America’s #1 Club Owner Reveals What Entrepreneurs Are Doing Wrong (The $60M Blueprint)

30:10He left here to go to Austin, Texas, because guess what? His wife was twice as good as him. And they wanted to take her from the Fairmont Hotel here down to Austin, Texas, so that she could run that. But he was the baddest thing that ever came through these doors. And there wasn't one employee he never had a problem. He did have one customer that he couldn't get. She was just a bad apple. But just one in the whole time. I could go, go handle that table. Go handle that table. And he was just amazing. I try to explain to people in any business. There are people that do great and then there's the people that don't care now there's three areas don't care good and great good is the enemy of great because you know they got the potential to be great and you're like come on man i got a girl i want to pay a whole 160 000 to run the host band but she don't want me to call her after 7 on Sunday and before 5 on Thursday she want 4 days off when instead of the 160 she could probably be making 250 but she's good with the 100 and that's why good is the enemy of great cause she's like I don't want to be great I don't want to work that hard it's good enough not to get scolded but it's not really what it needs to be it's well i'm so tired of people telling me i want to own my home if i work for myself you are working for yourself that guy that i that white guy he could go anywhere and get in there he left here when he went into construction when he got down in Austin, and I still rave about him every day.

32:20The most amazing thing to walk through these doors.

32:27Y 'all gonna have to cut this. This nigga don't walk yo, I wanna know turn around real quick because this guy walks in with a glass of wine. He just waltzed with a castle watch. That's it. That's Lou Tucker, baby. That's Lou Tucker, baby. That's Lou Tucker. Oh, my god. Fly up on these niggas. We must keep peace.

33:03We'll go far the way, man. Always. Always. Good. Everything going good? Everything going good, man. So then, but anyway. Keep going. Make it great. Mention my name. We didn't say your name 20 times. All right.

33:23Hey. Can you tell me to get some orders? Please. Thank you. But

33:36the life is real simple. do you want to own your own do you know what i do but do you know i work eight days a week talk about that because people think they want that life they because you you may think they want to be i make it look good no no they don't understand they they don't understand what it took when I borrowed that money when I had to borrow that money at 32 % to build Dream. Okay, so I went into Talk about that. Okay, so I have Republic I got Republic Gardens these white boys had a place they couldn't make it work up on U Street that was the mecca the black neighborhood U Street needed to be bought back Ben's Chili Bowl was right down the street you know, it was trying to do that turn into white gentrification you know thing up there and everything and so I went up there and they couldn't make any well the first night they see the black people come in their place and it was a good crowd and everything they were like Mark this ain't what we can do but we're gonna sell you our lease we're gonna give you the place and everything the problem was they had done it dive bar like that's dream no that's republic garden it was dog bar like and i was like and they had a slum lord and he wasn't doing nothing to the place and when i went in there you know i bought all these people we we packed from head to toe and the next day they were like this should be your place we're gonna sell it to you and they gave me a good price and i said that's a me i want it you know i'm gonna do it.

35:27But I got two things into it and it wasn't up to my step. Two weeks into it and I was like, I got to gut this place right quick. But I didn't have the money to do it. And then I did this, I had this thing called Blossoms. It was crazy. Actually, I went from Spy Club to the Ritz to blossoms and blossoms was something I did on Saturdays only. And I swear to God, it didn't matter what Saturday it was. It was like God would turn the spigot off. It was born raining because it was indoor outdoor. As a matter of fact, the guy that partnered with me at Spy Club, he said, hold on, you're telling me that they're going to pay money to go just across that line, but they can see it from right here.

36:18He said, no, you go ahead and do it. And I said, I said, but you lost money with me on this other thing we're going to do. So you ain't anyway. Blossoms, Shaq. I mean, everybody flew in town. And I used one of those, remember those searchlights, those big spotlights they used in Hollywood? And I would have there and everybody would see the light. And they couldn't wait till they got in town. They just followed the light and everything. And every Saturday night, 3 ,000, 4 ,000 people just trying to get it. It was just crazy. well when i got republic gardens i gutted it and i was using the money from blossoms and then i had this beach party well i thought it was crazy it was crazy looking it was crazy out of my pockets too but it cost me i lost 80 000 but again you're only as good as your last party so i had to make everybody think it was the greatest thing ever you know if i thought i made a million dollars the people that was working on Republic Gardens were like, ooh, good, he made some money last night.

37:20Nah, I just lost$80 ,000. And, you know, but you got to keep it going. So, of course, you borrow him from here, you're getting him from that person. We got Republic Gardens redone, open. Republic Gardens became it. It was my son's, I think, 11th birthday party. And we were tired of the slumlord that we had. He used to do everything. And we had All-Star at Republic Gardens. We had a parking lot, had 5 ,000 people, Jay-Z, R. Kelly, and somebody else all on stage. It's crazy. And, I mean, it's just phenomenal in the parking lot. But this landlord, he's bringing dumpsters, blocking the alley, just stupid things, anything he can do.

38:08So we're going out to Annapolis, and I'm telling my wife, I was like, we got to get our own place. We got to do something. We got to get out of there, da-da-da-da-da. And I'm just driving down New York Avenue, and I'm like, like that building right there is for sale. She was like, okay, we're in the worst neighborhood in all of D.C. That's what Ivy City was. It was literally the worst at that time. she says i said call the number she said to me she said your friend is going to meet you there tomorrow and talk to you about the building guy named george basilico he meets me i walk through the building this place is so dilapidated and messed up they use it for police dogs to search for drugs to train them i mean it was it's just the worst building ever The floor is dirty.

39:05It used to be a Kodak factory 40, 50 years ago. You know what I'm saying? Like, it was just a warehouse that was just dilapidated. So then I said to him, I said, what do you want for the building? We do the walkthrough. He said, I want a million dollars. I said, I'm going to pay it. I said, you just got to take the note back. I'm going to give you$10 a month between now and next year. and this time next year I'll pay you for the building. He said, okay. He was getting 10 grand for, I didn't even, you know, try to work no deal with him. I wanted the building. Now mind you, my boy called Reed, God rest his soul, I had to go borrow the first$17 ,000 to get this money to put down on the building because I didn't have it.

