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

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You're the number one club on in America. I think the thing that people in America don't realize there's no money like the black dollar. Dream used to do 8,000 people a night. That's why Gilbert's party was a million dollar party, because we saw 400,000 in bottle service tables. How did you even get into hospitality? Did the Washington Hills and that's when they give the correspondence then, at a minimum 10,000 people. And they said, "You'll never do a party here at Gary." We couldn't get nobody out. 6, 7 in the morning. How much will we bring? Every Friday night is 150. A good Friday night is 350. But I got artists. Dream was lit, but my problem with Dream is that I was doing an artist every week. I was dependent on the artist. So you said nobody spends my black people a night like, "What about brunch?" The Super Bowl party wasn't amazing, but the brunch was 780 people. This is the black dollar. And it's black acts in it. Followed 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. When I did the podcast which you all I was telling you, probably the most impactful interview I've done in my career. Heroes now, as real heroes. I heard we shot a truck talk about the tax lift. Science. But we talk in a language that is common to the people, that's from the dreams that we grew up in. You are the bright spot. Thank you. Oh, real estate. And our thank you for black Americans. This is the knowledge that actually matters. I applaud both of you for this thank you. There's a country issue. It's not an American issue. It's a world issue. We came to earn our leisure! All right guys, welcome back EYL. We are in DC and we are the legendary park on 14th. And we're the legend. We're the legend. Actually, it's very rare to actually be an establishment and talk to the owner of the establishment. And that's actually what we're currently doing right now. Mark Barnes, somebody who's a legend in the nightlife game. You know, we have a mutual friend called Lutaka. So Taka. Everybody knows. We're out to Louis put it together. But he also says something. He said, "You're the number one club on America." So he was telling the truth. It was like, "I've done the numbers." And I guess if you go up against everybody else, there's Tau Group, which I applaud them for what they've done. But I think the thing that people in America don't realize there's no money like the Black Dau. And this is the Black Dau. And it's Black Excellence. That's the fact. So for people that don't know, we're in District of Columbia, DC. So Park is a fourth story with a patio and a back establishment. That's a restaurant, that's a club. You have brunch. It's like it's an event center. It's an event center. It's the whole week. We got it's in the owner's first. Yeah. Two weeks after that we got. What's the square out? It's for 15,000 square feet. 15,000 square foot establishment. And you and you own the real estate. I don't. You don't have to say. I don't. Okay. I don't. I couldn't. The guy wouldn't sell it. Okay. I wish you did. Yeah. And that is an important piece of people looking to do something. But I think the location that I do have has helped the situation. You know, I don't know that if Park wasn't on, this is 14th Street is basically 395, 95 South. Right dumps right into this. So you couldn't get a better. I'm coming straight up. Location. Essentially located. It's centrally located. I'm two blocks on the wayhouse. And before this you had club love. I gotta give the whole history of it. So club love. That legendary. Legendary. Club dream. Club love turned into club dream. Dream turned into club love. Yes. I only caught love. I only got caught dream. I mean, and I guess there's things that is really known for Gilbert Arena's birthday. But dream was it when we decided to change to love because we had already been through a million or some people. And you know, it was it was just a lot. It was a lot. And we became loving everybody. All of the dream to me. It'll be dream to me forever. Two years into love. Oh, it's love. It's also love. It's all love. Yeah. We left out the park. I mean, obviously being in the location so close to the amount of politicians that come in. Oh, but I mean, congressional back orchestra's obviously held here. But like, there's nobody who hadn't been. No, that's what I'm saying. Everybody's closed. Everybody's been here. But I gotta paint the picture of people that have not been in DC. Okay. I gotta really emphasize how much the legacy from Park is legendary. But then the club dream love era. I remember I was dead. I remember I used to go to school in Baltimore. So I remember coming to how homecoming and coming to DC. So you've been a fiction in the night life over 30 years. staple. Yes. Right. 35 years because before that I started by doing other people's clubs. And we weren't black people. We weren't downtown allowed into the nice spot. So what they would do, but I couldn't get a night. So I got happy hours. I said, give me five to 10. You're not doing nothing. And I was going to the white spots and I said, give me five to 10. And then they realized I was doing more money from five to 10 than they were doing from 10 to three. But my problem was the nightlife business. Back then they thought that they were the gods. I guess the bartenders, the security, and everybody. And I went into these clubs and I was like, why are your bartenders treating people like, yet? Why are you a security rough and evil law? Why are your bathrooms dirty? And they say, we want to see you do that when you get a place. Well, I did it in their place first. I bought my own bathroom attendant. I bought my bathroom. I mean my bartenders, I went to, wouldn't my grill. At that point, it was called Houston's. Everybody knows Houston's has an amazing training program. I got a shout out to them because I tried to model after