John Terzian: Bottle Service, Billionaires, and the Business of Cool | E157 - In Search Of Excellence

Episode Transcript
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John Terzian (00:00):
Every night is there crazy shit going on at

(00:01):
your nightclubs? We had someoneit was so upset refused to pay
his bill because he wasn'tallowed to order cocaine from
us. Is the customer alwaysright? I'd say 50% of the time
they're kind of wrong, but it'snot worth it unless there's
something like any sort ofsexual harassment, any sort of
drug related outside of that,the customer is always someone's

Randall Kaplan (00:21):
gonna spend $100,000 for a booth that holds
10 to 14 people for four hoursworth of entertainment. They're

very smart. A good time is priceless.

You're listening to part two of my incredible
interview with John turzi andone of my closest friends, the
founder of the HW group, whichowns legendary places like
Bootsy Bellows, the night sky,delilahs, and they're building
six more as we speak, one of thethings that's made you
successful, and one of the greatthings about humanity, and we'll
talk about more, is the loyaltythat you have toward people
who've done nice things for you.
So tell us about John, Sophiaand the deal that you did, and

(01:01):
then the relationship thatyou've developed over time. So

feel is, yeah, he's our designer, builder,
everything. And I met him, Ithink, through guy starkman, to
be honest, early on, he wasreally building homes. I didn't
have $1 to my name, and when Igot shore bar, I had to redo it,
and I had no money. And so Itold him, if he did this,

(01:27):
because, you know, anyone canlook at it for basically
nothing, I'd use him for myempire that I was going to have
and, and, you know, most peoplethink that's crazy, and, but he
did it. He was like, you know, Ibelieve I'll take the shot. So
I've stayed true to my word.
He's built for for 12 years. Imean, we've done, I think, 30
places now, or something, 25places. And I've he's done every

(01:49):
single one. I've stayed true tomy word on that regard. And I'm
very big on that.

You're not in the mafia, but you built a place
that you call the friends mafia,your first restaurant. So tell
us about the nice guy, where thename came from, and then the
evolution of that concept fromstart to finish. So

the concept came from as we got we got pretty
big. We were, we were gettinggoing in the nightclub world,
where we were really known as,like the nightclub guys, which
is good and bad. So it's great.
We're making money. We'resuccessful, ish, you know, at a
young age, but we're really twothings. We're really pigeon
holed as nightclub guys, andthen also we're mostly, like

(02:30):
normal guys and like, ourfriends and stuff, aren't all
going to nightclubs, like theyactually want restaurant or a
lounge or whatever. So we havethis idea, especially as
paparazzi got even more massivewith this idea of doing a super
private like almost hybrid cluband restaurant. Didn't know
where we were going to do it orbut this idea of doing it, and

(02:53):
everyone's like, Oh, you know,it's crazy to do that. You know,
you kind of one or the otherand, and the original plan was,
I'm a I'm like, I eat like afive year old. So the original
plan was only pizzas and a bar,right? And we ended up finding a
space. And the where the namecame from is, is to two ways. Is

(03:14):
Adam was one of our partners atthe time actually had a dream
about having a place called niceguys or something like that, and
and so that always, like, stuckwith me. And when we were
building it, we had this oneinvestor committed to it.
Whatever we were, we were, like,midway through, like sticks in

(03:36):
the ground and like, notanywhere near close, but like,
had already, you know, we weremore than pregnant on the space
that we had. And he walks in oneday, and he basically is, like,
I just found out, you guysaren't doing a nightclub. We're
like, I never said I was doing anightclub. He's like, Well,
you're doing a restaurant. Like,No way. I'm investing in a
restaurant. And I'm like, well,it's like, a hybrid. He's like,

(03:59):
that doesn't work. And soanyway, long story short, as he
went off, he's like, I'm notdoing it. I'm pulling out. And
he was like, You're he's like,also way too nice. You're way
too nice of a guy to have thiswork. And so name the place a
nice guy, you know, based onthis guy pulling out, we got
completely screwed on on, thatended up finding investors to

(04:21):
build it. Built out more of anactual restaurant. Whole Italian
thing kind of based it on, like,our, my whole thing was, like,
we were gonna have a placethat's like, our friends and
their friends, almost like acheers. I call it a mafia where
it's like, you know, it'severyone that like you're
friends with and associatedwith, because to this day, but

(04:42):
especially then, is the only wayyou could get in. Our
reservation was from on ourRolodex, so you got to be
through one of us. And so that'show, that's how the nice guy
came about. It's

an awesome venue. I've been there 50 times.
I had a birthday party thereonce we. With all my buds and
friends and family. It's, it'swhat you've done there is
incredible. And the food hasreally improved dramatically. I
mean, from and from where youwere when you opened. It's, it's
fantastic. Let's talk about thenightclub market itself. I'm

(05:16):
going to read some statisticshere. Sure. So there's 21,000
nightclubs in the United States,the US, bar nightclub market in
2023 in the US, $37.6 billionglobally, $468.2 billion there's
not a lot of data today on howmuch each night club does. But
in 2015 Forbes printed. Forbesreleased the numbers. Excess

(05:42):
nightclub in Los Angeles, 103$205 million hackathon in Las
Vegas, 100 $203 million Marquisin Las Vegas, 80, $85 million
tau in Las Vegas, 50 to $55million and live in Miami, 40 to
$45 million or some nightclubsreally earning $100 million a

(06:03):
year, yes,

but that's Vegas.
Las Vegas is an outlier overall.
You know, it's just, it's, it'sa place where everything comes
together. So, yeah, they, theyare doing that, and it's a, it's
a great market, and it's greatfor that, but hard pressed to do
that anywhere outside of LasVegas, even Miami. It's it's

(06:25):
really one in the whole world.

Explain what the economics of a nightclub
business really is. How does itwork? How do you make money? And
then in Las Vegas in particular,and maybe in Miami, explain to
people what a beach party is

the truth. The truth is the way you really make
money is by in the nightclubworld, are whatever. Handful of
bottle buyers are like the tablebuyers are like the bar itself
is the minimus, and even theeven the ticket, even if a place
is in Vegas or whatever, wedon't sell tickets in our
places. But that's minor. It's,it's the table buyers, the guys

(07:02):
or girls that are spending 50100 grand on tables. That's,
that's why it's big business.

Okay, so there's a lot of people watching this,
10s of 1000s, who probably neverbeen to a nightclub. It's a
crazy concept. So the nightclubmay have 50 booths. Maybe
there's the front row, they'remore expensive the middle the
back, someone's gonna spend$100,000 for a booth that holds

(07:29):
10 to 14 people for four hoursworth of entertainment.

Yes. Who are these people? They're very smart. A
good time is priceless. I'mclearly very for it.

It's great. So it's

just, it's at the end of the day, it's just, it's
just an experience at the veryend of the day, whatever it is,
it's while it might be a lot ofmoney, and everything is
relative. So if you're intoneeding an experience, it's fun,
and you want your own realestate. It's really a real
estate game. Like, you have yourown table, you have your own

(08:07):
servers at the end of the day.
Like, that's that's really whatit is. And see, that's your
night out.

