by Alden Rivers

It was a time when things were simpler--when large houses, not small cars, cost twenty thousand dollars and gasoline was eighteen cents a gallon. It was 1955 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and with a plan only the mind of a seventeen-year-old boy could contrive, Randy Betattini schemes his way inside a strip joint. Lola, the stripper pictured outside is his main objective. Before the night is through he lands himself a job as a singer between the more exotic acts.

Fay, the club's manager, becomes his nemesis. Ruling with an iron hand, she deems the women in the show off limits to him. But he finds a way, and in Lola's tiny room above the club their forbidden affair begins.

Randy's parents know nothing of his new career, and thus, his double life begins.

Meanwhile, on stage each night, the girls in the show strive to outdo each other. With full nudity against the law, they have only their ingenuity, originality, and costumes to compete with, leaving the best parts always to the imagination. In keeping with the reminiscence of this time gone by, violence is similarly kept at a minimum.

Poignant and humorous, The Cafe Royal is truly a coming-of-age story of the fifties.