what Hillsstone, which is the parent company, who Houston's has done. And again, it always makes it so interesting to me that people can't model things that are already great. There's just so many things like, I think the greatest thing going is unreasonable hospitality. It's a book that anybody in the hospitality business should read. And what it says and what it explains, you can mess up a steak, you can mess up a meal. What you're going to leave with is how did they fix it and how did they make you feel? And that's what the most important thing is when you are in the hospitality business and people don't realize that how do you make the customers feel? That's important. That's important. Han go out and when you're in New York, where do you go? You ain't going to take your wife or anybody to a place that you got going So go get in the back of life. Right? The treatment is important. The treatment. Hey, come here. Come on. All you call for me, I'm on my way. I'm good. And that's what I told you. As soon as we were here for homecoming last year, the first thing I said when I got home, I said we gotta go back to love. She's like, what's, I said, none, none. You got, I mean part, part, part. I'm sorry. We gotta go back. You say, we gotta go see part. You gotta go to part and she's like, well, like, number one, the macadcheese incredible. You know, I just don't eat anybody's macadcheese, but I'm like, the macadcheese incredible, but the ambias feeling black, excellent, seeing it, watching people how they conduct themselves in the space, and it's four floors. And every floor is 100 people packed. And outside when you leave, there's another 100 people trying to get in. And I'm like, I was like, a 500. It's like, that's happening on a routine basis. So the treatment is important. The ambias is important. But how did you even get into hospitality? So when I was 19, I had my own, when my father was in the restaurant business. His whole thing and my mom, my mom and him didn't work together, but my mom worked for other companies. She worked for the United Mine Workers, but my mom was amazing at getting things that, my father though, and still didn't ask, I don't care what you do. Be the best at it. And my mom was just graded everything she did. She was a real worker. My father knew what it should be like. Unfortunately, he didn't make it as well as I did in the hospitality business. And I think there were different challenges at his time. And even the challenges that I run up against in this day and time, I'm number one by twofold of liquor sales in anybody in DC. But there's a difference. And who wants you to win and who don't? And it's sad, but we got a truck. You all know where we are. You know what's happening in this world? And people is, so my mom's white, my father's black, and I used to be one of those naysayers. Black people just need to get the act together, blah, blah, blah, blah, this and all that. And I realized after being in business, I learned it the first year, first two years. I don't care how well you do. It's not a level plane, too. It ain't gonna be easy no matter what. - You used to deliver flowers. I used to be with the public gardens. So, yeah. - Republic gardens was my first place. So I was doing everybody. So how I got into the business, me and Jeff Burles, where he was a good friend of mine, young Jeff Little, right? He used to guide everything. The guy we were in New York City, and he was telling me who Andre Herrel and Russell Simmons were across the room. He was like, that's why I wanna work with, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, he's going to all the way. You might as well be giving me a calculus equation 'cause it didn't make no difference. I didn't drink, I ain't never tried to jog in my life. Don't know the 10 words any song, and then got an answer with us. I got it all from my mom's side on that, you know what I'm saying? I just, it ain't me. I was the kid that my sisters made fun of me, you know, when we were coming down, I was the show, they just said that they could get a laugh. But anyway, we get in, and I had thrown this one party one time at what is now the Waldorf Astoria, before that was Trump Hotel, before that it was post office. What was it called? It was the post office here in DC, but they used to rent it out and everything. And I threw this party, one Christmas party, and it had like 2000 people, damn. Okay, and so this girl that introduced us to Andre and Russell, when she got to me, she was like Jeff Burles, she wants to get in the music business, and this and that. And then she was like, and they were like, well, what do you do? And she interjected like, she didn't want me to tell him that I own the messenger company. She said, oh, he throws parties. I'm okay, I'm the one with it, you know what I'm saying? So they were like, what kind of parties? And Russell was like, what do you mean, what kind of parties? I said the dopest parties in the world. And he was like, Niggas, you might see Barbara Streisand sitting on the pool, at the edge of the pool with my party, you know, he's gonna, he's like, I didn't think I'd shit on any party. He's like, he said, shit on me next week. We coming there for the hip hop conference at Howard. He said, you can write your own check in the music business. Do whatever the fuck you want, you throw a better party than me. I said, done. And I was supposed to be going to LA with my wife and family, the next week. And we end up, I call my wife, we were, y'all heard of Nelson's that before your time. And New York, Nelson was the black spot, or the spot period in New York back there. And so we were at Nelson, I'm on the phone. And you know, we had gotten into conversations who had the biggest balls, you know, the whole thing, me, Andre and Russell, Andre come by and he was like, who are you talking to? Because I'm on a pay phone, man. We ain't got no phones back then, we ain't got no, and I