The experience is someone's performing,
typically, performer, or DJ,yeah, a DJ. So a lot of people
also don't know how much thesepeople are getting paid in a
night. I learned about this. Oneof Madison's best friend was
dating Calvin Harris, and wewent to dinner one night, and
which is very, very cool, by theway, I tell you another story so

(08:35):
you know that I'm out in thescene, and I really don't know
who's who in the scene, andMadison's friend Eva Shah, who
you know, was dating CalvinHarris, and Madison tells me,
I'm leaving the office. Thereare two interns there. I'm
walking out at six o'clock, thedinners at seven o'clock, and we
host. I got to go home change.
And one of the interns said, Oh,what are you up to tonight? I'm
having dinner with one ofMadison's friend. He's a DJ. And

(08:57):
he said, Oh, you know, do youknow his name? And I said, Yeah,
Kelvin something. And theyKelvin Harris said, Yeah. And
said, Who's that? And said, ohgod, he's the biggest ever. And
went back home and looked atlooked online, and Forbes said
he makes $70 million per year.
And I'm thinking, Oh God, thisguy's gonna be an arrogant

(09:19):
asshole. Another Hollywoodperson is going to be all into
himself and not ask me anyquestions. And I walked out of
there with a man crush, thenicest guy in the world. Polite
asking, incredible, nice but,but I learned, I said, you know,
without being weird about itthis public, I said, How do you
make 10s of millions of dollarsper year. Forbes said you made

(09:41):
$70 million per year. And said,Well, he said, I got paid
usually 500,000 to a milliondollars per night. Yeah, to DJ,
to DJ. So not, it's not a bandin a stadium where you're
traveling with 18 trucks andsetting up and have costs. He's
bringing like a little USBstick. He's got a turntable.
It's not even his. That's.
There, but he's the top of thegame, right? But then you'll get

(10:01):
the chain smokers now are amillion dollars totally. What's
an average DJ that peopleactually want to come see? Don't
name names, but like, someonewho can pull people in the door,
how much they get paid? Yeah,like, what's the minimum? I'd

say a good DJ that can, like, whatever that pulls
names, is probably 20 grand. 25grand can bring people in. Yeah,
it doesn't have to be, you know,once upon a time it was, you
know, $500 but, but you know,your average person is 25 grand.
Then your your bigger DJs thatare the Vegas Miami ones are,

(10:40):
you know, anywhere from 100 to500 grand a spin, you know, a
set. La doesn't do that. Miamidoesn't really even do that
level. It's really only in Vegasand overseas and private where
you do that type of

dollar amount.
Nightclubs are only open two orthree nights a week, and there's
different nights at this nightclub is cool, that night club is
cool. You generally don'tcompete for those nights. So who
decides who gets what night andwhat nights are cool? You

know, it's just, it's a matter. It's like any
business you're living andbreathing it. So you got to just
kind of know the landscape andwho's the promotions that are
the right ones, that know whatto do and when, where people are
gravitating to, and you knowwhat the competitor is doing and
what you should be like. It's,it's definitely just living and
breathing. There's not a ascience or a crystal ball to it.

(11:32):
It's just, it's no differentfrom any other business. You
gotta like, like, live andbreathe it. And that's why it's,
it's not easy, it's hard. It'shard to know what it is, but if
you're in it, you can kind ofget a sense, you know. And
what's the cost to open atypical nightclub can vary, you
know, the way we build top ofthe line. So, you know, ours
are, you know, five to 10million, you know. So in Vegas,

(11:57):
they're, you know, 100 million.

Someone spent $100 million to open a
nightclub, yeah, who did that?

I think it's multiple, actually. So I won't,
I won't name names, but most ofthem spend a you're spending
real money.

Delilah is your restaurant, signature
restaurant, which the first onewas in LA. Second one is in
Vegas. $20 million build out.

Yep, little less, but yeah, 25 huge, yeah.

Can some random schmo call and say, hey, I want
a reservation until I love days.

In theory, you should be able to, but it's
been, it's, it's a hard, it's ahard reservation. Thank God. So
we hope, hopefully, can get toeveryone. But yeah, it's, it's,
a long process of of getting

a booking. Glad we're friends. Night clubs don't
stay cool forever. So what's theaverage length of period of time
nightclub is open, and how doyou keep it cool?

You know, it's a tough question, because I used
to always say, 334, years max,our nightclub shelves,

so, so, so spending five to ten million on
nightclub, it's open two orthree days a week, and it has
that sort of a shelf life. Yeah.

I mean, we've had Poppy open for, you know, eight
years now. So I shouldn't say,you know, it's not and bootsies
was open 11 or 12 years. LasVegas, whole different month.
You know, their places are open20 years. Very different Miami,
a little bit the same way. Asfar as keeping it cool or hot,
if you will, you have to, justhave to be in the venue. You

(13:32):
have to have the right teamthat's there. And you have to,
like, if the minute you'reremoved as an owner operator or
the team is that's with you,you're going to lose that touch
or that how to keep evolving?
Because the key is to keepevolving and keeping on edge.
Because, you know, music changesmonthly. You know, DJs change
monthly. I mean, it's a wholething.

Are the investors in nightclub men who
want to be cool and have sexwith beautiful women.

I love your questions. I would say that's
probably a lot of people. That'snot us. We have, unfortunately,
to have, we have, we have anormal investor backing. Um, I
would say, you know, look, Idon't know if it's, I don't know
if it's as direct as that, butI'm sure there's a lot of, I'm
sure there's a lot of nightclubinvestors. It's like, hey, this

(14:23):
will be my social life, youknow. So I'm sure that's what it
is. Anything more direct thanthat is pretty creepy and
probably not the type ofinvestor you want.

Been at nightclubs a few times, you
know, I have like, a quota, youknow, one, one or three times a
year, depending on who isinviting me and where we are.
And I always looked at thesepeople, you know, you make your
money on the bottle service, onthe tables, and those people who
don't know, and for those peoplewho do, when someone buys a
table or a big bottle orsomething, the women come out.
You know, there's five or sixwomen. It's like a parade of

(14:54):
women carrying down Perignonbottles with sparklers coming
out, like, who. People paying,you know, 25 you know, $100,000
for a table. I'm like, theseguys are, are losers, right? And
then at my bachelor party,hackathon, which you arranged,
you know, all the girls came outwith the other bottle of

(15:16):
sparklers, you know, Randy on.
I'm like, Hey, man, that'spretty good, pretty fun, pretty
fun. I know one and done, but itwas fun. Maybe not one and done,
but it was really fun. I'm

telling you. It's human nature to see something
sparkly and fun, and you'relike, I want that. Yeah, it's as
old as time. It's as simple asthat. And that's like, what goes
down honestly? You know, that'swhat happens in these places. Do

people pay you to put their brand of alcohol in
your venues? You told me thisstory once, and I'm not going to
name names, but there's someonewho's very successful
entrepreneur, very, very wellknown guy, billionaire, who
owned a I'm not going to saywhat kind of brand, because I
really don't want people tofigure out, but they to figure

(16:03):
out, but they own some kind of abrand, and he was coming into
your venues to pitch you tocarry his alcohol brand. Are
people paying for shelf space toget in? No,

I mean, you can't.
You really can't do that. Theydo, they do sponsor parties. So
when we have events and stuffand we need a liquor sponsor or
something, and they're puttingthose marketing dollars there,
that is a very massive thing.
That's, that's like a majoraspect of it. But no, you, you

(16:37):
don't you, it'd be too it. Youcan't do it that way, on, on
being paid to, because the bigcompanies then would have a
monopoly. So who's the

typical customer coming in and spending 25 to
$100,000 on the table? It'sfunny, I

have this. It varies. Like, every few years.
It's like, whoever is up like,right now the crypto people, you
know. So thank God for cryptoup, you know, you know, few year
or whatever it was few yearsago, it was the mortgage people.
It just, there's, like, a cycleof people always, like, who
knows, you know. So there'sthat, and then, you know,

(17:18):
there's inheritance, there'scorporate, there's, it just
varies, you know, and, and look,you're talking about the extreme
25 grand. The average table is,you know, like two grand, 2500
something like that. So you getyour, you get your nuts and
bolts, or your, you know, off ofthe average table. And then the
hope is, every night, but thehope is, I don't know, once a
week or whatever, you getsomeone big spending 50 grand,

(17:41):
100 grand type of thing. That'sthat's the name of the game.

