For Shon Boulden, what started as a joke turned into an overnight sensation. Originally dubbed “Boober Eats,” his food delivery service “Lucky Devil Eats” brings the strip club experience — and some tasty food — to the doors of Portland residents.

On Monday, March 16th, Shon Boulden had a club full of people. The music was pumping, drinks were flowing, girls were in various stages of undress and customers were enjoying themselves.

Well, “full” is a relative term. Boulden co-owns two adult clubs in Portland, Oregon — Lucky Devil and Devil’s Point — and both are small enough that they fit within the parameter of operating a business of “under 50 persons” per the governor’s orders to combat the spread of COVID-19. Then the news report came in: The governor’s orders had once again changed. All non-essential businesses were forced to close. Not in a few days, not tomorrow: NOW.

Shon Boulden
Shon Boulden

“It’s very difficult to tell your staff and customers, everyone, that they have to leave immediately,” says Boulden. “But that’s what happened at 7 pm on March 16th. I saw the tidal wave coming, I had been following the story across Europe, so I knew it was only a matter of time for us as well. It’s very difficult because all of the bars, restaurants, strip clubs, all of us had to prepare supply orders, employee schedules, etc., and yet we kept getting these changes from the governor. But finally, on the Monday before St. Patrick’s Day, I could tell my staff something concrete: We were now closed.”

Boulden quickly moved into hibernation mode: They cleared the liquor off the shelves, boarded up the windows and cleaned out the safes. Then, Boulden and a few of his entertainers and staff went to Lucky Devil to have a final drink, a “cheers” of sorts, to life, and to whatever was coming next.

“As a joke, I tweeted that the dancers would deliver the food, and we’d call it ‘Boober Eats.’ That tweet went out late Monday night. I realized quickly, people will pay for this! I have to jump on this! I immediately started texting my staff and entertainers, and told them that we’d start doing this food delivery.” – Shon Boulden

“That night, while we were there having our toast, I sent out a tweet,” Boulden recalls. “At the Lucky Devil Lounge we have a great kitchen, so why don’t we just jump on the food-delivery-service bandwagon? I could continue to pay these staff members an hourly wage, keep our kitchen open and some revenue coming in. As a joke, I tweeted that the dancers would deliver the food, and we’d call it ‘Boober Eats.’ That tweet went out late Monday night.”

Of course, Boulden had no clue that when he woke up the next day his tweet would have gone viral. But it did.

“People were already asking about the service—how do I get it, how much does it cost,” says Boulden. “I realized quickly, people will pay for this! I have to jump on this! I immediately started texting my staff and entertainers, and told them that we’d start doing this food delivery. Our security guards and girls met at the bar that day, and we started working it all out.

“Our first question for the girls was, are they going to flash their boobs?” Boulden continues. “No, we decided; let’s have the girls wear pasties, we can get away with that in Oregon. We also knew that we couldn’t just send dancers by themselves, so we paired them up with a ‘buddy’; two girls, with certified security staff as the drivers. So we posed for pictures and did some videos. The bar became an office, and all of a sudden that first day the phones went crazy.”

So “Boober Eats” as they were calling it at the time (an obvious take-off on Uber Eats) was up, running, and very popular. But Boulden didn’t know yet exactly how popular his new invention would become.

“The first publication to pick up on it was (Portland paper) the Willamette Week, then a local news station came down, then the major daily (newspaper), the Oregonian, did a story on it, then a video about what we were doing went on YouTube which got three million views,” says Boulden. “From there I just started getting all these hits from radio stations, talk radio in Florida, Montreal, Canada, New York, and then my email just started blowing up. As I was going through my email I stumbled on this one from Rolling Stone. I thought holy shit, Rolling Stone! A few hours later we were published in Rolling Stone, then the Huffington Post, New York Post, and then it got even crazier after that. There was a bunch of international stuff; a reporter from Spain, a German reporter came out for three days and did a 20-minute documentary. And MTV just hit us up; they sent us (audio/video equipment) to record our day. People keep sending podcast requests and we get mentions by people like David Spade and Shaquille O’Neal. It’s been a wild ride.”

Not surprisingly, it didn’t take long for Uber to see this publicity as well. Boulden got his cease and desist letter from Uber, a “slap on the wrist” as he describes it, and simply changed the name to Lucky Devil Eats, the name by which it is known today — and it’s still going strong.

“It’s fun, it’s keeping everyone employed and keeping us sane,” says Boulden. “And you can’t buy this type of viral fame or publicity. A cool thing about it is a lot of people joke about it, but in the end they’re still like, ‘(Lucky Devil) is doing a great job.’ It’s shedding a positive light on the industry, showing that people in our industry can adapt to chaotic situations and thrive in them. It’s bringing exotic dancing into the mainstream even more, which is good for the industry and very good for us.”