said, I'm talking to my wife, I'm telling her we're throwing a party. So he's nasty to my wife, he was like, let me tell you something. If this nigga don't have the best party I ever seen in my life, it's gonna be a problem. So she get back on the phone, she's saying, nigga, you don't talk to her, you. (laughing) She's like, fuck me, we're throwing a party. I said, she said, where? I said, at the house. Ooh, at your house and my house. And I live in Southeast Washington. Okay, Hillcrest. So we called Decatur, the did our wedding, and we called the Atec company, and I tinted my whole backyard. In my view, there's no Instagram, no blah, blah, blah. And to a point that was good, but to a point it wasn't good, 'cause it was up to me to let the world know who Andre Herrell and Russell Simmons were. Now you know, Andre was really winning them because he had Albee Shore, Heavy D, Mary J. Belay, Father MC, Joe D C, like he was, but that Albee Shore back then was, that was it. So I just had, and the thing that I had going back then, receptionist were the baddest of the bad. At these big corporations, you know, you had the beautiful women at the front, that's in there. I had 400 accounts. So everybody at every company, you had accounts for what? For my messenger company. So everybody at every law firm, it's everything, architecture company, everybody and all the baddest chicks in DC, we knew because they were receptionists, or worked them to, so I got my, one of the graphics companies that I delivered stuff for me, to do me a little liar and everything, and I went around to them, but back then, it was fax machines. So I would call one person and they would say, I would like taxing your names, we got this, Megan and their guys coming in, they're going to a party at my house. The height was there. 1,300 people on the guest list for my house. How many? - $0.00. - It wasn't that. But the backyard, which you might guess the tip was, the, it was free food, it was liquor, but this guy just told me I could write a million dollar check, you know what I'm saying? And I was like, okay, listen to that. Still to this day, I don't think there's been a party, even Gilbert was the closest thing to come to that. That party at my house, it didn't matter. You might as well been at the grant. 'Cause that's how dope it was. - Why was it, it was the vibe, just the girls, what was the, everybody, every flier, motherfucker. And then Andre and them showed up. So they was impressed. - They were impressed. I started with that. - Doctors, Rolls-Worstes, everything. You know, we parked all the cars and you couldn't get eight blocks down. The police came, they were like, man, I can't shut this party, that ain't number thing, nothing like this. You know, and of course, me being the kind of cornball I am, somebody started smoking weed, probably Russell. I canceled the party, you know, I was the auntie. - You cut into the party? - I ended up, it's about two o'clock. - Okay. - And I'm like, somebody's smoking weed. Oh my God, this is my, you know, 'cause I'm the auntie guy. And so I stopped the party, but, hey, everybody believe it's time for it to be over. Anyways, people all out front on the street, police keep coming, but they keep, we just take them into the party and they're like, ah, damn, can we just turn it down? Look a little bit, change it a little bit. But it was phenomenal. After that, I was like, I don't need these guys to do a party. I did a party, but you remember that party cost me 25,000. That was just, I'm gonna lay this money, that was seed money. Next party I did at a place on 21st Street, I can't even remember the. I can't remember. But it was this marble place, held about 3,000 people. It was great. But I was going up against these guys that only needed like 250 and they were the guys. It was a monsoon that night. Anyway, when Russell and Andre are leaving the first party, Russell said, "Tondra, he said go ahead and get on your knees." Suck my niggas dick. He said, "You ain't never gave no party like this." He said, "We ain't never been to no." And basically they were on board and everything and it was it. And Andre was like, "You need to. " And that's when Puff was just coming in to play with Andre. And he was like, "I need you to do something with my man. You all need to do something together." Anyway, I did a party for Howard graduation. Well Puff? No, that wasn't with Puff. Puff didn't come into Howard Homecoming. Me and him. And that's when Lou was getting me because I was actually working with Andre, helping him get records. And Lou was like my boss and Lou was always penting me out here. And he was like, "You can do the party but I gotta get these records for you. If I gotta do your job, you gotta pay me." But he did the job. He did what I needed to do. And it worked. But then I did. The party that had the monsoon, I had 3300. I was lucky with the monsoon because it would have been twice as big as it was. Then we did the Washington Hills and that's when they would have give the correspondence then. And that was at a minimum of 10,000 people. And they said, "You'll never do a party here, Gary." We couldn't get nobody out. 6, 7 in the morning. People still doing it. It's Howard graduation. Nobody wants to go anywhere. It's the last day. You got 10,000 people. I didn't shut everything down. But I wasn't still. That's where people don't realize you're not making money when you're doing this because you don't understand how the hotel's going to be cute and how their costs are going to come in. They just, you know, costs coming in every which way. And I wasn't making money. I was doing the numbers. I was investing in myself. But it wasn't money yet. For me, I'm sure with your first festival, it was like, "Yeah. This cost is here. We got this there." And you constantly, everyone gets better. Yeah, it's a learning experience. It's a learning experience. And they were a lot of learning experiences. And