The Abridged version:
- Da #1 Hawaiian Grill sits inside Gold Club Centerfolds, a Rancho Cordova strip club along Highway 50.
- The restaurant serves customers inside the club, but food is available via delivery apps until 2:30 a.m. as well.
- Other specials include Philly cheesesteaks, bar food and biweekly sushi pop-ups from a veteran chef.
“Great food, sexy dancers,” reads Gold Club Centerfolds‘ exterior sign facing eastbound Highway 50. While most customers know it for the latter, the Rancho Cordova strip club draws customers for its chicken katsu, fried shrimp and short ribs as well.
Centerfolds is home to Da #1 Hawaiian Grill, operated out of a small kitchen and served to tables around the club. An outdoor kiosk at 11363 Folsom Blvd. also serves as a pickup spot for DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber Eats orders.
For both dine-in and delivery, the kitchen is open until midnight during the week and 2:30 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. That makes Da #1 Hawaiian Grill not just Rancho Cordova’s lone locally owned Hawaiian restaurant, but arguably the best spot for late-night dining in the city of 84,000.
The mochiko chicken ($15, or $12 in a rice bowl) was fried on the dot, browned around its chewy rice flour coating but still juicy inside. Pork lumpia (three for $4) were stuffed to their gills with meat, not the filler vegetables that can take over lesser ones.
Plate lunches ($12-$19) of rice, macaroni salad and an entree such as loco moco or barbecued short ribs are available any time of day. Grilled pineapple tops teriyaki burgers ($16) and aloha chicken salads ($15), and musubi ($5) come with a choice of four proteins — Spam, chicken katsu, barbecued chicken or Portuguese sausage — as well as a thin layer of house-made barbecue sauce. There’s even an off-menu dessert: mini malasadas — doughnuts dusted with cinnamon sugar and served à la carte or in an ice cream sundae.
Centerfolds previously served mainland classics such as burgers and fries and still rolls out bar food along with the occasional Philly cheesesteak during NFL games. Da #1 Hawaiian Grill launched about a year ago, said Eric, a manager who declined to give his last name to avoid judgment in his personal life. Chef Nick Mello pulled from Eric and his business partner’s family recipes to come up with dishes they hoped would stand out to customers on delivery apps.
So far, the plan has worked. About 65% of Da #1 Hawaiian Grill’s revenue comes from delivery apps, particularly after 9 or 10 p.m. when surrounding restaurants have shut down, Eric said. In-person customers, staff and dancers make up the remaining 35%.
“When people are coming to the club, obviously they’re not thinking about eating. It’s maybe the fourth or fifth thing on their minds. Most of our business comes in late-night, maybe when the bar gets closed or definitely on Friday and Saturday nights.”
Eric, a club manager
California state law prohibits alcohol sales when performers are nude below the belt, so Centerfolds’ cover charge ($21-$35 depending on the time and day) includes bottomless soda, juice and coffee.
There’s also a surprisingly ambitious list of nonalcoholic mixed drinks: oat milk matcha lattes, guava-raspberry lemonade and a pineapple-forward drink called the Gummi Bear topped with a skewer of green candies (all $5). Customers can’t dine on-site without paying the cover, but Centerfolds throws in a complimentary lunch item from 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. on Fridays.
Food is a common component in strip clubs elsewhere: Casa Diablo in Portland, for example, is all-vegan and includes a cheeky carrot in its logo. America’s most famous strip club, Magic City in Atlanta, is known for its lemon pepper wings, which pulled basketball player Lou Williams out of the NBA’s COVID-19 bubble in 2020.
Yet Centerfolds is the only Sacramento County strip club with a kitchen, a competitive edge — in theory. Eric brought in a veteran sushi chef for weekly pop-ups after seeing Men’s Club of Reno’s success with a full-time sushi bar, but Centerfolds customers didn’t order much, and they recently rolled back the chef’s visits to every other Saturday.
“People just don’t have the mindset that sushi and a strip club could go together,” Eric said. “… We want people to return not even for the club, but for the restaurant, too.”
Da #1 Hawaiian Grill
Address: 11363 Folsom Blvd., Rancho Cordova
Phone: 916-730-6177
Hours: 6 p.m.-midnight Monday-Thursday and Sunday, 11 a.m.-2:30 a.m. Friday, noon to 2:30 a.m. Saturday
Website: https://www.onehawaiiangrill.com/
Vegetarian/vegan options: Limited
Drinks: No alcohol, but creative mocktails. Coffee, tea, juice, energy drinks and soda included with admission.
Reservations: No
Benjy Egel is the senior food editor at Abridged. Born and raised in the Sacramento region, he has covered its local restaurants and bars since 2018. He also writes and edits Abridged’s weekly food and drink newsletter, City of Treats.