39:54And then I went around to all the work spots where you get the people that, you know, the day labor people. And that's where I got all my people. Home Depot. Home Depot. Home Depot. We got a place called Weenie Beanie out here that I used to show up in Brennan. We got these things. Get the truck in. Yeah, yeah. The truck, and they fighting to get in. But I'm taking 20, 30 guys every day. The good old days. You can't do that anymore. No. Early 2000s? That was 2000. Yeah. I mean, 2001. $20 a day, that shit? Nah, nah. We was getting, they was getting$10 an hour. They was getting$10 an hour. And we was playing them, you know, right then.

40:34And I had a brother-in-law that was Spanish that had left my sister, and she didn't even know he was living with me at the time.

40:45But he was the key because he spoke the language, you know. And even when I'd be cussing him out, he'd be like, they'd be like, what did he say? He loves the work y 'all are doing. Y 'all just need it. I'd say, what'd they say? So he just kept the piece. He got it going and everything. Anyway, I thought it was going to cost me a million five. Six million dollars later, borrowed it, and I got a group called Poplar. Six million for what? To renovate the whole thing? To renovate the whole thing. I was working off a demo permit at first.

41:22But I wasn't half-assed in none of the work. I only wanted the best because I said, if they come after me, I want to be perfect already. You didn't, traditional mind thinks I'm going to a baby. There was no, I started the next day. It took me 180 dumpsters to empty all the stuff that was in the building. 180 dumps. I mean, like you can't even, I made my man, the guy had a dumpster company. I know I made his muff, baby. I was just filling these dumpsters left and right. And then there was no architecture drawings. I said, we're going to put a bar right here. We're going to move a bar over here.

42:04We're going to do this here. This part took me three times longer, and its dream was four times the size of this building because permitting, permitting, permitting, doing this, doing that, doing that. But the city, I had the city behind me. I had the higher-ups there, and they came down on me, and they were like, you got to get this shit right. You got to get these permits right. You got to get—but they embraced it. The neighborhood embraced it. They wanted something better, and they saw that I was doing something that became dream. That became dream. So you borrowed$6 million? $6 million at 32%.

42:49You borrowed$6 million 32 % from a lot from like a hard money lender They're hard money lenders And they gave it to you six million at one time? No, it was a million One group gave me 2.5 So first of all, you got the million dollars first on the building I had to get him to move to second place Behind the guy that was giving me the 2.5 million Then I had to get another one after that And I had to get the$2.5 to move to second place, the owner of the building to move to third place. And then someone else gave me another$2.2 million. And then I got another$700 ,000 from France. So I was$6 million there.

43:34And were you making money at that time? Or not before it even opened? Not before it opened. But it only took me six months to build a 54 ,000 square foot building. six months six months that's how big that was yeah are you are you sleeping at this time like i mean i can imagine that no no hold on hold on it's like seven hundred thousand dollars overdrawn is what woke you up every day what was your what was your monthly paybacks what was your monthly but i really wasn't paying back it was deferred it was deferred it was everybody was deferring everything they saw nobody had a problem and then they tried to get me to open it with just the first floor and i was like it's not going to be dream if it's not the whole thing so i got them to believe and i got them to believe and everybody got them to believe and the guys like you know the last guys to give me the money they were like well i know i can sell this with 2.5 no matter what i'm gonna get my money they were all you know everybody else was behind them but everybody believed in it now the guys that gave me the second money they had a white guy that was in there and they were like he's staying here till we get our money back i mean of course everybody that came to the building called the white guy on the bill you know what i'm saying well you got it for a million did it appraise for a million or was it appraise for much more they didn't want to appraise for nothing it was a dumpster it was a dumpster after you renovated he's looking at like oh he did a good job that's at least two points off right got you well remember but he's after he's got it he's now not he's after five million dollars now he's been gone to third place on the building so this guy was just a good guy he really believed in me so how you get it up and running and then how much money you start like how how quick you gotta remember i had my first liquor order was a quarter million dollars liquor order for for you to get the whole bars all the bars the next week i needed another quarter million dollars and they wanted their money right there so where'd you get that money from you borrowed it from somebody else So using a whole like$8 million.

45:42Yeah, that's why you got that for more like 7 million. So when did you start actually making money? It wasn't until the second year because you got to remember all the payments then. Soon as people see you making money. They want their money. They want their money. Well, I mean, you was making enough money to start paying people back. I was, but I didn't know how to run a staff of 350 people. Damn. You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't know what payroll is for 350 people. people? There was we had, you remember those tubes that Home Depot had? They used to put the money in and shoot them up and shoot them up to the office.

46:18That's the dumbest shit in the whole world. I spent$100 ,000 on those tubes because I thought, you know, we got to watch out. Somebody going to rob us. What's happening here? I mean, everything was a problem. And the neighborhood, they loved me, but they hated me. They said, you can't park, You can't start any of your events before six because we need to get home from work. But they didn't want to get home from work. They would leave their cars at work and they'd be in there selling their driveway spots for 50 and 100 dollars. Because you got to remember, there was no Uber back there. There wasn't none of the stuff that we got.

46:52People weren't going. This ain't New York City. There's no taxi moving around like that in D.C. So everybody was driving. Oh, parking was my money, though. Parking? All I wanted was parking and co-chat How much was co-chat? $15 ,000 a night Parking was another$15 ,000 to$20 ,000 a night Cash But not paying taxes

47:22So you just gave$40 ,000 a night off of parking and co-chat Gilbert Arena's party? Parking did$50 ,000 We're going to get to that We're going to get to the Gilbert Arena's party So, okay, so you're up and running now. Now you really start to hit your stride. I'm hitting the stride. At first, you remember, the big club, I mean, y 'all in New York, but y 'all still a little young for knowing stuff about the tunnel. Yeah, that was before my time. I know about it, but I'll get close as we will get right to that. The tunnel became the tunnel to our generation. See, what happened is once the tunnel went black that was the money.