the cost was just going up. And the one thing I learned is that I never want my place based on my event based on an artist. Because then they got you by the ball. And that's what we did with Dream. But the price just kept going up. And every week we had to do a new artist. Because people were like, "Oh, I'm going to wait until they were going to be an artist there." The price to rent the spot out? No. The price to book the artist. They were like, "You need me now." When I built, well, then I went into having, I was like, "I need to get weekly parties." So I went in the weekly and went into people's places. I was just disturbed about the way they would run their places. You couldn't go to them. You couldn't bring real corporate people to them. You know, the places were dirty and just then all the. And I said, "When I got my own, when I got Republican gardens, I did it perfect. I did it right." Is that the point when you just figure out how to monetize this thing? And like, "What would a thing be?" I was making money when I was doing the weekly thing. But we weren't in control because. Is somebody else's establishment? It's one that's someone else's establishment. But now it takes so much work back then. Fly it, fly it. There wasn't no TikTok. You know, you want your restaurant to be. You get one person coming in now. You can't even handle the business. The right person says, "This is the place to be." And I try to explain to people. So I've always had this way I've run things. If I said to you, "On what you get me a penny, every day for 30 days." But every day I want you to double that thing. 1 cent, 2 cent, 4 cent, 8 cent, 16 cent, 32 cent. Double it every day for 30 days. And if you could bring me that penny every day for 30 days, double on time at the end of 30 days, like if you're a million dollars. Would you do that? No, you won't. Well, it's going to cost me. It's going to be tough to do. I have to do a hand-brought. Because you would have given me 10 million, because that's $1,730,000. So the key is to any business, any business. If you can get one person to leave your place and tell two people that it's amazing there, you won't. You don't need nobody else, you don't need no artist. You have won. And you want people to come because the place is right. Not because there's going to be someone else there, because the other person is then in control with you. And that was. That's where a lot of these places have their challenges. Instead of investing, invest $40,000 more in one night in your staff. Let them make the money. Let them make people want to come back. It's anything. If I were real estate agent, if you bring me two people, I'm going to pay your house note. They're going to my houses. It's the same concept. But I'm going to have my plumber together, my contractor together, my electrician together, my woofer together, my landscape person, so that you're going to all use these people that are going to do perfect. And the first thing you're going to say is, "Oh, just call Mark." Whatever it is you need for your house. You want to buy a house? He's going to find a lone person. He's going to find everything for you who's going to get you perfect. He's going to find them. I'm going to look at this, go straight into Greta now. But so it's a one-stop shop. So who are you going to call for real estate there? Two of them. And all I need you to do is tell two people. And then those two people tell fours. Then they tell eight, then they tell sixteen, then you're thirty-two. You're winning. You can't handle it. After thirty-two weeks, there's crazy money. But people, they shortcut. The bathrooms are dirty. They're going to save money on the cleaners. I shampoo my carpet every night. You'll smell nothing in here. And people are going to come to branch. If the stinks is, uh, I don't know what they don't damn in the kitchen. You know, everybody says, oh my god, you can't have a restaurant in DC without rats. You can't. You just got to put ring cabinets behind your couches. You got to know what's in your building. You got to go after them. You can't have to ask anything. Because if you do, before they tell two people that you're good, they'll tell ten people that you're bad. So, five times quicker than you can go out, you will come down. And that's what the challenge is with multiple people in DC. That's a fact. That's a good game. Because that's like the law of multiplication referrals. Yeah. That's when I was a financial advisor. I was always trying to get referrals. That's how I was taught. That's it. That's the easiest way to go into the kitchen. And all you got to do is be good at your game. Pick up that phone. I hit people all the time to say, oh, they don't pay me enough to work on weekends or pick up my phone when I'm on them. That's not for them. That's for you. Anything you're doing, when I ask somebody to dress well or do something, that's for you. I had a guy to come in here. I wouldn't even take his interview. White guy. Cornie, look at my fuckers. I did not take, I said another manager. And the other manager is, he's a good guy. But he just kind of like, he don't really care. He goes out, talks to the guy. I said, just give it up. He comes like, then I said, then I said, you really don't fuck it. 20 minutes later. He comes down. He said, hmm, I think you want to talk to him that. I don't really believe his judgment anyway. But I said, he's like, no. He said, you can take $50 out of my check. If you don't think he's good to talk to, I don't care. So I said, okay, I'll go up there based on that. I go up there and talk to him. I'm still not come this. But I told the guy, I said, I'll try you at $20 an hour. When I tell you, this corny-looking white boy was the baddest-ever-thing ever with all the black people. When he left here, the attorney general had asked him to work for in every fucking body else. He left here to go to Austin, Texas because guess what? His wife was twice as good at him and they wanted to take her from the fair amount of hotel here, done to Austin, Texas so that she could run that. But he was the baddest thing that ever came through these stores. 