Glenn Nicie says it's like comparing a burger van to a fancy restaurant. "Both sell food but are very different," he says. Except food isn't his business. He's operations manager of For Your Eyes Only, a national chain of tableside dancing clubs preparing to open its first establishment in the North-East.

Newcastle, he points out, already has a tradition of strippers in pubs. Certainly, shows featuring attractive women wearing little clothing and gyrating for the pleasure of alcohol-imbibing males are nothing new in the city. Only the other week, Tyne Tees Television screened a 30-year-old documentary showing North-East men going down the pub for a pint and a stripper while their wives slaved over a hot stove cooking Sunday lunch.

Hence his talk of burger vans and fancy restaurants. If pub strippers are the former, his club is the latter. "Lavish and sexy" is how he describes the table-dancing clubs which have a no touching policy.

He'll go further and explain the difference between tableside, lap and friction dancing - definitions absent from most dictionaries. "In tableside dancing, a girl will dance for you opposite your table with no touching. Lap dancing is where the girl gets on your lap and, in friction dancing, she moves on your lap to the point of no return," he explains delicately.

Dancers at For Your Eyes Only go no further than tableside dancing, charging £10 for a three-minute personal dance to a recorded track.

The opening of the £1m club in Carliol Square early next month follows 18 months of planning and meetings with local authorities and the police.

"Basically, we were telling them who and what we are. We have over eight years history of running table-dancing clubs in the UK," says Nicie, a Kiwi who came to this country 14 years ago.

"People have a perception and generally it's wrong, especially about us. There are other clubs out there and we all get tarred with the same brush. We are a plc company reporting back to a board of directors. We probably have a lot more rules and regulations than any other club in the UK. It allows us to deliver legally."

The FYEO chain, part of a bigger company involved in hotels and wine bars among other things, began after Nicie's former boss visited a table-dancing club in Toronto. "He doesn't drink and he doesn't smoke but he came back and said, 'I actually enjoyed myself without the inducement of alcohol. I think it might work over here'," he explains.

"We spent time over there talking to various parties, some of whom had been doing it for 20 years. We brought some of the ideas over here and tweaked them.

"We opened the first For Your Eyes Only eight months ahead of Peter Stringfellow and have gone from strength to strength".

The North-East operation follows clubs in London, Bournemouth and Southampton. "Newcastle is a fantastic place, a thriving city growing up really fast. It's a fun city with a diverse culture and a reputation for pub stripping," he says.

He believes that quality control - and that extends from the dancers to the customers - is the key to FYEO's success. The Newcastle application was backed by support from the powers-that-be in areas where they already operate.

Not everyone welcomed them with open arms. "Newcastle University decided they didn't want us. But, to be honest, we've had nothing but support from the general public," says Nicie.

"A lot of people think we attract the black mac, dirty old man brigade. It's not been like that for a long time. It's guys like you and me, business people, couples as well. We provide a nice clean environment and some pretty girls around them."

The new club can accommodate 300 customers downstairs and a further 250 upstairs, with a 5pm to 3am licence. The dancers will be topless, not fully nude as in some other clubs. "Nothing that can cause offence," he says. "There will always be girls dancing on the stage. You don't have to have private dancers, although nearly all the guys do."

He's confident of attracting the right sort of customer. "Newcastle has a culture that's well travelled so there will be people who've heard of us, although I'm sure some will think it's a Chinese restaurant."

Nicie says dancers like the FYEO approach, too, as the regulations are clearly laid down. House rules include no physical contact between the dancer and customer during the performance.

FYEO has opened a pole and tableside dancing school for women at the Mayfair club, offering an evening class diploma course. "The school is ideal for people to learn new moves for the nightclub dance floors, at home to spice up their lives, to lose weight and maybe for girls wanting a career change," says founder Uthania Jackson.

And Nicie adds: "We opened it mainly because so many girls applied but hadn't performed before. It works extremely well."