Lest anyone think Boulden is being cavalier about hand-delivering food at such a precarious time, he is quick to point out that precautions are strict and regularly adhered to.

“Everyone is safe, we have stringent safety protocols,” Boulden explains. “We take (staff and entertainer) temperatures everyday, gloves and masks are required, there’s soap and hand sanitizer everywhere, we practice social distancing and are very strict about that six-foot rule.”

New set of skills, new revenue stream

Shon Boulden realizes that his is a unique position. He’s a single guy with two small clubs, a total of 60-70 entertainers and a handful of staff. With Lucky Devil Eats, he’s been able to help at least some of them earn money while the clubs are closed and put food on their tables. And in the process, he’s been able to make the best of a terrible situation by learning and executing and entirely new business, one that he never imagined he’d venture into.

“I’m a single guy and I don’t have a lot of responsibilities outside of this, so I was able to work 18-hour days at the club putting this all together,” says Boulden. “A lot of other owners don’t have this luxury of flexibility. We’d never delivered food before, and there was a lot of procedural stuff I had to learn; how do we conduct ourselves, how do we pay everyone, what do we wear, etc. But now everything has gotten pretty seamless.

“I’ve had to learn a whole new set of tools in order to run this business,” he adds. “In the past several weeks I’ve picked up so many new ways of advertising. We now have a Shopify page, Amazon seller account, website updates, and new ways of communicating with our staff (Whats app).”

“Right now real life sucks, we’ve lost that escapism. But at least here in Portland, what you can do is order some food and beers and we can bring the strip club to you for five minutes. People are surprising their buddy for their birthday who’s quarantined at home. Two babes wearing next to nothing saying happy birthday … it’s just a sliver of fun, but it’s more than what a lot of people can get right now. I’m having a blast doing this.” – Shon Boulden

Boulden also notes that this “new normal” has changed his perspective on being a micromanager. While he previously had a difficult time delegating anything important, this new food delivery service has not only forced him to manage differently, it has allowed him the opportunity to get to know his staff and entertainers better and acknowledge the unique skills they bring to the table.

“Every aspect of the bar, I used to just do it myself,” says Boulden. “Now I’m able to delegate so many things to employees, which has taken such a load off of me. I ran all the social media, scheduling, liquor orders, maintenance, bar, etc. But my staff wants to work, they want to learn, and we’re all learning a lot in the process. Some of these girls have 200,000 Instagram followers and they know things about social media that I never knew, so now I’ve put them in charge. Different people are in charge of different social media pages, and I pay them a fraction what I’d pay a ‘professional’ to run these pages.”
Pardon the pun, but Boulden understands that he’s “lucky,” given what other clubs across the US are enduring.

“I feel for the guys who have $25,000 lease payments a month, 200 dancers and multiple managers every night,” Boulden says. “I feel bad because it’s a machine that is not working anymore. How many lease payments can you eat before you can’t eat anymore? We’re on a smaller scale with a different level of income. It’s scary thinking that part of our industry might not survive this; there’s already one (adult club) in Portland who announced that they’re closed for good. And that’s just strip clubs. There are likely lots of bars in town who will close as well.”

Reality is, Boulden doesn’t know when his clubs are going to reopen, or what limitations the city of Portland or state of Oregon may place on his operation. He’s confident, though, that someday very soon, Lucky Devil and Devil’s Point, the 2019 ED’s “Small Club of the Year” Award Winner in the West region, will reignite. Those liquor bottles will be back on the shelves, the girls will be back on the stage and the customers will fill the seats. But until then, Lucky Devil Eats will continue to bring the mobile strip club experience — and some pretty good food — to lucky residents of Rip City.

A Lucky Devil entertainer keeps her sense of humor!
A Lucky Devil entertainer keeps her sense of humor!

“Right now real life sucks, we’ve lost that escapism,” says Boulden. “But at least here in Portland, what you can do is order some food and beers and we can bring the strip club to you for five minutes. This is what motivates us, what gets us up in the morning. People are surprising their buddy for their birthday who’s quarantined at home. Two babes wearing next to nothing saying happy birthday … it’s just a sliver of fun, but it’s more than what a lot of people can get right now. I’m having a blast doing this.”

As for what that day is going to be like, when adult clubs open their doors again, Boulden already has a mental image working.

“It’s gonna be like the end scene in (Star Wars’) ‘Return of the Jedi’ when the Empire is defeated,” says Boulden. “There will be bonfires, people dancing, it will be epic.”

Visit luckydevillounge.com for more information. To read the entire May issue of ED Magazine on your desktop, tablet or smartphone for free, tap right here!


Note: Since this article was published in the May issue of ED Magazine, Boulden and Lucky Devil began featuring a “drive-thru” restaurant, where customers could pick up their food while going through a drive-thru strip club. This story, too, has gone viral!

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