Greeting card store owner JillAnne shows her customer appreciation with in-store pole dances

JillAnne is a greeting card designer who owns her own store in the lower East Side. If a customer buys $50 worth of cards, she'll do a pole dance.

The acrobatic owner of a lower East Side greeting card store is putting a new spin on customer appreciation - by pole-dancing for her patrons.

At her store of the same name on Allen St., shapely shopkeeper JillAnne strips down to "bootie shorts" and heels for anyone who spends $50.

"If they want to tip me, they can," said the California-born artist, who also keeps a pole in her one-bedroom apartment. "Just don't touch."

The store opened in October, selling greeting cards and calendars of JillAnne's design in a space so narrow that she sometimes smacks the walls with her heels while spinning from the pole.

"I can't go all-out in here," lamented JillAnne, who stands 5-feet-7 even before she slips into her 6-inch heels.

The R-rated performances, usually set to tunes far less raucous than those heard at places like Scores, have drawn appreciative customers and brought bewildered passersby in off the street.

"They see the cards, then they see me pole-dancing," said JillAnne, who uses only one name. "So they pop their heads in and say, 'What is this?'"

JillAnne in her greeting card store on Allen St. (Handschuh/News).

The former model opened the brick-and-mortar store after spending 11 years selling merchandise wholesale online at JillAnne.com.

The artist also hawks stripper heels, tiny tank tops and shorts - and even has $350 poles for sale alongside a range of birthday, bar mitzvah and sympathy cards.

"I'd go stir-crazy if I was just working straight," JillAnne said. "I'm not in some office where I can just go to the next cubicle and take a break."

JillAnne admits she's no born athlete, although she did gymnastics as a child.

She caught the pole-dancing bug after performing on a mock rickshaw at a gay pride parade. Now, she is a contortionist who can hang upside down and balance in midair with only her thighs gripping the metal pole.

"You don't want me on your football, baseball or basketball team," she said. "But pole dancing? You want me on your team.