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First, Gratuitous pre-club no panties pussy shot.

We went to Privata on Saturday for the first time since Fall of 2019 and it wasn't even remotely close to the upscale, sexy club that it used to be. Minus bartender Zac and the other fantastic bartender working the first floor, who were great, it was just a bad nightclub with a few exceptions, like the few other couples who dressed to impress.

Unfortunately, there's no way to write this up without sounding at least a little pretentious or judgy, that's not our goal. If you're selling yourself as an "upscale night club" and you state all over that you "enforces the dress code" AND you're charging for upscale prices, why should we expect less? We know what the potential for Privata is, it's just that we either caught an off night or this is really what it's become.

Biggest issue: Dress code enforcement, or lack thereof

tl;dr: They do not enforce their dress code, at all. Holly and Charles were there all night, so no passing the excuse onto the employees.

Link to their Privata's dress code for reference

Examples: The most obvious was the guy who had on a dirty flannel shirt haphazardly rolled up on each arm with baggy and ripped jeans and dirty work boots. To add to it, he was sweating all over the place (we get that, but flannel!) and he had a funk to him. He was the worst offender but there were a lot of others who clearly missed the whole dress code thing and Privata ignored at the door. Like the couple with black and white printed tees, faded and ripped jeans, with fanny packs(!) and generic white shoes (how is any of that sexy or 'dress-to-impress' anyways?). There were more than a few wearing worn jeans, t-shirts, and Nikes. One guy was even in flip flops. There were women in bodycon dresses with white sneakers and guys looking like they were about to start their night shift at Taco Bell. All of these were "enforceable" and at any other "upscale" club in the world, they would have been denied entry until they changed into more appropriate clothes. I get that it's Portland and at some of the other clubs these things are fine, but this is a lifestyle club with a defined dress code...

It used to be that if you were in a suit, or at least had on nice slacks with dress shoes and your shirt was tucked in, you blended in. Now, however, just tucking in a shirt makes you stick out. And women with clunky white shoes with their dresses? Is this a middle school dance?

As a whole, there were not a lot who actually dressed-to-impress and the club looked kind of trashy and even smelled funky because of it (looking at you Mr. Flannel). Of those who did dress to impress, they looked great! Even if we didn't find them within our preference range, they still looked great!

Other thoughts

Starting with the the first floor couples lounge in the back. It's nice but doesn't really flow well. We found ourselves going back a few times to check it out only to turn the corner and have a group of couples on the benches awkwardly staring back at us like we just interrupted the room. Because of this, we didn't go back there as often as we probably would have, but I guess it's an improvement over the rooms there that couples used to 'camp' in, just wish it was laid out differently.

Anyone know WTF is up with the bottle service areas? We couldn't tell if they were in use or the people in them were just using the unreserved areas? (We would have asked staff but they seemed to be doing important stuff the whole time running from point A to point B. Hire more staff?) That second floor area overlooking the dance floor was the best spot in Privata, why make it some cheesy Bottle VIP area? The other bottle area right behind that one, again, was it reserved for the night or did people just crash it? It's a decent spot, and replacing the seldomly used orgy bed there was a good choice, but who is it for and how do we know when it's reserved or not? Third floor VIP room, again, was it crashed or reserved? There was no way to tell and others seemed just as lost as us about it all. There was a guy giving out spankings and flogging so maybe he reserved it for himself??

People used to enjoy the dance floor all night, but when the third floor opened Saturday, everyone ran upstairs. They lined up in the stairwell and filled up the second floor just waiting for them to open it up. One of the biggest complaints about Sesso, and then Privata, possibly even the number one complaint overall, has always been the music volume. When it switched from Sesso to Privata at least they turned it down from 12 to 11, but it was still pretty loud. When 11:30 came, we beelined it for the third floor so we could actually talk and hear the other. If that's similar to why everyone else ran up, how has that not been addressed?? Or maybe it really was just an off night.

Because everyone ditched the first and second floors immediately after 11:30pm, the third floor was kind of a crowded shit show. It started with a mad rush to grab a seat - there was nothing sexy about that. The couches were prime real estate and as soon as someone got up, there was a couple waiting to pounce into the spot. Fortunately for the couch campers, Zac was on it delivering drinks promptly with his amazing lip reading skills.

The Couples Only in the back (front of club) area was also cramped. And here's where we think that there may have just been a lot of newbies that night and why were were just unlucky; there were people who were actually pushing and elbowing others to get a view of ONE couple use ONE of the seven (eight?) beds there - all the other beds were empty. We've never seen anything like that and the pushing and shoving was ridiculous!

(Side note) Single guys only creeped on Mrs. while Mr. went to the restroom. Same as before. Has that tactic ever worked for any of them? They weren't rude or anything, just weird.

There were couples that were HWP, and there were couples that had dressed to impress, and there were couples that were polite, friendly, and sexy, but in all, they made up only about 1/20th of everyone there. Pre-2020, they would have made up at least 3/4ths. That's a huge difference; a difference that Privata can help mitigate if they wanted to just with enforcing the dress code.

All-in-all, we'll give it a few more tries but from what we experienced, there are better options, or at least less expensive, less crowded, and less loud options. We're really hopeful that this was just all just a fluke. Please say that it was a fluke.

But for those who dressed to impress, we saw you, we respected you, and hopefully we see you when we give Privata another go.