48:05Oh shit, hold on what is this? There's a difference between black money and white money and there's no club that says they're going to start out black They're not They're not going to do it They're They're going to get the white money they think they think white money is this Friday night was my white night Saturday night was I mean Friday night was my black night Saturday night was my white night at Dream Friday night was during the quarter million Saturday night was maybe during April you just can't get it it's the difference and nobody understands it do you want Neiman markets or do you want Walmart Well, it's parking, coat check, drinks, bottle service.

49:01So you're saying it's bottle service, but I didn't even know back then. So there's more money with the black. Oh, it it crushes. Nowadays, there are no clubs that stay white. So talk about. All right. There's no club that stay white because black people spend more money on nightlight than white people. Yes. That's what I'm saying. That's the white people spend money on drugs. inside the club inside the club allegedly allegedly allegedly but that's what I'm saying so when I can even say you can say allegedly except that I would do 2 ,500 white people here at Park when I opened I didn't want to cannibalize love so I said we're going I brought this white boy in from Vegas we're going to tell everybody you own the joint when I open when I open Park you own the joint that we're allowed to say we're doing 2 ,500 people a night.

49:57I'm doing$40 ,000,$50 ,000. I'm like $20 ,000. I'm watching bartenders. I'm watching the staff. I'm like, why the fuck are y 'all stealing my money? They just buy them beer. That's where we get the 250 cameras. Yeah. And then the black people, how much they doing? Oh. So then I decided here that I was going, I did a black party on a Thursday on a Thursday I did 75 I only got 1200 people on Friday I'm doing 45 something's wrong with this equation I'm doing 2500 people I said we're going to try the black thing on Friday I went from 45 to 135 what you doing that's gonna be Friday Saturday and Sunday it's gonna be Friday Sunday

50:58there's no question at this time is food even involved yet? Food is always involved food is involved so hold on hold on so let me explain to you what happened yeah yeah I missed this step here I hated I loved doing happy hour 5 to 10 at other people's club I was done by 10 o 'clock and I had already got everybody drunk and killed everybody else's, I destroyed the club life, the late night. What you gonna do after you drunk? You've been partying for five hours. I used to do, I would be like penny drinks for the first hour. Because see, this is what you gotta remember. It don't matter. Once you in there, you're not gonna stop.

51:44You're not gonna stop. And once you can't get to the bar, You can't get drinks, you know the guys were coming with the piggy banks I'm buying the bar throwing the penny fell over the bar, you know all that stupid stuff and everything but If I open at five and the penny drinks end at seven Because people you know in line getting in there to go to work The first drink is paying for Whatever the liquor cost back then it was 25 cents that the liquor was costing you now it's 75 cents to a dollar, dollar and a half now. You know what I'm saying? Unless you're drinking. So would liquor cost a dollar and a half for a drink?

52:26Well, when you were buying drinks for$7.50. That's, yeah. So like, like right now, it's like$20 a drink. $20 a drink. But you buy a bottle of Don Ruppo for$40, right? You get 18 drinks. So let's say 15. Okay. So that's$3 a drink. Yeah. Right. Right. right but that's inflation that's inflation but but now when people say now the pre-game is crazy now and in especially in this younger audience but we can get back to that let's go back to where you want to go back to dream how we got in there yeah how'd you get like dream dream was lit but my problem with dream is that i was doing an artist every week I was dependent on the artists because we went when my numbers hit 5 ,500 people in one night I went crazy I got 40 managers I'm like what the fuck are y 'all doing y 'all bullshitting we half assing 5 ,500 people and I'm cussing people out and the biggest problem is I didn't know how to clean carpets so why do I got carpet?

53:43I learned this at Republic Garden. So I'm in Republic Gardens and I got hardwood floors. Beautiful hardwood floors. I'm replacing the hardwood floors and the wood don't come in in time but I already stripped them out. So I go into my man's carpet shop. I said give me some carpet. It's just going to be there for two weeks. Man, this bar in the back room that I put the carpet in is killing it. On women, it's easier to stand on. Women can stand up twice as long on carpet as they can concrete. But what's the problem with carpet? So now you ain't going to have no slip and fall. Stains, stains. It stinks.

54:28You got to learn how to clean it. What carpet should you have? That juice is sitting down there. This is what I try to tell people. You have a party at your house? ever? Yeah. Your friends, right? Yeah. They destroy it. Not destroy, but they fuck up something. They're gonna fuck up something. They're gonna fuck up something. These ain't my friends. They definitely gonna fuck something. How much? Your wife got hair? Yeah. How much hair come up with the back of the building? A lot. A lot of hair. That's one, I don't know how many girls you got in your house. Two. Two girls and there's a lot of hair in the goddamn vacuum.

55:07That's two people and you cutting hair out of the vacuum cleaner. You got weeds. When you get the weeds and more, I got 5 ,000 coming through a week. Are you kidding me? I keep eight vacuum cleaners in the shop and eight vacuum cleaners in the building. So I can just trade out all eight, Even though my man can clean them, they still tell these vacuum cleaners up. The problem is busboys don't care what it is. They'll vacuum it up. They vacuum a cell phone up. They will vacuum anything. They will vacuum throw up. And no matter how much you try to teach people, it's that. So I had to go to Vegas.

55:57I was like, how the fuck do they clean their carpets? I'm sitting up all night watching these motherfuckers clean the carpet the problem with carpet is you can shampoo it as much as you want what happens when you leave your clothes in the washing machine it's gonna stink if you don't dry it so now I have to figure out that you gotta dry your carpet or it's gonna stink and you gotta have the right type of carpet you gotta have to rub it back so that it doesn't sit in the back of the carpet so you got to do all of these things because i don't want to lose my carpet because carpet's 10 times better the room is warm it feels good already you don't need nothing else but people don't understand all this so it's learning all of these pieces of the puzzle now it does take twice as long to close your place down you know other places they clean and they're trying to mop the floor and this and that.