Petra Ecclestone is the daughter of the f1
founder who famously bought theold spelling mansion for 100
million dollars. Ex husband,James stunt would come in when I
spent $150,000 on Crystalchampagne. Oh, yeah, he declared
bankruptcy two months later, twoyears later, sorry about that?

(18:06):
Oh, not really, because he Yeah,maybe you're sorry because he
didn't come in again. Yeah, it'sunfortunate. Then, then you've
had Middle Eastern clients comein as well spending. There was
some rose vintage down per youngbottles that were $40,000 each.
There was one in particular. I'mnot going to name names again,
but who bought two bottles? Tonyle Penna. Shout out to Tony.

(18:28):
Love them. I think he had to goto drive to Las Vegas to go get
these bottles. They're very,very hard to get, and then bring
them back. You're catering towhat's known as whales. How do
you recruit them and how do youkeep them happy the

end of the day, I always say I'm not in the bar
business or the food business,I'm in the people business. So
our whole thing is catering tohospital. We're all in
hospitality. So we do anythingand everything for our clients,
especially our whales, which arebig spenders. That's legal. We
don't do anything outside ofthat, but anything they can do

(19:05):
to make their entertainment lifelike enjoyable and perfect. They
want a certain type ofcigarette, they want a certain
type of ashtray, certain type ofliquor, water, where they stay
like whatever we are doing,every aspect of it in that
regard. And I think that's whatreally separates a real a good
Hospitality Group. It's

sort of like Vegas, going after the gamblers.
You all know who they are, sobut where, where do you how do
you compete with these people?
They know you already, and howdo you develop relationships
with new ones?

You we, that's we've you built it. You have a
track record. You build it overtime. You get referred. You
know, a bunch of different ways.
That's the only way to really,you know, do it is you gotta
have, you gotta do good work andthen have people say, hey, go
with this person.

How has only fans essentially ruined or badly
hurt the nightclub business?

It's hurt it bad.
It's very interesting. It's madeit so easy for. Or male and
female. But obviously lot offemales to just make a fortune
doing, you know, whatever,online, not even nudity anymore.
And so why that's changed a lotis a lot of that demo and age,

(20:15):
whatever that would be,waitresses, waiters, hostesses,
hosts, bottle girls. It justcompletely changed the workforce
in a lot of ways, just made alot less options. But

isn't it the flip side as well? Because back
in the day, a lot of guys, andagain, I'm a guy, and I have
friends, and a lot of my friendswent to nightclubs. They go to
nightclubs to meet beautifulwomen. And today you can DM
beautiful women. And beautifulwomen don't have to be in the
nightclubs, right? They're justright. They're there, yeah. So
they're the human element ofmeeting beautiful women, which

(20:54):
is a motivation for a lot ofguys who do go to nightclubs,
not there, and there's fewer ofthose women who are going to
nightclubs now, because theydon't really have to. It's true.
Let's talk about another thingthat's really hurt the business.
Today's generation drinks lessalcohol. It does so let me just
read some numbers here. In 2023the boomer spent $25 billion on
alcohol. Gen X, 23 point 1billion. Millennials, 23 point 4

(21:17):
billion. Gen Z, $3.1 billion idollars. How much has the
younger generation affected yourbusiness not drinking as much
you see,

you see the effects. They're not drinking as
much. It's not, it's definitelynot a, not a rite of passage to
start drinking. It's definitelynot the cool thing to do is to
drink, you know. So you see amassive drop off in that regard.
But the end of the day, youknow, I'm all, I'm a big

(21:51):
believer on there's always likependulum swings and things and,
you know, it is, it is what itis right now. That doesn't mean
that, you know, there isn't thestill need for entertainment and
going out, and I don't thinkthat's ever going away, you
know, going out to meet people,socializing, AI, and in our
life, in our living lifetime,that's not going to be replaced.

(22:14):
So that's the good thing. Butthere is a big difference on the
drinking. You can see it

is owning nightclubs a good career. Stuff
to say, you

know, you got to love it. I got, you know, I, you
know, if I didn't ownnightclubs, I wouldn't be here
today with full hospitalitycompany. But that's, that was my
way of getting there, you know.
So, yes, it can be a greatbusiness. It can also be a
terrible business. You can lose,you can lose everything on a
nightclub. You know, I

think there's a general impression of most
people about what it means toown one. Are nightclub owners
rich.

They can be, I mean, it just depends. Honestly,
it's like you're, if you're, youcan be if you're, if you're a
big, if you're the winner, ifyou're the big, the big, if
you're the one that's doing it,you're gonna, you're gonna do
very well, you know? And ifyou're, if you're not, if you're
mid tier, you're, you're notvery rich, you're actually just
like any other entrepreneurthat's that's killing

(23:09):
themselves, feeding the beastover and over, you know, you go

to a nightclub, or you go to one of your
restaurants, there's a long lineto get in. There's a doorman.
Parker was your doorman for along time. Now he's the head of
creative. We'll talk about whatyou've done for your employees
on a long term basis. Who'sgetting in?

You mean, how do people get in? Yeah, you know,
for the most part, it's through,it's through relationships. So,
you know, they're, they're, it'sall on who. They know what,
promoter or what, whatever. Andthat's, literally door the
doorman like, That's literallyhow it goes

so but there are random people who get in a line
of nightclub they want to getin, and then someone like
Parker's picking and choosing.
You know, you're four dudes, youare never getting in.

It depends. It doesn't go like that. It goes
more if you know the landscapeof who people are and if they're
out and about. And if they'reright, it's more about, it's
more about that. And I'm moreabout because, because you
gotta, it's like, I said, it'sjust like any other business
where you you know who the youknow, who the players are, who
the right people are that are,like, going out there are

(24:14):
different venues that are notcausing issues, that are not,
you know, that are bringing goodthings to table. So it's less
about, you know, if you're fourdudes, like you said, it's like
that, because that can happen.
You know, where the four guys doget in? Because if they're the
right ones, if they're the rightif they're the people that are
out and other the ones that thatwe know, the ones that Parker
knows, or whoever the person isin the door is, it's a different

(24:36):
story. Right before

dudes who knows no one who's coming to LA and
there's four guys, six guys wantto go to nightclub. Hey, I heard
boots is amazing. You guys arenot getting in. Don't even
bother to come. Not easy.
There's a lot of cash exchangeat the door, right?

I think. So, you know, I mean, 100 bucks to get
in and give the door man, 100bucks. You know, I don't know
how. I mean, hopefully that'snot at ours like that.