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 handle that table, go handle that table. He was just amazing. I try to explain to people in any business. The 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 like, come on man. I got a girl I want to pay a whole 160,000 to run the host fan but she don't want me to call her after seven on Sunday and before five on Thursday. She want four days off. When instead of the 160, she could probably be making 250. But she's good with the hundred and that's why good is the enemy of great because chilling, I 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 own. If I work for myself, you are working for yourself. That guy, that white guy. He could go anywhere and get into, he left here when he went into construction when he got down in Austin and I still rave about him every day. The most amazing thing to walk through these doors. You're going to have to cut this. It's digging them off. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, turn around real quick because this guy walks in with a glass of wine. He just walks in with a castle. That's no talker, man. Oh my God. I have 40 figures. We must see. We'll go far the way that always, always. Good, they go good. I didn't go in here, man. Anyway, keep going, make a great, mention my name. We'll just send your name 20 times. I look at, hey, can you tell me to get some water? Please, thank you. But the 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 think they want to be. They can look good. No, no, no. 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 in to talk about that. Talk about that. Okay, so I have a Republican, I got Republican's, these white boys had a place. They couldn't make it work up on U Street. That was the neck of the black neighborhood. U Street need to be bought back. It was trying to do that turn into white to the education, education, you know, thing up there and everything. And so I went up there and they couldn't make it. Well, the first night, you see the black people come in and they're placed and it was a good crowd and everything. They were like, mark the same what we can do. But we're going to tell you at least we're going to give you the place and everything. The problem was they had done it dive bar like that's dream. No, that's Republican. It was dive 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 packed from head to toe. And the next day they were like, this should be your place. We don't sell it to you. And they gave me a good price and I said, that's me. I want it, you know, I'm going to do it. But I got two things into it and it wasn't up to my stat two weeks into it. And I was like, I got to get this place right quick. But I didn't have the money and to do it. And then I did this, I had to think of blossoms. It was crazy. Actually, I went from spot club to the ritz, to blossoms. And blossoms was something I did on Saturdays only. And that's what a God. It didn't matter what Saturday was. It was like God would turn and speak it off. It was born raining. Because it was in do I'll do it. As a matter of fact, the God of partner with me at spot club, he said, "Hmm. 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." He said, "Now 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 and anybody. Blossoms, shack, I mean everybody flew in town. And I used one of those, number of search lights, those big spotlights I used in Hollywood. I would have there and everybody would see the light and they couldn't wait today. Got in town, they just followed the light and everything and every sat in like 3,000,000 people just trying to get it was just crazy. Well, when I got Republic Gardens, I got 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. Look it. It was crazy on my pockets too. But it cost me. I lost 80,000. But again, you only as good as your last party. So I had to make everybody think it was the greatest thing I've ever, you know, if I thought I made a million dollars, the people that was working on Republic Gardens were like, "Oh, good. He made some money last night." I just lost 80,000. And, you know, but you got to keep it going. So of course, you borrowed from here, you getting them 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 slum lord that we had. He used to do everything. We had all star at Republic Gardens. We had a parking lot. We had 5,000 people. Jay-Z, our Kelly, and somebody else all on stage. It's crazy. And, I mean, it's just phenomenal. And the parking lot. But this landlord, he's bringing dumpsters, blocking the alley, just stupid things. Anything he can do. So we going out to a nap list, and I'm telling my wife, I was like, "We got to get out of our own place. We got to do something. We got to get out of there." And I'm just driving in 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 DC. 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, "Your friend is going to meet you there tomorrow and talk to you about the building." "Gone in George, Basilica." He needs me. I walked through the building. And the place is so dilapidated. And that's the use it for police dogs, the search for drugs, the training them. It was just the worst building ever. The floor used to be a Kodak factory 40, 50 years ago. You know what I'm saying? It was just a warehouse that was just dilapidated. So then I said to him, I said, "What do you want for the other?" 