56:58But people are stupid and cheap. You got to change your mop heads every week, even on the floors you're there, or you get 30 mop water. Just throw it away. They cost$2.50. It's just like people give bad sodas for great drinks. Why am I not going to use Simply Lemonade to go along with the Doucet or whatever else you want to put in there? You got a great lemonade drink. You want to drink? You like Simply Lemonade? I do. You love it. If I put that at your table, you're going to pour that liquor twice and squint. Simply Lemonade only costs you$3. That bottle costs you $350,$400. In Miami it costs you$750.

57:42When you said that you was relying on artists, how'd you fix that? I said I'm going to spend more money in customer service. You didn't rely on artists. I don't want no more artists. I'm not doing no artists for no reason if they come in here it's because someone else paid for it oh i'm not doing no artists i want the event the building the customer service i want people to love the people at park they said so at the at its peak before dream turns to love now is it black How much are we bringing this college night? Yeah, Thursday or Friday on Thursday Yeah Okay, I got this international guy. They were doing college stuff Blah-de-blah they killing it We doing 50 at the bar and 75 at the door.

58:46Friday night a good Friday average Friday night is 150 a good Friday night is 350 but I got artists and I got extra security and I got extra police and I got a drunk tank that's full with people customer care okay literally 50 people lined up we had a triage We signed every single person in to the triage. We had a book, every single thing for every. And we ran that from the day we opened to the day I lied. Why'd you leave? It was too much. I got caught up in the, uh, in 2007, 2008, had too many properties. I owned drink. I had too many. I needed to get out of that. Financial crisis. Yeah. And the numbers had dropped down to$2 ,500,$3 ,000, unless I had the right artists.

59:51And then this life is not conducive to any type of relationship. It just ain't. What's wrong with you, man?

1:00:10It's just not conducive to any type of relationship. You know what I'm saying? Like, your job is to be friends with every beautiful woman in the place. You know what I'm saying? It's like St. Patrick. What's his name? James. James St. Patrick. You like the real-life James St. Patrick. Oh, I'm sorry. He ain't watched Power. He never watched Power. Power. 50 Cent Show? Why is it a version? It just is not conducive. Well, I'm not the real light because I ain't got nothing to do with. That's all alleged. What? Alleged. Yeah. But the whole thing is, that wasn't what the FBI and DEA thought. My bank, I took, it was a 4th of July weekend.

1:00:55We had 700 ,000 cash we took to the bank. what year was that that was 22 i mean 2002 2002 that's after 9-11 yeah you so you took 700 000 to the bank to the bank 700 000 cash and then where yeah it was because non-11 it was the year after because you 2001 and then because that's where they changed the banking laws a lot for 9-11 and and and so the guys who power fuel who had given me the money they knew they were counting all the money. I didn't give a fuck. You know what I'm saying? Like, y 'all count the money. You know, we know it's there. And we took the$700 ,000. They called DEA, FBI, everybody on me.

1:01:40They came in there. They want to go to the bank. They want to see all the videotapes and everything. The one thing that I got, like in here, there's 250 cameras. I'm going to tell you where your purse is, where your wallet is, who pickpockets you, anything. The one thing Parker's going to do, we had cameras at dream but we got more here than we had a drink uh so we could see everything we were like come watch the videos come see you you count the people to come in there they literally sat in there for 12 weeks 13 weeks and just went through everything they want to go to go through that was here or dream dream so you so all right so you so you exit dream you get hit the financial crisis you recalibrate I did a bankruptcy and then you come back to park that's the second wave but at that point I'm like I'm never doing an artist again I'm done with that I'm done with artists artists kill me they want the money I can't do that even though at the beginning after 2010 2010, I think it was, we never did ours.

1:02:52At the beginning, we did everybody here, too. So it's just straight parties? Yep. And I do have a couple of groups who've come up now. But you do the brunch thing, too. I didn't do brunch before. So brunch saved me. But before, let's slow it down. Let's talk about this bottle service era. when did the bottle service era hit because we saw it hit in new york we saw it hit miami when did it hit dc and how did that drastically change it hit it hit dream it hit dream but i didn't know what was going on there was door money there was parking money and there was co-chat right i wasn't even think girl y 'all go ahead y 'all tell me in the end of like what y 'all did in bottle service I wasn't even really interested in it and the thing was if you was the girl in charge of the bottle service you was a god well first of all anybody who worked at Dream was a god I mean because they could open the doors to get people in you were in the most powerful place in the country at the time Diageo's meetings were about how are these motherfuckers selling so much and how can we get other people to do it how much liquor was you selling

1:04:20100k we would take 100k drops pallets they would just take they i was selling so much absolute they flew me down private plane gave me a house and sent me to the Masters. When they called me and said, we got tickets for you to the Masters. I was like, what the fuck is that? I don't know. I don't know nothing about golf. And they were like, it's the Super Bowl of golf. And I was like, I don't want them. They were like, you want these fucking tickets, fuck? And so they said, can you call just one person that plays golf and asks them? So I called my boy, this boy, Jack Murray, white boy. I was like, what's this Masters shit?

1:05:04He was like, oh my God, what the fuck do you mean? I was like, these motherfuckers want to give me tickets in the master. And they say, I want to go. Do I want to go? He was like, yeah, I want to go. I said, you want to go with me? He was like, you're damn right. I want to go. And he was in charge of radio at Radio 1, of selling all the radio. So, you know, I took my boy and everything, you know, we went down there. I still didn't get fucked. You know, it just wasn't my thing. You know what I'm saying? I got on an early plane coming back. okay I'm standing there with VJ Singh and all that so alright but when the bottle service hit you didn't fully understand it was like Nino Brown he didn't fully understand what the crack was until he you had to at some point eventually that's why Gilbert's party was a million dollar party because we sold 400 ,000 in bottle service tables Let's just get to that party because you keep talking about it.