Uh, you know, but it happens sometimes. I
mean, I've seen it happens alot, you know, some change
exchange here and there. Yeah,

it happens a lot.
It's part of the it's part ofthat

business. I think one of the things that
you've done is so important inbusiness is be loyal to your
employees. If you're great tothem, they'll be great to you.
And one of the great thingsyou've done is you've promoted
people been with you for a longtime. Parker was a doorman for I
think, five or seven years. He'snow head of creative Seth Miller
has been with you for 11 years.
Shout out to Seth, you alwaystake great care of me. I love

(25:30):
you. Been with you 11 years, andhe started one level. Now he's
at a whole nother level. Yeah,he's

in Miami at our Delilah Miami operation. So he's
we, I'm a big believer in peoplerising with us, you know. And I
do think it's really matters. Wehave so many people that have
been with me for since thebeginning, you know. And the
idea is that everyone, kind of,you know, grows together and
keeps growing. I mean, it's theit's the best way, if it can be

(26:02):
done. A lot of

crazy shit goes on at your nightclubs, and
you're constantly putting outfires. I mean, I've been with
you. We've been sitting at aclub. We've been talking like,
Oh, shit. You know, gotta godeal with this right now. Yep,
every night is there crazy shitgoing on at your nightclubs?
Give us two examples ofsomething absolutely absurd that
went on without naming anynames. It

just, there's just always something. It's like, you
know, there's, you know, someonein a fight in the bathroom.
There's someone screaming at awaiter or waitress. There's, you
know, we had someone. We hadsomeone, I don't know if you can
say it on here, but we hadsomeone demand it was so upset,
refused to pay his bill becausehe wasn't allowed to order

(26:44):
cocaine from us. Didn'tunderstand that. So it's like
weird stuff where people arejust absolutely out of their
minds. Are people having

sex in bathrooms. I think so. I don't
know. It's funny, you see peoplego in your line, and then
there's a door, and someoneopens the door, and someone kind
of goes in, and then, you know,five minutes later they come
out. So, yeah, it's like, youknow, I don't know something.
You know, weird things are goingon in bathrooms.

I hope, I hope not. I hope not in ours. But you
never know. You

talk about how hard it is now to hire bottle
servers. My wife, Madison,worked at finale nightclub in
New York. She had four jobs whenI met her, and she'd bartend for
one night a month or two night amonth, making 1000 $2,000 cash
in a night. So the bottleservers, bottle girls, make

(27:33):
between one and $2,000 on a goodnight. The clubs are open two or
three nights, and they're openfrom 11 to two in the morning in
LA, yeah, in LA. So you worknine hours, six to nine hours,
and if you pencil that over thecourse of year, you can make
$100,000 a year working verylittle time. Yep. Do you

(27:53):
recommend being bottle girls asa career choice for some women?
Yeah,

I think it's a great I think it's great. It's
like, the end of the day, it's,it's, it's a sales job. So if
you're good, if you're good atthat in you know, you can do
really, you can do a great foryourself. You can do great for
the place. So, yeah, I do thinkit's great. How does

someone become and apply to become a battle
girl? Do you have to be goodlooking and thin or have a good
figure, and if so, how do youapply? Well,

you whatever new club is opening, they usually do
a they usually do a you usuallydo a call, like a call for new
people working there. You do,you know, for the most part, you
should, especially when it'slike the bigger ones, you should
have a experience, because it'snot an easy job. There's a lot

(28:50):
that goes into it, actually. Sowe hard pressed. We, like, I
don't, I don't know if we wouldhire someone with no experience
in the bot, like they have tohave some sort of experience or
training in it.

I had a waiter.
When I was in Vegas. Were therefor the f1 race. Actually, I was
there to interview Dana Whitefor my for my show. We went to
javiers. We had a very nicewaitress. And I like talking to
people. I like learning whatthey do, and what are you up to?
Is this your full time job? Andshe said she was at one of the
beach clubs, there's a bottleservice girl and no longer work

(29:21):
there. And I asked why? I said,Well, I gained 15 pounds. I love
that's fucking nuts. That'scrazy.

That's Vegas, I guess that's not LA or
California. Yeah, she, I don'tthink that's legal in
California.

I mean, who's gonna, you know, but Vegas gonna
sue in California. I mean, I'mjust saying, like, you know she,
she's, yeah, I mean,

I don't know that's, that's, that's
definitely not. She lost theweight, by the

way, because we're Instagram friends, and I
saw her posting again from thebeach club. Yeah, I said, Oh,
you got your job. Back said,Yeah, lost a little weight. Is
that insane?

I mean, it's, it's similar to the cheerleader
world. Yeah, cheerleaders have athing, but that is definitely
more. That's definitely a Vegasthing. That's not, that's not la
Delilah,

as you opened in 2016 you said you built it for
your friends. Tell people whatit is. I mean, good luck getting
in. But tell people how cool itis

with the success of nice guy, we were like, you
know, we're actually on tosomething. And we felt that
there was this new, like, desirefor people to have a place where
they're, like, having a nightout and dining at the same time.
And literally, people thoughtthat you couldn't do that in LA
that was like insane. And so,you know, what's ironic is, as

(30:49):
old as time are supper clubs,and that's what they did back in
2019, 20s, it was like dining,live music, drinking, kind of
all the above. And that's theconcept of Delilah came from
that bringing that back in areal way. And that's what we
did. And it and, you know, ittook a second to take off, I
remember, and in the first weekbeing on a Friday night, we had

(31:10):
a close at like, 8pm and I was,like, literally in tears, like,
I was like, we're screwed, butwe stuck. We stuck to the model
and, and it's definitely, youknow, it's our beak, you know,
Delilah is our flagship brand,and then when we opened it in
Las Vegas, we've got globalrecognition for it, you know.

(31:30):
And now we have it in Miami, andwe're opening it in Dallas. One

of the dessert items is something called the
slutty brownie, and it's namedafter Kendall Jenner. What do I
have to do to get a dish namedafter me?

Be a Jenner, see a Jenner,

get them to adopt me. She

is, you know, she created that she I really credit
her, and she's like the greatestfriend and supporter. I really
credit her with Delilah takingoff because she did her birthday
there early on, and from then itreally took off. So I'll always
be appreciative. But you know,she had this love of this, of
this dessert, and it was aslutty brownie, and she

(32:11):
actually, literally created thedessert, like literally

she came in your kitchen, literally together.
Hey, John, we taste Um, hey toour chefs. Yeah, okay, it's your
chef. So that's where it stemsfrom. You mentioned before that
you do crazy things to make yourcustomers happy. Tell us about
Joe Lowe's brother and how onearth you went out and got a
live chicken with a top hat inthe middle of the night.

Yeah? Zen Lo,

tell people who he is. First of all, you know, a
lot of people don't know, well,he

turned out to be the world's biggest fraud. So
that's, you know, always fun.
You know, he was, uh, at thetime, he was, uh, you know, he
was really famous for being the,like, literally, the world's
biggest spender. He was spendinga million a night on bottles.
And think everyone assume, Imean, I don't think everyone
assumed he was just a funloving, but legit businessman,

(33:03):
you know, he was always with,like, the right, you know,
business people. And he'd comeout and spent, you know, I don't
know, literally, a million, $2million on bottles. And we had
him in in LA and Aspen,actually. And yeah, his is. His
brother asked me to facilitatefor him. He wanted to gift

(33:32):
someone at the at the nexttable, a gift. And I was like,
Okay, I'll make anything happen?
The live chicken with a top hat?
And it was like, I don't know,11pm or something on, like a
Friday, and I'm like, I found afarm open, and I don't know I
did it

like you sent you. You're, you're asking
someone to go back online searchchickens for sale, and you sent
someone out to go pick one up.
Like, did he bring it back atone in the morning? Yeah,

it was like, I think it was like, 11 or 12 or
something like that. And, yeah,I mean, PETA wouldn't be too
happy, but, you know, make theguy happy. But yeah. And then
late, years later, Joe Loweturned out to be this, this big
one MDB scandal, yeah. And

for those people don't know, he's part of the
Malaysian government. Swindled$5 billion and Goldman Sachs was
involved in raising that capitalfor the sovereign wealth fund,
and Goldman paid a severalbillion dollar fine, yeah. And
this guy also gifted JenniferLopez some kind of a $300,000

