

Tb. estriptís.

Del ingl. striptease.

  1. m. Espectáculo en el que una persona se va desnudando poco a poco, y de una manera insinuante.
  2. m. Local donde se realizan estriptis.

Nótese que en la segunda acepción se indica que se denominan así los locales donde se realiza esta práctica. Ya como término más genérico se me ocurre también sala o local de alterne:


  1. intr. Dicho de una persona, especialmente de una mujer: En ciertas salas de fiestas, bares y lugares semejantes, tratar con los clientes para estimularles a hacer gasto en su compañía, del cual obtiene generalmente porcentaje.
  • Genial repuesta! Había escuchado del puticlub sin embargo siempre creí que se trataba de alguna jocosa palabra a la usanza de los tebeos de Mortadelo y Filemón Gracias! – hlecuanda Apr 12 '17 at 4:57
  • Google seems to find a similar number of hits for club de alterne and putclub (to a factor of two). The images it offers look pretty similar. – mdewey Apr 12 '17 at 12:36
  • Para mi "local de alterne" siempre ha sido un eufemismo de puticlub. Nunca habia oído estriptis a secas para referirse a un local de striptease. Para locales con espectáculos eróticos se usa también "club erotico". – blonfu Apr 12 '18 at 12:44

Mexico has quite a few ways to name this establishments, but I'll leave our the local-specific hoices in favor of those that are understood Nationwide.

First and foremost


As opposed to antro (as in antro de vicio y perdición) an antro is a regular night club for dancing and a night out with the girlfriend​.

In a congal proper you will find exotic dancers and a mostly male audience. There are, however different categories: a regular congal Is a modern, safe place for adult gentlemanly fun, there is also, however, the


These are basically congales the but implicitly run-down, shoddy, probably not a good idea to visit unless you can't afford otherwise.

In smallish towns all over, where everybody knows each other, there are establishments advertising as

Café cantante

you'd think it's a kind of karaoke, but, alas, there is no singing and coffee is not served. Indeed, these are places where one spends his money in exchange for company, but not much more, remember it's a small town!

In rural areas we can find the humorously named

Junta de mejoras

this is where the men and field workers go and mostly get drunk, and can find some company too. After the revolution in 1910 these juntas de mejoras were supposed to be formal meeting places,, sponsored by the government, where the rural leaders would discuss the betterments for the community, but that quicky got sidestepped in favor of plain fun, also sponsored by the government. (You gotta get the votes somehow!) Now days only the name remains, and everyone knows it's the local cantina. Sponsored by beer companies mostly.)

As for the activity of visiting the club, there are a few popular choices here, but the better known all throughout Mexico are:


which is like "ir de marcha" in Spain specially in the large cities. The idea is to get together with your friends, choose q designated driver (and probably an alibi) and visit two or three congales before the night is out.

Do this too often, and your will get a reputation for congalero.

The alternative, often used among the youth, is the self explanatory ir a ver pelos although obscure, everyone knows what ver pelos entails. It's definitely an icebreaker for foreigners, to be "in the know". You'll never hear that one in polite comany.

Finally, this one is right up there with the insular pticlub in the humorous class of euphemisms:

Where would you go, if you wanted to ver pelos?

Of course: no other place than

El pelódromo

Synonym for congal I kid you not.

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    I think that instead of posting an answer per country, this type of question would benefit from a community wiki answer with a collection of them. Otherwise, it goes beyond the scope of the site, where we have a question and answers to the same. It would fall into a "list of answers, all of them useful, but not comparable". – fedorqui Apr 15 '17 at 14:50
  • Right. As a matter of fact, that was the idea however ivould bout find documentation on creating a wiki. Question from the get go, so I assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that someone with diety-like rep could transmogrify the answer later on – hlecuanda Apr 16 '17 at 0:18
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    You can read about the community wiki in its privilege page and the post What are “Community Wiki” posts?. You can edit Carlos Alejo's answer and we can also make it CW. – fedorqui Apr 16 '17 at 19:55
  • @fedorqui I really like this answer on its own, I thought that what we really needed was a CW answer apart, independent from my answer and this one, and that I did. Please, feel free to fix it or improve it if I have not understood well this answer. – Charlie Apr 17 '17 at 9:50
  • @CarlosAlejo I think this is indeed a good solution. This particular kind of list-questions are difficult to handle, as theorically are off topic here. Since we currently do allow them, we tend to prefer the CW only answer to summarize all the info and make it easier to handle. However, your point of this being a very good answer is true. Let's talk about it in Meta and see what we can decide about it. – fedorqui Apr 17 '17 at 19:23

Community wiki answer to summarize the other ones. Feel free to expand it or to add here an abstract of your own answer.


  • Sexless:
    • American show.
    • Estriptis.
    • Local de alterne.
  • Sex implied:
    • Puticlub.


  • Sexless:
    • Congal.
    • Tugurio.
    • Café cantante.
    • Pelódromo.

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