1:06:01Was it a million or two million? It was a million. Talk about the party. It was a million dollars. Okay, explain it. So Gilbert comes to me. It was Mark and Taz back then. This is when he was with the Ratchet. Before the Ratchet, after the Ratchet. I don't think Gilbert really was the Ratchet. I think he's a man. He was the man, but he wasn't the man. And I didn't. So when I did at Republic Gardens, it was Mark. It was Mark and Taz. So when I went to dream, it was Mark and Taz. We did these parties together and because, again, I'm 62 and I was getting older and I was like, who wants to go party with the with the dad?

1:06:45You know what I'm saying? So I would always try to bring in the younger motherfucking crowds and keep relevant.

1:06:54when I got, when we got there, Taz used to play ball. So he knew all the ball players. He knew all, he knew the street and I knew the corny side. So he brings Gilbert in and he said, he said to me, he said, Gilbert want to do his, I said, who's Gilbert? Because I wasn't up on it. I just wasn't. So he comes down there. He talks to, I said, you want a birthday party? or do you want a birthday party that nobody will ever forget? He said, well, what's the difference? I said, birthday party going to cost you$25 ,000. One that they never going to forget is going to cost you a quarter million. He said, I want the one they never going to forget.

1:07:41I said, if you want to write the check, baby, I want to take it. He said, I want. So then my biggest problem is I can't half-ass nothing. I can't. it's got to be right it's got to be done perfect so i said i'm gonna spend this whole quarter million to show myself off to make it the baddest thing we did this invitation it was a great gible arena it was the arena's express and it looked just like an american express card and it had gilbert's picture you know that what do you call it um centurion or with the guy that they American Express got in the middle of their car anyway but it had his face on it it was the sickest shit so then he said I want to get puff he said I want to get the game I want to get TI I want to get who else was it Buster Rhymes I think it was like five August and he had everybody there so now you getting this Black card, Arena Express, it came in this thing.

1:08:53You know how American Express sing you that card? It looked just like American Express. Niggas was going in the stores, dropping them down, you know, and everything. But every card had every single person's name on it. Special invite. Special invite. 8 ,000 cards we made. We bought the machine. We had two machines running day and night. People begging to buy the invitations. We're like, it's invite only, blah, blah, blah, this, that, and that. Gilbert's giving me 200 names a day You know what I'm saying? I need these We dropping them off to him His girls are where When I tell you But this is January 5th We're planning for Coat check We're going to check 8 ,000 coats That's$40 ,000 I'm going to make in coat check Tell me what the problem was It was hot It was 65 degrees and the ice culture was melting but I was in heaven because we had to open the we tented the whole street and I'll give y 'all so pictures of this and stuff like that we tented the whole street it was the most amazing thing we had crap games car games everything Gilbert then said I'm flying a plane from LA he paying for all these artists we do$400 ,000 in bottle service tables before we open.

1:10:22The first two hours was open bar and the food was amazing. You got 8 ,000 people coming. I didn't have a table for TI, so I had to give him the fourth floor bar with the bartenders because it was a big bar. I said, you just back here, this is your bottle service table.

1:10:45like it was and every single floor was ridiculous now we were going supposed to do the artists inside we built a stage outside my man shout out to my man glenn he paid 20 000 for a table and because he wanted to be right next to the art i mean the stage while they was performing and he wasn't up and they never came inside he don't let me he don't let me forget that to this day. He said, you know you're only $20 ,000. But we sold everything. The whole place was the most ridiculous thing that you'd ever seen. But it was really the perfect part. $50 ,000 in parking. Gilbert drove his Lamborghini into the party because we tinted the whole street and he drove right into the middle of the party.

1:11:37Agent Zero. Yes. It was phenomenal. When I tell you they were talking about Kenny Smith was like, do you see this? Do you he's on SportsCenter. Do you see this? You see this invitation? I mean, it was it was the most amazing thing ever. And everybody then knew Dream Worldwide. I mean, it was it was a three page spread in The Washington Post. You know what I'm saying? Like, oh, my God, this party, pictures of him. It was it was just nothing like it. Now, I didn't know Gilbert had a different agenda. He was trying to get his cloud out with Adidas and everybody and, you know, get his votes for all star and everything.

1:12:23It worked. But when I tell you it worked, he was hitting three pointer game winning. I mean, when I tell you it was the perfect storm for that party, it was nothing ever like it. nothing and you made$400 ,000 in bottle service? now he had already given me $250 ,000 I made$400 ,000 in bottle service probably made another$150 ,000 at the bar I don't know how much niggas made trying to sell their invitations you know what I'm saying you know Mark, I need two more these names on it everybody wanted their name When you said you didn't understand the bottle service, was it the idea of people just buying a bottle or the idea that they would pay this much for a bottle?

1:13:14The problem was I couldn't pay attention to inside because there were 8 ,000 people trying to get in outside. So I didn't even I'm like, I don't care. I got to figure this out. and then the problem with those shoots of the money is that you got to have somebody counting the money when it goes in and then somebody at the other end or like in those bank movies that you see the money can just go miss her and nobody knew it it wasn't sent up the steel is going on this oh stills i'm telling you the steelings at all time huh everybody and you know it but But it's like you just going into, if you started doing the oil business tomorrow, somebody just gave it to you, you don't know where they're stealing from you.

1:14:03It's just too big. It's too much. It's too much money coming through. You know, and the banks, we're switching up where we're dropping off the bank because you don't want to get robbed. You know, because the bankers that's making$25 or$15 an hour back then, they pillow talking. God damn, I had to count 300 ,000 today. I had to count 150 ,000. You know what I'm saying? So we had the police following us to the bank. On the big weekends, the police would just sit there all night. I'd have a rotate just so we wouldn't get robbed. She was getting robbed internally. Absolutely. How much do you think you was getting robbed for?