(34:46):
car, I think of Rolls Royce andLeo DiCaprio, and the government
came back and, yeah, they didn'ttake the chicken, though. It
didn't take the chicken. Thechicken probably died. That
chicken a couple days later,sacrificed. That chicken.
Sacrifice, not part of yourchicken. And tenders. No, not
part of chicken tenders. Whichis, which is one of the
signature dishes at Delhi and atyour wedding, it

is, yeah, well, I throw a chicken tender festival
too. I'm a big chicken tenderfan. Not healthy. It's not
healthy. But you'd be hardpressed to find someone that
doesn't like a chicken tender.
So I bonded with, like, thecraziest people, like the
biggest from whatever peopleover a chicken tender. We

both have young kids. Always chicken tenders at
the birthday parties. I have100% take rate on the chicken
tenders at every party. You do,yeah, love them. It's the best.
Love them. Another interestingthing you did. You were in
France. I think they can filmfestival with the CEO of
hackathon, who, in the middle ofnight want to smoke some hookah

(35:48):
at one in the morning and youdon't speak French. Oh, yeah, so
I just do that when you don'tspeak language. I

figured it out with that. But I had to convince
a I had to convince a place toopen a shop to get a hookah. I
mean, I must have run 20 blocks.
I was it was actually insane,and convinced them to open it
and made it happen. My thing isjust making stuff happen. It's
the only way to be so it's like,you know, and it's probably not

(36:16):
fun for the people that worklike with me, because I expect
everyone to have that mindset,or it's just like, just make it
happen. You know,

was there a customer who actually return a
tire at Nordstrom?

That's actually my my thinking is that vibe, that
whole, that whole Nordstromsmantra, where it's like, you
know, anything, anything, Idon't know if they still do it,
but anything that can bereturned, they do.

You have a saying that at the end of the
day we get it done, critical forthe customer service business?
Yes, is the customer alwaysright? The

customer is always right, yeah, even when they're
wrong.

So give me an example. When they're wrong but
they're right. It's almost everynight.

You know, they're they're at the very end of the
day. It's not worth arguing withthe customer, even if they're
even if they're right, it's notworth even they're wrong. It's
not worth arguing with them.
It's their night. It's it's amoment in time. So unless
there's something like the, youknow, where we draw, where I

(37:22):
draw the line is, you know, anysort of sexual harassment and
any sort of drug related, okay,or or harassment at all. So
outside of that, the customer isalways right. So it's like, if
you do one of those, you're inthe wrong and you're going to be
out. But if you're arguing over,I don't know, you didn't order
something and it's on the bill,or you didn't get the table you

(37:44):
requested. Or I every night,there's some version of that.
And, you know, I'd say 50% ofthe time they're kind of wrong,
but it's not worth it, and it'slike and I try to train the
people around me, or teach thepeople with me that it's just
like, at the very end of theday, just say, I'm really sorry.

(38:05):
We'll make it happen. Like it'sfine, like we'll do X, Y and Z,
it's okay. It's not worth theargument of being right or
wrong. You'd rather you get moreby having them get back to their
night and have and have anenjoyable evening or day.

Lot of restaurants have customers or
VIP, you know, they get thebetter tables. Do you have code
system for pain in the ass?
Customers?

No, we don't have pain in the ass. We have very
detailed notes, though, on oneveryone's likes, dislikes, what
they want, you know, what theyeat, what they table numbers,
what they prefer? Table number?
Yeah, I

always ask for a table number. I put it in my
phone, and then I'll ask fortables. You mean the table that
you like? Yeah, the table that Ilike when I'm at the restaurant.
I mean, if, if I'm going there,you know, sometimes I'll call
you up, John, I'm at Delilah,and I'm just lucky to get a
table. No, even with ourfriendship, I'm lucky. I

know it's not a pain in the ass mark. It's a
mark of this person as high,high tension over X, Y and Z,
right? You know, over, you know,make sure to not, you know, pour
the water in front of him orher. You know, it's like, it's
not detailed.

You have amazing relationships with celebrities.
Justin Bieber, Drake, PostMalone, tons and tons of people.
They come in your club.
Sometimes, I've been there.
People come in. Justin Bieberwalks in. He starts playing the
piano. How did you develop theserelationships with all these
famous people, the

ones that I'm friends with are genuine
relationships. Just happen tobe, happen to be celebrities,

yeah. But I mean rant. I mean, if Post Malone was
hanging out at the two tablesaway at the nice guy, and I love
Post Malone, by the way, and I'mnot going to really go. Up to
them and say, Hey, post up.
What's his real name? Again?
Austin? Yeah, Austin. Hey,Austin Randy. Hey, yeah, let's
go have a beer at the bartogether. It's hard to become

(40:10):
friends with a celebrity, Yeah,

but you're not in the like. I've been in this I've
been in the business, in theboth music, entertainment and
hospitality business, now for 20years. So a lot of people I've
been friends with since, I'vebeen friends with posts since he
started basically his career,almost, you know, essentially.
So we've just been friends thiswhole time, and it's very
genuine, like I don't at the endof the day. I think the key with

(40:36):
me is I'm not. I'm not, I don'thave an angle. I'm not expecting
things of them or people. It'sactually the opposite. I
actually want to have themprotected and feeling that they
have a place that they don't getexploited. No one

really goes up to them. I mean, if I'm Post
Malone was sitting next to me atthe bar grabbing a beer, I'd
definitely say hello, but I'mnot going up to his table.

Well, in my places, they don't they do in
other places, yeah, you'll getkicked out right away, because
the only way I can have anyonefeel they you want to be able to
have a night out or and not beharassed, you know?

Yeah, we were noble one night. America has got
talent. Is my favorite show.
It's the American dream. I'llcry when I when I see these
stories sometimes. And learninga lot today, you know Nobu. Nobu
has security. If you go there alot. You know who they are. And
by the way, good luck gettingreservation at Nobu. I mean, if

(41:35):
you're really not on the list,you know you're you're not
getting a table there. So, theyhave these guys, you've been
there, and Simon Cowell walks inone night, and my daughters, who
you also know well, said, SimonCowell just walked in. And they
know I love this show, and I donot go say hello. So he's
passing by the table. I wasalready up out of my chair. I

(41:57):
said, Hey, Simon. I introducedmyself, and you could see these
two guys walking toward me. Isay, I'm a huge fan of the show.
I think so and so is going towin. And I just met this
songwriter who had written songsfor all these people, like Cole
Swindell and all theseinteresting people, Blake
Shelton. And I said, Oh, I'vegot, I've got this guy. Oh, you
pitched him. I had nothing togain from this whatsoever, but

(42:21):
you pitched him. No, I justsaid, By the way, if you call it
pitch, I was trying to help him.
I'm trying to help him. Yeah,you're trying to help and so I
said, I think this guy is goingto win. He did not win. But I
said, you know this guy? Andwhat I did say is, so we were at
Gaza, and I'm sitting next toJoe Russo, one of the biggest

(42:43):
directors all time. I think thesecond biggest spoilers first,
and we're at dinner, and hisfriend is from Vegas or from
Nashville. I said, Okay,whatever. He's a he's written
songs for these people, and Ijust had dinner with him, like a
week before. And so I'm home andI and so I said to Simon Cowell,
I said, Oh, by the way, I justmet this guy, and he also is a

(43:04):
fan of this singer, and he hadnever met the singer before. He
never listened to the show. ButI said, Oh, he's interested in
writing songs for so and so,because I wanted to get to know
Simon Cowell. And so I and Simondoes not have a phone, and his
fiance was there, and he said,Oh, you know, take Randy's
number and, you know, let's seeif we can make the intro or not.