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 $10,000 a month between now and next year. And this time next year I'll pay you for the bill. He said, "Okay. He was getting 10 grand for it. I didn't even try to work no deal with him. I wanted the bill." And then mind you, my boy called Reed. God rest his soul. I had to go borrow the first $17,000 to get this one out of you. To put down on the building because I didn't have it. And 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 them, and we only do get the trucking. Yeah, yeah, the trucking. They fighting to get in, but I'm taking 20, 30 guys and every good old days. Yeah, we get to see it. We can't do that anymore. No, yeah, 2000s. That was 2000. Yeah. I mean, 2001. $20 a day, it took sure. No, no. They was getting $10 an hour. And we was playing right then. And 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. But he was the key because he spoke the language. And even when I be cast on him, he'd be like, what do you say? He loves to work, y'all. Y'all just be-- I was like, what'd they say? So he just kept the piece. He got to go on and everything. Anyway, I thought it was going to cost me a million five. $6 million later. Who's burrowed it? And I got a group called-- It's made for work to renovate the whole thing. To renovate the whole thing. I was working off a demo permit at first. But I wasn't half-ass in none of the work. I only wanted the best because I said that they come after me. I wanted to be perfect already. You didn't-- traditional mind things. I'm going to obey to you. There was no-- I started the next day. It took me 180 dumpsters to empty all the stuff that was in the building. 180 dumpsters. 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 him right. And then there was no architecture drawings. I said, we're going to put the bar right here. We're going to move the bar over here. We're going to do this here. This part took me three times longer. And his 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. They were like, you got to get your 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 I began dream. That became dream. So you borrowed $6 million at $32%. You borrowed $6 million at $32% from a lot from like a hard money lender. They're hard money lenders. They gave it to you six million. I went on a-- No, it was a million. A million 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 friends. So I was $6 million there. And will you make money at this time? Poor guy, afforded even open. That's my fault, 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 sleeping at this time? I can imagine that. Down the hall of the hall of the house. It's like $700,000 over drunk is what woke you up, every day. What was your monthly payback? What was your monthly-- But I really wasn't paying back. It was deferred. It was deferred. 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 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 going to get my money. 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. And of course, everybody came to the building thought the white guy owned a bill. Well, you've got it for me. Did it appraise for me? Or will it appraise for much more? They didn't want an appraise for nothing. It was a dumpster. It was a dumpster. After you renovate, he's looking at it like, oh, he did a good job. That's at least 2.5. Right. Got you. Well, remember, but he's now not-- he's after $5 million there. He didn't go into third place on the building. So this guy was just a good guy. He really believed in me. So how-- get it up and running. And then how much money you start? Like how quick I remember, my first liquor order was a quarter million dollars. liquor order for you to get the whole bar's app. 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 eight million dollars. Yep. That's why you got that from-- More like 7 million. What's up, you just-- so when did you start actually making money? It wasn't until the second year because you got to remember all the payments that-- as soon as people see you make it money, they want that money. They want that 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. I don't know what payroll is, but 350 people? There was-- we had-- you remember those tubes that Home Depot had? They used to put the money in and shoot them up. They used to shoot them up to the office and wire. That'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. It's to make on robbers. What's happening here? I mean, everything was a problem. And the neighborhood, they love me, but they hated me. They said, you can't park-- you can't start any of your events, no 4.6, 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. Because you got to remember, there was no Uber back there. There wasn't none of the stuff that we got-- people weren't going to-- this ain't New York City. There's no taxi moving around like that in DC. So everybody was driving. Oh, parking was my money though. Parking? All the time it was parking and coachat. How much was coachat? $15,000 a night. $15,000. Parking with another $15,000 to $20,000 a night. Tax. Tax. But now it's paying taxes. [LAUGHTER] So you say, so you say $40,000 a night off of parking and coachat? Gilbert Arena's party? Parking the $50,000. We're going to get to that. We're going to get to the Gilbert. That's not it. So OK, so you're up and running now. Now you really start to hit your stride. I'm hitting the stride. So now at first, remember-- Yeah, too to hit the stride. The big club. I mean, young 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 think close as we were getting to that. That's right. They were doing-- the tunnel became the tunnel into our generation. See, once you-- what happened is, once the tunnel went blocked, that was the money. Oh, 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 going to get the white money. They think white money is this. Friday night was my white night. I mean, Friday night was my black night. Saturday night was my white night at Dream. Friday night was doing a quarter of me. Saturday night was maybe during April. You just can't get it. It's the difference. And nobody understands it. Do you want Neem in markets or do you want Walmart? Well, it parking, code check, drinks, bottle service. So you saying it-- It