1:14:44I think they were taking 10 % of everything. And that's a lot of money. That's 30 ,000 a week. you know, 40, 50 ,000 a week. Everybody was winning and everybody was happy. How do you change that? Do you decide to pay them more or it's just something? Oh, they're going to pay. It don't matter how much you give them. They still don't take. They're going to take. It's cash. It's going somewhere. But that's changed now. Oh, yeah. We 2 % cash now. Talk about that game. The credit card companies are stealing their 4 % for me. You know what I'm saying? So if you make 400 ,000, they taking 16 ,000 every week.

1:15:2316, 30. Mine's always taking. 16, 4 % or 10 %? I'm going to take the 4%. Better off giving to your employees. Say what? Better off giving to your employees. Oh yeah. Now I don't know about that. But, you know, and then even when the problem was if it was a rough weekend, you still got to pay it. Everybody's like, fuck you, pay me. they want you to win you've been winning you know and it's just so many other distractions well talk about this too you said nobody spends money like black people on nightlife what about brunch oh my god brunch i seen the first hand your brunches a power homecoming that was crazy that was how a homecoming what are you talking about every week superbowl that's what superbowl people are doing what on superbowl they're going to their friends' houses and everything.

1:16:18The Super Bowl party wasn't amazing, but the brunch was 780 people.

1:16:26Brunch is... What's the science for the brunch? You got a few... I didn't learn. I didn't learn anything. Yo, Lou, you about to get escorted out of here. Stop this. Don't give Walt a secret. I didn't learn anything. I could tell them, I can give them A, B, C, D. Do you think Houston's restaurant hides anything that they do? You can see everything they do, right? Every single thing they do, you can see. How come no one can duplicate it? Why is it no one has a Houston's? I mean, it's the same thing with Michael Jordan. You know his workout. You can see his workout, but you're still not going to be Michael Jordan.

1:17:10Right. You're not going to be Michael Jordan. So I can tell you. So what's the sign? What's the sign? with the bar, because we've been told, like, is to have a few items. Like, no, no, no. Mm-mm. The key to everything is the service. Unreasonable hospitality. That's it. So, but the food gotta be good. Food costs. You don't have to. I don't give a fuck about food costs. You don't care about food costs? I don't care about, it's all you can eat. You'll never eat more than you make. Exactly. Okay. And if you do, I'm happy to feed you. Yeah. Okay. You give good mimosas. You don't buy the worst cheap liquor.

1:17:57You buy good champagne. You give them something or Prosecco, whatever it is. You give them something that tastes amazing. If they want, I'm using blueberry lemonade to make mimosas. They're loving it. everybody don't want orange juice I'm using good orange juice like people don't get give them great they'll come back I need you to do what? go tell your wife we gotta go to brunch

1:18:32that's true that's it talk about the food, the service, the ambiance because one of the things we talked about when we were here was the excellence and the level of excellence And even when we went outside, people wait. It's just a level of maturity, professionalism that you see. And that's why. Talk about that. And unfortunately, that is why.

1:18:56You have to kind of like if you look at TikTok right now, there's a whole bunch of stuff on there. Mark, don't play. I'm not going to play.

1:19:10you're still in a dinner a restaurant i want you to dance i want you to sing every song i don't want that we're not talking on the tables right i don't i don't i don't want the twerking i don't want the craziness i want the true brunch experience where everybody in the room is singing. But to me, DJs are stupid. Because they should own the crowd. Viz owns the crowd. That's why these DJs, they don't practice. They don't go home. And the biggest challenge here is I got all the Allen Alvices. You know what? They're the greatest players in the world. But guess what? They don't want to go to practice.

1:20:08And Alex, that's my man. But when you... They know it all. They think they know it all. They know it all. They know it all. Three of the greatest people that I ever had work for me, I had to let go. Because they think it's for me. It's not for me. But with you. So you're doing a brunch from what time to what? From 11 to 5. From 11 to 5. Then the club opens up. Then you go to dinner. Here? Yeah. From what time? From 5 to 10. From 5 to 10? Yeah. And then the club opens up? From 10 to 3. So. But the real moneymakers, you got a member, ain't them. What's the real moneymaker? The real moneymakers are when the corporate people want to come in here and they look at your venue and they're like, wow, this is clean, this is beautiful.

1:20:59And then you give them the best party that they have ever had. Mm-hmm. If you think I'm good, if I can give our people the greatest service, oh, my God, what I can do for those corporate people? Yeah. I feel like we came one day, and it was like, Delaware rented out the space. I was like, what? They were like, yeah, all the representatives, they took over the whole space. No, no. What's their revenue look like for the corporates, huh? I got three this month coming up. Each one I'm paying anywhere from$120 ,000 to$190 ,000. For a night? For a night. And those are the easiest things in the world.

1:21:39Three, four hours. All the food, all the drink. No problems at all. How are the margins sold? Because those margins are crazy. On the typical... Because it's not a lot of people. There are a lot of people. So why is it crazy margins? Because you don't have no security. You don't have no problems. They don't tear the place up. It's corporate. Typical night margins are thinner. Because that restaurant space is, I mean, those sometimes, on a Thursday night, if I make$20 ,000, I'm breaking even maybe losing. Friday night, I'm doing$75 ,000 to$100 ,000. After 60, I'm making money. Okay.

1:22:34Saturday, I'm trying to do 140 to 175. I'm not worried about no food costs. Honestly, I tell my people, my crab suits, people get tired of eating the crab in my crab suit. There's so much crabs. There's so much crabs. I want it to be just like that. I want you to go tell people, you got to have this fucking crab soup. There used to be a place here. It was down in Southwest. They had the best she crab soup I've ever had in my life. You couldn't eat it but two days, maybe once a week, because it was too rich. It was too good. You know what I'm saying? When you talk, oh, I did forget. I tried to go back, and I forgot again.

1:23:20The key to everything is my food. other places aren't starting until what clubs don't have you don't get the club until there's somebody in there right 11 12 1 yeah new york that's fair you know what i'm saying so you're missing out i'm catching you at five o 'clock because they're coming to eat they come in to eat and they don't leave and then my brunch is about to become my dinner is about to come the same thing as my brunch. That's what I walk into. Is it a timetable on the brunch? Like you can't be here an hour and a half. Two hours was too much. They were twisted. So a lot of restaurateurs say that.