(43:26):
But I took my shot at Simon.
How'd that go for you? I'm gladI did it. You know, it's like, I
love Simon Cowell. I want him onmy show. I will get him on my
show at some time. Greatbusinessman, by the way, as
well. But, yeah, I wouldn't doit at your club. Unless he's
sitting next to me. He would beescorted out. So I do want to
talk about Post Malone a littlebit more. You get a lot of

(43:51):
really cool things, and one ofthe cool things was, you're in
one of the songs, and the songis called couped up, and I'm
gonna just read you the lyrics,okay, all right, and I'm not,
I'm not gonna sing them. You'renot gonna wrap it. I actually am
not going to. I'll put a littlebit of a beat there, but it's
yeah, I'm off the Bud Light, notthe bourbon. I might chop the

(44:11):
roof off the Suburban. Tried tobe a nice guy. John turzian,
wow, till I started throwingyour bur till I started throwing
up in your burkin. Ooh. Then Iwoke up in the morning. Please
showed up at my door with awarrant. Fuck that shit. I
remember flushing something downthe toilet, flush, flush. Guess

(44:32):
he gotta let me off with awarning. You

should actually this. That could be your whole
show is doing reading verses oflike raps and rock songs so
incredible. So especially, wedid skirt, skirt. So

my, my question to you is, are you close enough?
I mean, we're good friends.
You've done some nice things forme. Are you close enough to
Austin where you can ask him toput me in. One of his future
songs.

I am but I won't.

You don't want to help. It's like It's on my
bucket list.

Unknown (45:10):
I'm sure it's on my bucket list. I'm sure it is.

I'll make a I'll make a donation to my favorite
charity. I'll donate to hisfavorite charity.

I will take that into consideration. Yeah, he's
never heard that before. Beingpaid to be in a song. A

lot of people don't know this, but fiction
writers, fiction writers, peoplewill pay charity to be named as
a character in fiction books.
This is a very common thing.
John Grisham, all the bigauthors I didn't know that do
stuff like that. Yeah, wow,yeah. I mean, I think it's a
brilliant idea. They get paidlike you like, let's say John
Grisham is writing a new book,and John Grisham is some charity

(45:46):
thing, and someone will pay, youcould pay, you know, John
Jersey, and put me in the book,cool, and the money goes to
charity. I like that. Yeah, Ithink it's great. You should,
you should auction off. It'slike, the chicken tenders is,
like, named after a stadium.
That's a stadium, rights. But Ithink you know some of these
other dishes. Mike Melvin has adish, doesn't he? At

Craig's,

yeah, his dish

at Craig's, Melman, honey, chicken or
something.

Yeah, Mike's coming on the show. The best I
started to have him great, greatman. Elements of success, how
important is brand building?
What you've done with H wood, asin your success. I

think it's the number one paramount. I think
it's, I think brand building isthe key to kind of anything we
do.

One of, one of the things that I know has made
you successful, and you're goingto be a little bashful about
this, is you're a great friendto your friends, and everybody
will say that about you. I mean,I meet people all the time. Your
name comes up on a regularbasis. So nice guy, terz is the
best you're one of these guysthat no one says a negative word

(46:51):
about ever. I appreciate that. Imean, Rarity, appreciate that
your friendships and yourrelationships. How important
have those been to your success?
I think

this. They've been everything for me. I would not
be sitting here doing any ofthis without, without the
friends and family that I havealong the way. They're like a
full network of just, I don'tknow, it's weird. It's like you
feel like you have this I have afull support team of, like,
people that are so reliable, andso I'm, you know, I go overboard

(47:25):
for any friend of mine onpurpose. You know, where I want
them to make sure that they havethat same for me, you know, I'm

going to share my bachelor party for you, one
of the highlights of my life,Madison and I both had it in
Vegas. You said I crashed abachelor party. Boys did
something one night. The girlsdid something the next night, we
went to the hackathon. The nextnight, Calvin Harris is playing.
We're in the DJ booth. I'd neverbeen in a DJ booth. Loved it one

(47:53):
of the highlights of my life. Imean, this still is that sound.
And I remember saying to one ofmy friends, Josh, you know,
we're then all the champagnecame out, Randy, Randy, Randy.
And you know, we're lookingwe're drinking. We've had a lot
to drink. And I said to Josh,you know, he said to me, yeah,
we got to do this again. And Ilooked at him like, Dude, we're

(48:14):
never coming back here again.
Like, tough, although it didhappen again, but that's another
story for another lifetime. Onthe flip side, on the flip side
of this, can you be an assholeand run a successful nightclub?
Yeah, I

think there's plenty of assholes that run, run
places. You know, I think youcan be successful. I think I
think it'd be hard to have somelongevity.

One of the things you're great at as well,
in terms of relationships, youtext five people every morning,
random people, Hey, how youdoing? Checking in? Anything I'd
help with?

Yeah, huge. Yeah,

it's great.
Yeah. I had, when I was a lawclerk, I worked at this big firm
in Detroit, most successfulfirm. I was there for the
summer, and they let you, thepartners could take you out one
on one for lunch, you know, youwould ask all the partners, and
there's a guy named DickBurstein, who was the biggest
Rainmaker in the firm, and tothe point where he wasn't really
practicing law. I mean, he was,but, you know, he wasn't his

(49:13):
senior partner. He doesn't dothe work. The junior people do
the work, but he's not workingall day. I said, you know, Dick,
what's the secret? And he saidto me, he said, I'll text three
clients every single day. Howare you doing? Is there
something I can help with? Andhe had, I mean, back then,
eight, ten million book ofbusiness. This was 30 years ago.
I have massive, biggestRainmaker in the entire firm.

You know, it's, I had never heard that story, but
it's a good one. It's that it'sthat extra personal touch that I
think most people like overlook,you know, and to me, I genuinely
mean it and enjoy it. You know,you

often don't tell people that you're coming to
your clubs or your venues, andone of the things that you've
said has made you successful aswell with just listening and
watching. Yeah. Yeah, talk to usabout that.

I kind of view myself as like an ultimate
observer. So I like to see whatpeople are gravitating to or
talking about or liking ordisliking, and, you know, it's
sometimes hard get to hear whatpeople dislike, but I think it's
really good. And so I try to, Itry to be as stealth as

(50:24):
possible. A lot of the nightsand other other nights, I'm just
there, and I just like to, like,observe and watch. But it's a
good way to know what's likeworking, not working, new places
like it's a it's it's a wholething. One of

the main ingredients that's made me
successful is something calledextreme preparation. I'm writing
a book on extreme preparation.
That means when someone preparesfor a podcast one hour, I
prepare an average 14 hours. Howimportant has extreme
preparation been to yoursuccess? And can you give some
examples? I don't think I'm onyour level of extreme
preparation. Well, just givesome examples of where you've
really prepared, where you thinkmore than anybody overboard

(50:58):
that's contributed to a, yeah,like positive outcome

when I, when I am up for something that we want
for business wise. So a newspace, in a in a hotel, or a new
investor group, or whatever, Ido an obscene amount of kind of
background, deep dive on whothey are, their family, their

(51:23):
what they like, dislike, kind ofall that. And really try to
like, really try to, like, usethat in a positive way. I mean,
on what I'm, you know, what I'mgearing towards, so that, you
know, I go in there with, like,kind of a leg up. And I think
that's been a major reason, andwhy I've gotten some, some

(51:45):
certain, you know, venues ofours, or some deals. Most
recent, you know, was, was aninvestor group, you know, I
prepped for, I don't know, aweek or two on just every aspect
of it. And when I went in thatdoor, it's funny, when you go in
the door, it's like, it's allthat preparation. It comes a lot
easier when you're when you'rein there, you know? So it does

(52:09):
matter. It makes a bigdifference.