bottles service, but I didn't even know back then. So there was more money with the black? Oh, 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 night life than white people. Yes. That's what I'm saying. People spend more money on drugs in size of clubs. In size of clubs? I love it. I love it. Yeah, you're right. So that's what I'm saying. So when they-- I can even say-- You can say it, 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 bought this white boy in from Vegas. We're going to tell everybody you own the joint when I open-- when I open part-- you own the joint. That's what I said. We do it. 2,500 people a night. I'm doing $40,000. $20 a dollar. I'm watching bartenders. I'm watching the stay. I'm like skimmy. Just buy the fuck of y'all stealing my money. Just bit they just buy him here. That's where we get the 200 for the cameras. Yeah. And so it ended black people how much they do. Oh. So 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 25 hundred people. I said we're gonna try the black thing on Friday. I went from 45 to 135. What you doing? Let's go be Friday Saturday and Sunday. It's gonna be Friday. So there's no question at this time. Is food even involved yet? If food is always involved. Food is always involved. So let me explain to you what happened. Yeah. I missed this step here. I hate it. I loved doing happy hour by the 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 light the late night. What you gonna do after you don't you you've been partying for five hours. I used to do I would be like penny drinks for the first hour. See this what you gotta remember. It don't matter once you in there. You do that. That you know what to stop. You'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 in that seven because people you know in line getting in there to go to work. The first drink is paying four. 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. You know what I said to be in. Let's drink and I thought so liquor cost a dollar and a half for a drink. Well when you were buying drinks for seven dollars and fifty cents. That's yeah. So like right now it's like $20 is a drink. Right. What do you know? That only dollar is a drink. But you buy a bottle of downrepo for $40. Right. You get 18 drinks. So let's say 15. Okay. That's three dollars a drink. That's inflation. That's inflation. But now when people say now the pregame is crazy. Now and especially in this young 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 your lip? Like dream. Dream with lip. But my problem with dream is that I was doing an artist every week. I was dependent on the artist because we went when when my numbers hit 5500 people in one night I went crazy. I got 40 managers. I'm like what the fuck are y'all doing? Y'all bullshit and blah blah blah. We have to ask that. 5500 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 carped it? I 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 always strip them out. So I got them my man's carper 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. Oh 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 can go hand those slipping fall stains. It's thanks. You got to learn how to clean it. What carpet should you have? That juice is sitting down there. That's what I try to tell people. You have a party at your house? Your friends right? They destroy it. Not destroy but they fuck up something. They don't fuck up something. These ain't my friends. They that's equals. Homers. You white guy here? Yeah. How much hair come up with the black guy? A lot. A lot of hair. That's one. I don't know how many girls you got in your house. Two girls and there's a lot of hair in the goddamn vacuum. That's two people. And you cut and hair out of the vacuum cleaner. When you get the weeds and I got 5,000 coming through a week. Are you kidding me? They see the home. I got eight. 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. The problem is my boys don't care what it is. They'll vacuum it up. They vacuum it so far up. They will vacuum anything. They will vacuum throw up up. And no matter how much you try to teach people is that. So you got eyes to go to Vegas. I 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 a mistake. If you don't dry it. So now I have to figure out that you got to dry your carpet. Always going to stink. And you got to have the right type of carpet. You got to 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 have enough stand on this. So it's learning all of these pieces of the puzzle. Now it does take twice as long to close your place now. You know, other places they clean in, they try to mop the floor and this and a, but people are stupid and cheap. You got to change your mop heads every week, even on the floors you there. Or you get 30 mop work. Just don't wait. 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 do say 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 as quick. Simply lemonade only cost you $3.00. That bottle costs you $3.50, $4.50. In Miami it cost you $7.50. When you said that you was relying on artists, how'd you fix that? I said I'm going to spend more money and customer service. I don't want no more artists. I'm not doing no artists for no reason. If they come in here it's got someone else pay for it. 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 its peak before Dream Terms of Love now is it black Friday? How much are we bringing it? College night. Thursday? On Thursday. Okay. I got this international guy. They were doing college stuff. Blah blah blah. They killing it. We doing 50 at the bar and 75 at the door. Friday night. A good Friday. A average Friday night is 150. 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. Custom of K. Austin. It's important. 