Mensa Lounge & Nightclub

Liars. They weren’t very bright at all.
But you can’t get a drink at a Mensa meeting — well, perhaps a little dry sherry served up with a heaping side of pretention. And a garnish of utter boredom.
Not good. Not bad. But not smart.

** My friends and I are regulars on the Saturday nights for Touch it, so my experience is based on just how Mensa Lounge is on Saturday nights.
Some people complain about the expensive drinks at the bar, but I didn’t buy drinks the nights that I went. .so I can neither confirm nor refute this.
The environment is nice – it’s furnished well with a lot of red modern looking couches off to the side with narrow floor to ceiling mirrors behind and to the side of them. There’s a patio in the front for smoking, and sometimes people hang out in the back when they’re taking a break from dancing.
The ladies bathroom is a bit odd, because they use a shower instead of an actual door between the sink and the toilet.
Otherwise, it has $ 5 parking across the street which is more convenient than having to look for street parking. Beats driving all the way to LA to dance

UPDATE 1÷8÷08:
So Club Touch It is no more. :’(It’s been gone for a few months now, actually, I just haven’t Unilocaled in quite a while! Supposedly the owner/​manager? of the place was a total dick whom the CTI peeps were sick of working with any longer. They tried moving the club to the Queen Mary but alas douchebags arose there too. :(So (for now) Club Touch It is no more. Still thought Mensa was a cool hangout… it’s a shame the people there couldn’t match up with its greatness.
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Love this place! It’s a small but roomy lounge that definately sets the mood for some late night dancing! The dancefloor’s in the corner but the place is so spread out you can dance anywhere! Great lounge area and bar… although keep a close eye on your money when buying drinks. I gave my friend a $ 20 bill to go buy me a $ 4 drink and she came back with $ 12. Yeah… total ripoff! The girl’s bathroom is pretty… umm… interesting. haha They have curtains for doors, so privacy is a little sketchy but not horrible. Overall everything is really hip and clean inside. Plus it’s home to my FAVORITE nightclub — Club TOUCH IT. Every 1^st, 2^nd & 3^rd Saturday of the month. 18+ — $ 5 cover — Ladies FREE before 11pm. Take a break from studying and come check this place out! Only 15 minutes away from CSULB and there’s a convenient $ 5 parking lot right across the street. You definately need to come out one night and experience this place! And while you’re at it say hi to me — I’ll be the one rocking out to Michael Jackson. haha :P

The name of this bar is deceiving. With a name like Mensa, you’d think you’d be surrounded by bespeckled intellectuals reading the likes of Kafka or Dostoevsky, but in actuality it’s a slightly cheesy, overpriced 18-​and-​over club.
Also, the women’s bathroom has two toilets with shower curtains instead of doors. I’m sorry, but a shower curtain is NOT a good substitute for a door! First of all, it’s hard to tell if someone is behind the curtain and you have to look for feet; secondly, there’s NO sound barrier at all; and thirdly, the door swings open INTO one of the curtains so you think you’re being barged into. The bathroom situation definitely gets one star.
The parking situation also gets one star because if you can’t find street parking (which is usually the case) you have to pay $ 5 to park in the lot across the street. Who pays for parking in Long Beach, you ask? We did, that’s who. We also paid $ 8 to get in but that was okay because we were there to support our friends’ band (Look Daggers – check them out on MySpace!).
The reason I’m allowing for two stars is because it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting it to be – my friend (fellow Unilocaler Sarah T.) was there for a DJ night (to support one of our DJ friends who was spinner there) a few weeks ago and said that the VAST majority of the patrons were underage and lame. Luckily the night I was there there were more people of age than there were youngsters, and our friends were all huddled in the corner (we got there early enough to nab a couch and a few velvety stools).
One cool thing was the outdoor smoking patio – you feel like you’re outside but it’s actually all covered. (Non-​smokers be not afraid: There’s enough ventilation so that you don’t have to struggle to breathe.)
Another con is that the security fools tried to get me to throw away the ballpoint pen in my purse. The same thing happened to me at the Glass House in Pomona a few weeks back – they made me throw it out because I might «tag the walls» with it. Mike and I scoffed at this and told them it was the most ridiculous thing we’d ever heard. BUt anyway, luckily this time my roommate was outside and overheard what was going on (I was pleading with them to not make me throw away the pen and promising that I wasn’t a tagger) and told them that I was «with the band» and was thus okay. They listened to him and my pen was spared. But seriously, what’s up with this ridiculous new rule? If it was a Sharpie I’d understand. But it would take 10 years to successfully tag with a ballpoint pen! And since when do I look like a tagger? Ugh.
If you’re going to the Mensa Lounge to support a talented friend or two, there are worse places you could be. But I wouldn’t recommend it as a place to just hang out and grab a drink. Unless you don’t carry a pen with you, don’t mind paying to park, like drinking among 18-​year-​olds, and enjoy feeling like there’s nothing between you and the toilet across from you when doing your business.