Work ethic, this huge SAE house at USC, yeah,
rumor was you didn't even havesheets on your bed. You're just
a pillow because you were outall the time. This crazy work
ethic that you never sleep.
Yeah,

that's true.
Actually, I did not have sheetson my bed for like, two years.

You come home late and you just kind of crash
out. Yeah,

yeah. I sleep maybe four hours, four or five
hours a night at most. It's likemy it's always been that way.
It's like a gene or something Idon't know, or I'm gonna
hibernate for three years. Oneday, you start

your day, typically at 736 30. Start your
day at 630 you're in the officeall day, come home for dinner, a
few hours rest, and then you'reout two or three venues a night,
often coming back from two to230 in the morning. It's brutal
on the body.

Yeah, it is. I mean, you know what's, what's,
what's I have to what I'm doingmore and more as a is, I've been
doing that for so long. What'smore important now is a balance
of my kids and wife and familylife and work. So I try to have,
you know, two or three nightsfully off. I'll leave the office
at five, you know, type ofthing. I take my kid to school

(53:23):
every morning. Now, that type ofstuff, as far as the like, you
know, late night, early morning,you know, I'll I just went. I
the other day, I was like, supertired, and I was like, I wonder
What's so weird. And I literallyhad forgotten that I missed an
entire day of sleep. I had comeI'd flown back on something. I
just completely skipped a day inflight for the Super Bowl. Super

(53:45):
Bowl, our event, just completelyskipped it. It's crazy. Let's
talk

about that business, event business, it's
more profitable margin wise thanthe restaurant business. How
does that all work? What kind ofprofits do you make? And can
anybody get in? Well,

each event is different, so we're fortunate
enough to have a really goodpartner this year and last year
too. But this year withDraftKings, they're amazing with
us. And so the whole thing was,just have a great event, you
know? So this was all invite,

mostly invites.
Or do you get invites? Like,like the players do to the Super
Bowl. They get two tickets each,where you can say, all right, I
got 10 buds to get in. You mean,who were inviting? Yeah, no, if
it's

a private party, pretty much plus one, no, it's H
wood and drought, yeah,

oh, let's invite people. Yeah.

Unknown (54:40):
Okay, yeah. But

I can come next year, if I'm going to Super Bowl
and you guys are doing theparty, you're

good, yeah. But in most years, you know, we get a
sponsor, we sell tables. It'svery it can be really amazing.
You know, next year's in SanFrancisco, year Afters in LA so
those are. Big ones. You know,we sell tables and sponsors and
the whole thing people

who don't know, give these are massive parties.
Give people an example of whatthe budgets are for these and
how many people are actuallycoming. I mean, it

varies, you know, we did. We did a sewer party
that I think was 10 million orsomething, ten

million budget.
Yeah, the sponsors spent tenmillion what do they get out of
it? Well,

what you get out of it is, besides press is the
whole idea is experiential. Soyou're entertaining they're
entertaining their whatevercorporate clients, or whatever
it might be, they might belaunching a product. It just all
varies in that regard. But onaverage, I'd say the events that
we do that are like big offsite, because we try to have
where, you know, we doCoachella, Monaco, Cannes, Film

(55:50):
Festival, Super Bowl, you know,NBA All Star this weekend we're
doing in San Francisco. I'd say,on the most part, you know, it's
anywhere from 500 grand to amillion, you know, type of
budget.

And you have your own parties too. You throw
this white party on July 4. Yep,people can pay to go to that one
in advance. No, no,

you we do sell a handful of tables, but
everything else is all in by, I

saw your VIP host John Hines made some funny
post on Instagram right beforethe white party. Stop DM me or
texting me about the WhiteParty, the answer is no,

yeah, that became a big that became a big one. You
started

a film and TV business as well. Yep, you did a
great documentary in 2022 calledCall me magic. You have some
movies and things in developmentwith Kid cootie and Post Malone.
Tell us, pardon me, kid Cody,tell us about what you're doing
there. Well, you

know, we started, I started media about four or
five years ago, and the idea wasthat I'm the type of person I am
to this day that if I introducetwo people, or I do whatever, I
don't expect anything. I wanteveryone to go on and do their
thing. And it became, I wasdoing that so much with friends
of mine that were talent, thatwere whatever I was, you know,
putting so many deals together.
They're like, you know, youshould be. We actually want you

(57:16):
in business with us. And so whatI did was created HR media with,
you know, Brian and I createdAtri media as like the non
hospitality arm. So we manageour our kid, Zach Mia in it. DJ
is blown up, blown up, massive.
But the idea was like music, TV,film, all the above. But what's

(57:36):
really morphed into, besidesmanaging Zach is, is the film
and documentaries to me, becausewe love it. I mean, it's a very
similar skill set to what we dowith building places, being a
producer side. So, you know, wehave access to capital. We have
great talent relations. I thinkwe have good taste, and, you

(57:58):
know, we kind of get stuff done.
And so that's the true essenceof a producer. And so we started
with with, they call me magic,which was magic Johnson's
documentary. And we're in themiddle of the of a few other
documentaries now, Basquiatdocumentary, and then we have a
handful of feature films thatare on the slate that are going

(58:19):
so to me, it's amazing. Youknow, I really love that world.
There's a ton of synergy withwhat we're doing. And we had our
first indie film just got intoSouth by Southwest. So it's
gonna go on March 12 there.
What's it called idiotica?
What's

Unknown (58:33):
it about? It's about

a young girl in her family, and she grows up,
it's a comedy, and grows up inthe Russian district of West
Hollywood. You know that, likelittle Russian pocket, she
aspires to be like afashionista, and it's a really
fun little comedy. It's cool. Somagic

knows everyone in town knows every studio had
he's how on earth the did youHow on earth did you get magic
to allow you to make adocumentary on him when you
never produced any TV or moviein your lifetime. That's

a good one too.
You know, it's kind of likeeverything I've done in life,
you know, it's, it's, I juststraight, I stay true to things,
you know, the way I approachedyou with magic. So magic called
me, or his team did aboutopening sports bars. And, you
know, I kind of a long windedway. I kind of was like,
without, let's, let's put thatto the side for a second. I have

(59:31):
this idea, because I'm launchingthis media and this is before
the documentary craze. This isbefore Jordan. Everything was
right before. And I said, Look,I'm an outsider. I'm an
entrepreneur, and I what I wantto do is make make your life
story, and I'll bring in thebest of the best finance it all,
do it all. I didn't know how Iwas going to do that, by the

(59:52):
way, but I did, and he likedwhat I had to say. He liked the
fact that I was not in the filmworld. He liked. The fact that I
was, like, a little bit of anoutsider and hungry to do a
great project and to pay forbringing, bringing all the right
stuff. And so we did, and heagreed to it, and I stayed true
to my war. We got great peopleinvolved, and it ended up being
a massive thing. We sold it toApple, a great project.

Randall Kaplan (01:00:16):
So a lot of people don't know how that works
either. So people think, Oh,you're making a documentary, and
it's like a nonprofit thing, youknow? It's just like you're
making the movie. How do theeconomics of a documentary work?