1:24:03I will let you stay for two hours sometimes if your tables, but when we sold out and we're doing eight, nine hundred, a thousand. Gotta keep people. I gotta keep you. And it's hard. It's the hardest thing is to get, they'll say we'll pay double. We'll got boss. And I'm like, you live already. I'm just over-serving me now. So, would you make that known when they come in? Like, look, you're going to stay 90. It's a contract. When, um, a lot of restauranteurs that I know don't like nightlife. They shy away from that. They're like, look, it's only problems, it's trouble, people get stabbed, shot. They don't, because a lot of restaurants go to nightlife when their restaurant starts struggling.

1:24:46But a lot of restauranteurs, I sit there, They were like, I just want to keep it clean. It's over at midnight, 11 o 'clock. I don't want to go into nightlife. You do both. You do restaurant and nightlife. I do. And events. And brunch. So what's your thoughts on that philosophy that nightlife is too much trouble? I think it's all going to end once we get the facial recognition for everybody else. They have that in London. Yeah. Because in London, we went to, you know, you got to turn your hat around or turn it around. Taking it off is understandable because you don't want hats in your establishment.

1:25:24But it's like, why would you wear it to the back? They didn't realize that they had the facial record so they could scan your face. So we want to go to membership. But right now, you're not at membership. So you've been in 30 years. You've seen everything. How have you been able to say that? Not that I would have made it without brunch. There's nothing like brunch. Nothing. The formula that I've gotten for brunch is everything to me. And the key to that is service. But how are you able not to have major problems at night? I care. Shooting, stabbings, like that's a lot. Let's knock on wood because it can happen anywhere.

1:26:14demographic are you is it dress code is the music because somebody is somebody somebody tell me what's everything we interview we interview you know jimmy from the bronx jimmy cafe yeah so we he said something that was interesting he said i said how do you control type of energy that's in the club it used to be a dress code it's no dress code anymore he said it's the music he said you play a certain music you're going to attract a certain demographic if you purposely play a different type of music or even if you see it's at some level of friction you tell a dj They switched the music. Like his thing was the music dictates the energy.

1:26:50I think it does, but I think you have to go for a clientele. And I think in the next year, well, I know in the next six months, I'm going to membership. For this? For this? For everything. So calm. What does that look like? what does the membership model look like for part? Okay, so right now we do, let's say we do 5 ,000 people a week. Yeah. 5 % of those people are A's. Are what? A's. A's? Like highest quality. Okay. That means you spend? A client. An A client. Okay. 20 % of B's. 60 % of C's. 14 % of D's. and 1 % is F. F, you don't, one F can just screw up the whole building. Just a knucklehead.

1:27:45He just, he got a problem, fuck it up. He fuck it up. If I just take the A's and the B's every week, that's 25%. 25 % of 5 ,000 is 1 ,250 people. If I went and offered those people, Now tell me this, where's your favorite place to go to? My favorite place? Gaston, Cloud, anywhere. In America? Yeah. The park. Okay. But if you lived here. Like what's convenient, Soho House is convenient, something like that. Listen to this. If they said, you don't go to Soho House because you also get a bill from them every month. You got to spend so much or you do this, that, that. But if you said you could get a membership for$100 a month and you could get up to three drinks every day for free with that$100 a month membership, how quick would you buy that membership?

1:28:52That's what's going to include? Anytime you come and you get three drinks. So if I get... Is that even profitable? Let me tell you how profitable it is. If you say you can get three drinks and these are all members. Now, remember, you want to be here worse now because it's what? All A's and B's. High clientele. High clientele. Okay? So if I go 20 weeks at 1 ,250 people a week, all A's and B's, that's 25 ,000 people. That means at the beginning of a month, if they all pay me$100 a month, I've taken$2.5 million. That's$6 million, I mean$600 ,000 a week before I sell any bottle service or food. But that's right.

1:29:52That's saying that they're different people. It might be the same people every week, though, too. That's$25. thousand people that I'm going to give a membership to that can also for a price bring a friend along with them but they're gonna have to get a membership or a different tier membership I want them to get a membership and they are going to be different tier membership but again the average restaurant isn't taking in 2.4 million dollars a month neither am I right now I'm taking in 1.5 to 1.8 a month 20 million a year okay so if I can now go to 2.5$600 ,000 and that's with all the brunch and all the Bible service tables right now but if I knew I had that money coming in at the beginning of the month I can hire even more customer service people.

1:30:58And it's what? Only what I want. And it's all facial recognition. Then you put the Netflix model in on it and you say, I'm going to go buy up four little spots so you're not stuck just coming to park. And for$25 more a month, so I'm now getting $200 a month you can go to all four of these spots so now I'm taking in$5 million $60 million a year before I sell one drink a piece of food or a brunch or about a service table that's the model and I can tell everybody about it and they won't do it because everybody shows people what they do and people just can't do it. Well, it's a fact. It is a fact.

1:31:58People can't do it. You can tell people exactly what you're doing. They can't do what you do. Sure. 100%. Now, there'll be somebody who'll come close to it, and there may be somebody who does do it better, but I've told hundreds of people this model and nobody does it. Nobody does what I do. No, the key is though you can't be greedy either. It's it's like destroying a country when the top if I have all the money and I'm up here and all my people down there It ain't right I'm bringing all my people along with me Let's go y 'all. Have you seen a decrease in revenue from people not drinking alcohol as much as I used to be?

1:32:44You know grew 13 % Because you know about that stat, right? I do. And the$22 billion worth of liquor that's sitting in reserve. But it's not affecting you. I grew 13 years old. You have an older audience, though, too. No, I don't. You don't have an older audience? Can I tell you what the real problem is out here? What? Don Julio Repo. They are selling the hell out of that shit. You know, I go through 60 to 100 cases a week. Tequila. Tequila. Tequila. I ain't never seen nothing like Don Julio Repo, though. I saw the Rock days, the Grey Goose days, the Hennessy days. They all want shots. I done seen everything.

