EST. 1963
OUR HISTORY
Sixty-plus years in San Jose. One family. One address. The original.
1963
Pete Kuzinich Sr. TAKES a Chance
In September 1963, a 31-year-old man named Pete Kuzinich Sr. purchased a quiet little bar called Victor's Club at 328 South Bascom Avenue in San Jose. He wasn't looking to make history. He was just looking for a business he could call his own.
He had no idea what was about to happen.
The Night That Changed Everything
Two years after opening, Pete took a rare night off to visit the county fair. When he came back the next evening, the bar was packed. A couple of go-go dancers had taken their tops off — and the crowd had gone wild.
Pete immediately saw the opportunity. He checked with a lawyer. Topless dancing was legal. He closed the bar for a week, remodeled, and reopened with a new name: The Pink Poodle.
Within weeks, San Jose had its first adult entertainment venue — complete with live bands, headline performers, singers, and comedians. Business boomed. Word spread fast.
1965
1963 - 1973
They Tried to Shut It Down
In 1969, California passed a law outlawing nude dancing in establishments that served alcohol. Business at The Pink Poodle dropped off a cliff overnight. But Pete Kuzinich wasn't the kind of man who walked away.
He switched to screening films to keep the doors open. What followed were three years of raids, arrests — more than a dozen times — and 25 confiscated reels. Every time they came for him, he went to court. And every time he went to court, he won.
By 1973, Pete had won the right to return to live nude entertainment — without a liquor license, and with a reputation that no one in San Jose could touch.
Grandfathered by the 9th Circuit Court
In 1984, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that cities had the power to zone adult businesses out of existence. It was a ruling that shut down similar venues across California.
But the court included one exception: any all-nude entertainment venue that already existed and had been operating would be permanently grandfathered in. The only venue that qualified in San Jose was The Pink Poodle.
The Pink Poodle is the only legally operating all-nude club in San Jose — by law, permanently.
1984
"They put me in a corner, and the only way I could see was to use movies to pay my bills, even at the risk of going to jail. It was my only way of getting my day in court."
— Pete Kuzinich Sr., San Jose Mercury News, 1996