John Terzian (01:00:28):
I mean, it's the same thing as anything. It all
varies. However much you makefor it, what you can sell it
for, you know? So, you know, forthe most part, documentaries are
low. This was a massive onemagic thanks to magics name and
who he is, and the product thatthey made was great, great sale,
but for the most part, yeah,documentaries are, you know, a

(01:00:48):
little bit more. What's niceabout documentaries is, is
they're, they're faster to make.
So that's, that's pretty great.

Yeah, magic came to our charity event called The
Imagine ball for imagine LA. Westarted this thing, thing going
on 10 years ago now. Yep, I'dstart an event called The
Justice ball. And yes, I mess upwhen we're getting up there.
Welcome to the Imagine ball, andit's the Justice ball. That was
a very funny moment, by the way,where you look wild moment,
yeah, you looked at me. I said,Welcome to whatever, the Justice

(01:01:16):
ball, and you look at me.

I mean, that was actually crazy. Yeah,

I know. Still have it on film, by the way,
oops, you know, we you'renervous up there, whatever. So
we started this event. House ofBlues was, was our first, I
think, two events. I had startedthe Justice ball for nonprofit
law firm bets. Had a legalservice. It ran for a long time,
raised millions of dollars, andthen I wanted to do something

(01:01:42):
new. And I said, You know what,John would be a great partner in
this, let's create this thingtogether. And I think we talked
about various things. We wantedan organization that didn't have
a big fundraiser, that we wouldbe paying action, yeah, you
know, Barbara chicken dinner.
And then we built this greatthing together. I mean, you, at
the end of the day, raised mostof the money, probably 90, 90%

(01:02:03):
of the money within your venue.
You donated the venue. You hadmagic come Serena Kevin Hart
this year, how important isphilanthropy to our success?

Well, you know, I've from a young age, I was
always big on giving back anddoing doing good as much as
possible. So I think it's reallyimportant. You know, I think
people need to do more of it. Icurrently do quite a bit for
Children's Hospital. It's a bigone for me. But, yeah, I think
teach their own on every onthat. But for me, I think it's
important. We're at the end of

our show, and I always finish the end of my show
with a game called fill in theblank to excellence. All right.
Ready to Roll. Let's do it. Allright. The biggest lesson I've
learned in my life is not gettoo down. My number one
professional goal is on a hotel.
By the way, we've talked aboutthis now for for years. So
what's happening on that front?

(01:02:58):
I'm in the hunt, tough to buy ahotel these days. Yeah, lots of,
lots of economic issues.
Everything's

tough, but yeah, one day, one day, it'll come
together. My number

one personal goal is, have my wife happy. You
have an amazing wife. Shout outto Lonnie. Shout out. The one
thing that everybody should sayto themselves when they wake up
in the morning is you woke up.
The one thing that people shouldsay to themselves when they go
to bed at

night is some version of relax, some version
of turning your mind off. Mybiggest regret is probably not
passing the bar. You can stilldo it. No, definitely not. That

was hell, man.
That was rough. My biggest fearis failing. The most powerful
moment of my career is,

I think the opening of Delilah Vegas was
most proud moment of myprofessional career.

The craziest thing that's happened in my
career is

all of it. It's a crazy career that I'm very
thankful for. The

craziest thing that's happened in one of my
clubs is I

got protested by PETA for having a llama in it.
Nice. The llama was happy,though, nice. Had a good night.
The

best advice I've ever received is play the long
game. The worst advice I've everreceived is take the money. If
you could name one trait thatwould make somebody successful,
it would be

you can't ever buy back your reputation. If you
could give your three

kids one piece of advice, what would it be? Do
what you love? 10 years fromnow, I'm going to be doing a
bigger version of

what I'm doing. 20 years from now, I'm going to be
doing a much bigger version ofwhat I'm doing.

The most important thing that's
contributed to my success is allmy support, friends and family
support. The one thing I'vedreamt about doing for a long
time, but haven't, is I'm tryingto think, without being a hotel,
if you give me one person in theworld, who would it

be that is Steve Jobs alive? I don't know.

I'm gonna digress about my Steve Jobs
story meeting once. Here we go.
I was at Four Seasons Hawaii,Kona, and there was a resort
next door called Kona village,and Steve and his family came
over for dinner one day, and hewas at a table far away from
everyone else, and my. My exwife, my wife, at the time,
said, Steve Jobs is sitting overthere. You're gonna go say

(01:05:03):
hello. I said, No, you haven'tdinner with his family. Said the
old Randy would have I wasalready out of my chair when she
said that. So I go over. I'mwalking over. It's a long walk,
and it's Steve his wife, twokids, and I'm standing right at
the table. He didn't even lookup, literally. I'm like, okay,
so I said, Excuse me, Mr. Jobs,I'm Randy Kaplan, co founder of

(01:05:25):
Akamai. They had invested $25million in our C round, yeah.
And it tried to buy our company.
They put in 25 million to two$50 million valuation. And so he
said, You're a co founder ofAkamai? I said, Yeah. He said,
You must have made a lot ofmoney. Of Money. Weirdest thing.
And so I said, Yeah, we all didwell. And by the way, at the

(01:05:49):
time, Apple was nowhere nearwhat it was today. There were
rumors it was going out ofbusiness. Yeah, right. They had
a 1% market share of the PCmarket, so they must have made a
billion dollars on this deal. Imean, it's a stretch to say we
helped save the company, but itcertainly didn't hurt. And so
I'm standing there and thinking,oh gosh, you know, I need to say

(01:06:09):
something. So I said I lovedyour Stanford graduation speech.
And he said, thank you. I wasdismissed, and I walked back to
the table with my tail betweenhis legs, but at the end of the
day, I was glad I did it. Yeah,you met Steve Jobs. I met Steve
Jobs.

You also never want to meet your heroes. What's
that? You never want to meetyour heroes? You never do that's
the rule of thumb. They'realways going to disappoint. I do
clearly, Steve to Simon. Steve

to Simon. Simon Collins, not my hero, but I do
think the word of them, Simon, Ihope you come on my show. If you
could meet one celebrity in theworld that you already don't
know who you'd like to havedinner with? Who would it be?
Michael Jordan. You haven't metMichael yet? No, I'm sure you
could. I have you knoweverybody.

I don't necessarily care about meeting
people,

but they have fascinating lives for me when I
meet celebrities like that?
Yeah, I don't. It's not thecelebrity. It's not for their
sake that they're famous. I likelearning about people, my Uber
drivers. I get the whole historyof actually pretty interesting.
I'm I they have the greatestlife. I loved it. Well, they
don't have other guys life. Theyhave the greatest stories. Yeah,
right. And so it's like, I wantto know, I hear you, what the

(01:07:20):
custodian in the building isdoing, and I always talk to
them, and I want to know whatthe CEOs and the founders are
doing. I find it fascinating. Ifyou were President Trump, what's
the next thing you would dotomorrow?

Somehow, whether you fake it or not, somehow
instill some sort of unitingpeople.

The one question you wish I'd asked you but
didn't, is, I think youanswered. I think you asked
everything. Got to give a shoutout to your partner, Brian toll,
yep, and all the other amazingpeople that you've introduced me
to appreciate all therelationships, the friendships.
Appreciate you. It's been so funand awesome to watch you guys
grow because I met you. You werereally the transition period and

(01:07:59):
just it's so awesome to see whatyou guys have done. So happy for
your success. Thank you.
Congratulations on everythingyou've done. Thank you for being
really an amazing, amazingfriend. Thank

you. Appreciate you. Ready?

Unknown (01:08:15):
You.

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John Terzian: Bottle Service, Billionaires, and the Business of Cool | E157

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}John Terzian: Bottle Service, Billionaires, and the Business of Cool | E157