Allow me to jump in here ... since I have been involved in more than a few 'small' strip clubs in more than a few states.
If a $10 cover is the 'average' for your city, and if ( initially at least ) you can't offer club customers 'above average' entertainment, then you're stuck charging the same $10 max. Enforcing a 2 drink minimum, even juice bar, can successfully be used to supplement club revenues if necessary.
To avoid potential National Health Care Law related 1099 issues re dancer tip payments that go into effect in 2012, every person 'working' in the club that is not a dancer needs to be an EMPLOYEE of the club. This means an $8 an hour official paycheck from the club for the bouncer, DJ, doorman etc. ... plus modest sized non-mandatory dancer tip payments ( that are legally considered to be a gratuity not a 'business to business' transfer payment that must be accounted for via 1099's from dancers to DJ ).
If given an option of charging independent contractor dancers a 'house fee' but no / low percentage of her private dance sales, go with the 'house fee'. And if you want to do a 'tiered' house fee system, charge one fee for showing up on time ( perhaps $30 ) and a different house fee for showing up late / leaving early / not showing up at all if scheduled ( perhaps $60 ). You do not want to totally remove house fees since this incentivizes 'marginal' dancers who may be content to 'sit' all night instead of hustling. You also do not want to extract high percentages from private dance sales, since this DIS-incentivizes 'top shelf' dancers. If you want to temporarily waive the basic house fee while club is building clientele, don't waive the $30 premium for showing up late / leaving early / not showing up if scheduled. If you need more 'revenues' from dancers to keep the club in the black, try to keep the club's percentage to 25% of dancer private dance sales max, although avoiding a 'club's cut' percentage altogether incentivizes 'top shelf' dancers. It may also make sense to use a different 'house fee' and/or 'club's cut of private dances' percentages for slow weeknights versus more lucrative weekend nights ... with the former preferred over the latter since the latter DIS-incentivizes the 'top shelf' dancers you are trying to cultivate / retain ( i.e. normal 'house fee' $20 weeknights, $40 weekends, late / early / no show $40 weeknights, $80 weekends ).
With the size of your club, and the available software for 'automated DJ' functions, seriously consider giving the automated option a try. Doing so will reduce club expenses, as well as reducing dancer 'expenses' i.e. the 'voluntary' gratuity or the need for the club to extract a ( higher ) percentage of dancer private dance sales to cover DJ cost of labor. In your scenario, a full time bouncer and a full time door man ( = backup bouncer ) are more important than a human DJ
Consider revising your layout to use video surveillance instead of 'line of sight' to comply with your state law. The reason is that customer willingness to buy private dances is always compromised if every other customer can see what's going on during a private dance. Compartmentalized private dance rooms, each with a low profile video camera, gives the customer the 'illusion' of privacy which can't be achieved in the 'wide open room' scenario. The video surveillance can be monitored at a bank of remote video monitors by the bouncer which avoids having to make an obvious intrusion into the customer's private dance experience. This type of video surveillance is also recordable, which can come in extremely handy if an 'incident' were ever to occur ( although the 'threat' of recording is all that you actually need to implement for operational reasons if your initial budget can't handle recording capability ). If the video surveillance approach won't comply with state law ( which I doubt but only your attorney knows for sure ) there is also the option of two way side wall mirrors, which can be viewed by the bouncer from a secure corridor. Please understand that the wide open line of sight approach is a huge 'buzz kill' for private dance customers, thus a huge income kill for dancers, so if there is any possible way to avoid it you should try extremely hard to do so.
IMHO with such a small club, such a low dancer head count, and no alcohol, a VIP room business model is likely to be problematic. Instead, concentrate on making each separate private dance area 'nice' enough for the customer and dancer to be comfortable there for extended periods of time. Nothing kills a dancer's ability to keep selling consecutive private dances than an uncomfortable chair putting the customer's ass to sleep or scraping the dancer's knees ! Four to six well appointed, physically separated, comfortably furnished private dance 'rooms' with discretely placed security cameras will instead encourage consecutive private dance sales.
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It looks like the % is winning out.

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