CEOs You Should Know - h.wood Group

Paul Covrino sits down with John Terzian and Brian Toll, Co-Presidents of h.wood Group. The h.wood Group is a Los-Angeles based hospitality and lifestyle company with a diversified portfolio of upscale nightlife & restaurant venues.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
This is CEOs you should know.And now from iHeartMedia, here's Paul Corbino.
Today's gonna be a little different inthat i won't be talking to one
CEO, but I've got two.We haven't done this before, guys,
and I'm excited to have both theco founders and CEOs of the Ashwood Group,
a Los Angeles based hospitality and lifestylecompany that owns some of my favorite

(00:24):
restaurants and clubs, not just herein LA but in Miami, Vegas,
Nashville, Dubai, just about everywherethat I'd like to go. So let
me welcome John terzy On. Youmade it more armenion sounding, but I
liked it, Okay, and Briantole Welcome John and Brian, thank you
so much for having us. Thanksfor having us. So first of all,

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here a little rundown of some ofthe properties that you own. I
know you've got Delilah's a few blocksfrom where I live. Delilah's in New
York, The Girl, also inMiami, No, Delilah's in Las Vegavegas,
The Wynn and Los Angeles West Hollywood, which is the original, and
also in Miami in Brickle. Andthen we're in construction in Dallas for Delilah,
a nice guy. The nice guywe have in Los Angeles Dubai and

(01:11):
we are currently looking at Miami forit right now. How did you get
that first club? I had apromotion company, went to law school.
I was friends with AM and hismanager LV. They were a little older,
and they did spot something in meto like come work with them,
which was I'll always you know creditAnd I did. And I was like
the jack of all trades. Iwas everything from an assistant to a lawyer

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to a manager. And this wasthe rise of Am, who was essentially
the first like big global DJ.This is right before all of that.
And one of the things that theycame up with was to open a hub
for him, which was a nightclubbased around his name and his friends.
And this is in two thousand andfour, right and it was called Lax
And so I was an integral partof like building it. I didn't own

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it. I got to where clubin Hollywood on Las Palmas and it's actually
one of the more iconic nightclubs atthe time in LA history. It was
the rise of paparazzi, it wasthe rise of Paris Hilton and Nicole,
Richie and all that world going outand at the time Brian had be told
entertainment a mass promotion company like Massive. He came in and was promoting there

(02:20):
with us, and that's when weall started working together, you know.
And that's what I went to Brianand I said, let's go do our
own thing. What are you gonnabe? Okay, now, you guys
want to do your own thing,but there's one thing that you need right
now, some cash. That's right. We were raised from like a thousand
people. We were like a publicoffering. There was a lot of friends

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and family, and at the timewe thought the more people, the better.
Everyone's going to run around and sayit's their place and they're going to
support us, and they're going tobe there. And it actually was really
tough to do it that way becausethey all wanted to be there, but
they all wanted free drinks, andthey wanted their friends that free drinks,
and they all wanted the best tableon the best night to be able to
say this is mine, and soit kind of backfired in a way.

(03:02):
Luckily they're all still our best friends, but it was a rough go and
our dads, we still owe them, they helped a little bit. Like
we we really had no we didn'tknow what in that regard we had to
learn. And that was the firstand the first one. That was the
first when I was called the hWood. Now you've got the five places
in l A. And now you'reexpanding to other cities. How do you

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manage something from a distance? Youguys, divide and conquer. The big
answer to that is to recognize alot of the nightclub world is a young
person's game. And so I thinkwhat we've done is we've always recognized like
we're the two of us are nevertrying to be the focus of the room
or the cool person, the coolguy in the room, right, always
recognizing who's next and who's up andcoming, and having those people with us

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as part of the company, whetherthey work for us, you know,
whether their hosts. Whether that's howyou last in a lot of ways,
is that you're really always ahead ofthe crowd cycle every year, you know,
uh, And we build the places, right you know, Bootsies and
Poppy are now ten and seven yearsold. Those are two night clubs that
we have. I think we builtthem. We really spent real money in

(04:09):
real time and real effort and doingOh you could see it. You walk
in and you know that there's attentionto detail. You know that these guys
are doing it right. So nowhere you are, you got these restaurants
and clubs in LA. You're expandingto other cities COVID hits. Yep,
that's got to be devastating. Imean, you've you're a business that people

(04:30):
have to go. People can't stayyeah, right, people at home aren't
going to rent. You can't can'tgo to your clubs. Right, you're
close down, You've got employees,You've got your rent to still do.
How do you get through COVID?You know, I think when COVID hit,
we had eight hundred employees at thetime, and I think it was
across what twelve venues, fifteen venuessomething like that. We had a furlough
every single employee, Like John said, some of them have been with us

(04:51):
ten years. They all have families, they all have We did it swift
too. Yeah, I mean wedidn't have a choice. I think it
was March of twenty twenty. Thecity was like, yeah, by next
week, your restaurants are shut andso we didn't have a choice, which
I guess made it easier, butit was still really really difficult, and
we personally had to call a lotof these people before we did it,

(05:14):
saying I'm so sorry, I knowthis is going to be but we felt
like the right thing still hurts,that's right, and we felt like as
the people of the CEOs, itwas the right thing to do to personally
call a lot of them. Youhad to protect them, yes, yes,
and our investors did not want toput more money in. They wouldn't
float us during COVID and so knowwhat was happening, right, you know,

(05:34):
So we furloughed everyone we saw youknow in La stay closed longer than
most other place, about a yearand a half, I will say,
by the worst time, second worsttime in our lives. But it was
really scary and terrible. Some silverlining optimism of it is we really hunkered
down during that time and I doI do value the time that we had

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because we ended up like we gota business coach for you know, us,
for the company, and we weworked on the values of the company.
Long story short, as we narrowedin and focused our main goals for
our future if and when we evercame out of COVID and we're like,
we're going to come out swinging.And I think that after COVID weeded out
a lot of hospitality groups, soI think it's like one of those strong

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strong survive. It's its way ofalmost weeding. That's right. Well,
thank you guys so much for comingon today. To our listeners out there.
Today, we have John and Brianfrom the Hwood Group who have some
of as I mentioned that as wetalked about some of the coolest and most
iconic restaurant and clubs in Los Angeles, Las Vegas coming to Miami and Dubai.

(06:41):
I didn't get to ask you aboutDubai. We'll save that for next
because that's going to be an interestingstory. Also, thank you guys so
much for coming on. And thisis Paul Corvino, Division President at iHeartMedia
in Los Angeles, California, sayingthank you for listening to another episode of
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