1:33:28They all want shots. There's nothing like Don Julio Repo. There's one thing that affects everybody. You talked about it before we started. Weather. Most people don't think about that. So can I tell you, this is the first year in the last five years I've worried. Oh, I had weather really affect me. I try to tell people, people say, oh, I want to own my own. See, the biggest challenge that people have is I want to own my own. Before you say you want to own your own, come in here and learn everything I do. learn what the insurance is learn what the challenges are learn about do everything in a job that's the only thing I jumped in it and I didn't know the finance side I didn't know everything about the money never got a line of credit

1:34:29never but the whole thing is you gotta hire good people and you gotta Now, no matter how you try, but I try to tell people, you got to live the way you want your people to be. At Dream, we had 300 employees. And OK, so now we got the guy. I got boots, y 'all. I got TVs. I got, you know, 300 employees. Everybody got something. I'm not letting you sell nothing stolen. I'm not buying nothing stolen. I'm not taking nothing. when the liquor people come and they say, you know, I got one of these that fell off the truck. I say, you want me to call them and tell them they fell off your truck? Because next week you're trying to steal my liquor.

1:35:15Walk the cases in and accidentally walk a case out. Oh, I thought I overgave it to you. You know, this, that, and that. But I don't think people

1:35:30understand what it takes to make it work. I can't duplicate myself. I really wish I could because then I'd have five of these and be sitting on the beach. There are challenges, you know, keeping yourself relevant no matter what is hard. No matter no matter what you're doing podcast today in a minute. If you don't have the right guests, the right people, the right thing you got to keep what's exciting. What makes it good? Who's really given the right information? that's that's what it's about what makes this work you know it's like what makes this country work i think where everybody else thinks the ai is going to take these jobs it's going to take these jobs but it's going to teach these kids in a minute when i tell you you're going to be able to have an ipad that figures out you know just like you talk to grok or you talk to one of these other things there they got different voices that they're gonna find a voice that you want to talk to something that you want to hear just like they understand your algorithms and you know the kids that want to watch fights they send them fights they what is that world star right the kids everything that comes up on my algorithm is ai everything every ai commercial everything i want because that's what I'm watching.

1:36:56I'm believing that. It's listening to me. It knows what I want. I don't even, I've never seen, except on other people's phones, this Wolfstar stuff. I'm not watching that. Before we, you talk about working with your son works with you, right? He does. None of my, my daughter was on Bar Rescue. My son works with me. How's that? It's challenging. I want him to do more. but you got to remember

1:37:30growing up in a house and the thing is, is that at one point you're Mark's son. Then at one point it became your Chase's dad.

1:37:43But he's taking a back seat. He wanted to go, I guess, you know, make his own path and everything. And he's doing what he does work with me still. helps out. I wish it was more. But, you know, you go through that, you know, parents and kids and everything. None of my daughters, my daughters both work in the same business. One works in Chicago and one works in New York. And my other daughter is marketing and she's out of Toronto. So, but, you know, it's, it's challenging. You know, I'm, I'm not easy to work with anyway. as animated as animated as I am here and my biggest problem is I want to joke and play but I want work and I'm these nuts I got cards that say these nuts literally and we play a game everybody gets a card at the beginning of the night and if I make you say who then you got to give me your card the person that ends up with the most cards just to try to break the ice on some of the things we do.

1:38:55You know, and park is a staple, so we do try to attract everything. So it's hard. I think it's going to grow even bigger. I think AI is going to change the world like people can't believe, and I think people don't understand. We agree. Well, appreciate your time, my brother. Tell the people where to follow and yeah, when you're going to roll out the are you going to roll out the membership this year? Membership, first we got the park games coming. Yeah. What is that? In the next two or three weeks. What is that? What is that? So, you know, you've heard of Beast Games. Yeah. And we want to put competitions out there.

1:39:43We think it's going to be a big thing. for the right now we're doing a 70 ,000 20 ,000 for second place 50 ,000 for first we have to invite you in there and then you got to be invited the app guy that i got that's making this up this guy's amazing um he also made the membership app um but then you know we want to move these prizes up to like beast games 100 200 you know um and we we want to make it a competition like nothing anybody's ever seen. The guy who did Beast Games is, I'm asleep one night and I just roll over and I'm watching and somehow I'm on my TV and I'm like, what the hell is this stuff?

1:40:27But have you seen the first two episodes of season one? I've just seen clips on Instagram. Oh man, you've got to watch it. There's nothing like that. it's just amazing to watch those first two episodes i'm telling you you should watch them and i know that's pushing somebody else up but that it is it's competition he was smart with it but he lost 20 million i think on the first one but now he's on the third one and again like coachella i think they were losing 10 15 20 million when they first started out i hope they're making money now. I don't know what their real numbers are, but I would imagine that they are.

1:41:11Yeah, it's like Fnatic Fest also. Yeah, same. I don't know much about Fnatic Fest. It didn't make any money. No, it was losing and losing. Admittedly, you said he lost$17 million last year. Oh, okay. But, I mean, tell him to call me. I got to wait for him to make money. When I tell you, the key to everything is that penny equation. When people leave your thing, what you do, they got to go tell two people. And it moves so quick like that. When we get our camera, I got another one for y 'all. Amen. Hi, my brother. Well, it's been a pleasure, man. Thank you for the hospitality. Thank you. I appreciate it, my brother.

1:42:04Thank you. All right, y 'all. It's a wrap.

1:42:36Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:43:06heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Bowen Yang. And I'm Matt Rogers. During this season of the Two Guys Five Rings podcast in the lead up to the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends. Hi, Bowen! Hi, Matt! Hey, Elmo! Hey, Matt! Hey, Bowen! Hi, Cookie! Hi! Now, the Winter Olympic Games are underway, and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears. Listen to Two Guys, Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have?

1:43:50Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, a.k.a. neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.