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 lot. Watch it leave. It was too much. I got caught up in the in the two down two down seven eight had too many properties had I owned Dream. I had too many. I needed to get out of that. I was a 20 and a half. Yeah. And the number of the drop down to 2500 or 3000 unless I had the right artists. And then this life is not conducive to any type of relationship. (laughing) It's your thing. (laughing) (indistinct) (laughing) It's just not conducive to any type of relationship. Like your job is to be friends with every beautiful woman in the place. It's like a St. Patrick. Jean, what's his name? - James. - James St. Patrick. - I'm a real light James St. Patrick. - Oh, I'm sorry. - You don't need to watch the power. - No, it's not. - Power, 50 cents show. - I said it first. - It just is not conducive. Well, I'm not the real light 'cause I ain't got nothing to do with. That's all I'll tell you. - Well, I like it. - But the whole thing here, I don't serve it. - That wasn't what the FBI and DEA thought. My bank, I took, it was a 4 foot July weekend. We had 700,000 cash. We took to the bank. - What year was that? - That was 22. I mean, 2002. - 2002. - 2002. - That's after 9/11. - Yeah. - So you took 700,000 to the bank? - To the bank. - 700,000 dollars cash. - And then what happened? - Yeah, well, it was 'cause now it was the year after, 'cause 2001 and then. - 'Cause that's what they changed the banking laws in order for 9/11. And so the guys who PowerFuel who had given me the money, they were counting all the money, I didn't get fucked. Y'all counting the money, you know, we know what's there. And we took the 700,000, they called DEA, FBI, everybody on me. They came in there. They wanna go to the bank. They wanna see all the videotapes and everything. With the one thing that I got, like in here, there's 250 counts. I wanna tell you where your purse is, where your wallet is, who picked pocket you, anything. The one thing Park is gonna do, is gonna tap. We had cameras at Dream. But we got more here than we had at Dream. So we could see everything. We were like, come watch the videos, come see you. You count the people that come in there. They literally sat in there for 12 weeks, 13 weeks. - And just went to every day. - They wanna go to it. - Go to it. - That was here at Dream. So you exit Dream, you get hit the financial crisis, you recalibrate. - I did a bank ruffsy. - And then you come back to Park. - Yes. - That's the second wave of it. - But at that point, I'm like, I'm never doing an artist again. - So what the? - I'm done with artists, artists kill me. They want the money. I can't do that. Even though at the beginning, after 2010, I think it was we never did art. It's had 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. - But before, I didn't do brunch. - Like Lord, so let's say before, let's slow it down. Let's talk about this bottle service era. When did the bottle service era hit? 'Cause 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 thinking, girl, y'all going here, tell me in the end of the night, what y'all did in bottle service, that of that. I wasn't even really interested in it. And the thing was, if you were the girl in charge of the bottle service, you were the God. Well, first of all, anybody who worked at Dream was a God. - I mean. - 'Cause they open the doors to get people in. You were in the most powerful place in the country at the time. The audio's meetings were about how these mouth like a selling so much, and how can we get other people to do it? - How much legal was your selling? - 100, we would take 100 case drops, pallets. They would just take, they, I was selling so much absolute. They flew me down, probably playing, 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 didn'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 to." They were like, "You want these fucking tickets for it." And they said, "Can you call just one person and I have plays golf and asses?" I called my boy, this boy, Jack Mary, white boy. I was like, "What's this master's shit?" He was like, "Oh my God, what the fuck you mean?" I was like, "These motherfuckers want to give me tickets in the masters." I said, "I don't want to go." "Do I want to go?" He was like, "Yeah, I don't 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 one. I was selling all the radio. So, I took my boy and everything. We went down there, I still didn't get to talk. It just wasn't my thing. I was like, "I got on an early plane coming back." Okay, I'm standing there with VJ Singh and all that. I got just fun in my thing. - You just see. - Shot to be so, all right. So, but when the bottle service hit, you didn't fully understand it. It was like, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, Brown, like he didn't fully understand it what the crack was until he, you had to add some point. You do. - No, no, eventually. - No, no, no. - That's why, that's why Gilbert's party was a million dollar party, 'cause we saw 400,000 in bottle service tables. - Let's just get to that party, 'cause you keep talking. - What did I million or two million? - It was a million. - Talk about the party. - It was a million dollar. - Okay, explain it. - So Gilbert comes to me. It was Mark and Tass back then. This is when he was, - He was the guy. - With the ratchet. - Before the ratchet up after the ratchet. - I don't think Gilbert really was the racquet. - Is it? I mean, it's a man. - He was the man, but he wasn't the man. And I didn't, so when I did, at Republican's, it was Mark and Tass. So when I went to dream, it was Mark and Tass. We did these parties together, and by, 'cause again, I'm 62, and I was getting older, and I was like, who wants to go party with the dad? And you know what I'm saying? So I would always try to bring in the younger motherfucking crowds and keep out of it. When I got, when we got there, Gutt Tass used to play ball. So he knew all the ball players. He knew all, he knew the street, and I knew the corn he saw. So he brings Gilbert there, and he said to me, he said, "Gilbur, wanna do this?" I said, "Who's Gilbert?" Yeah, 'cause I wasn't up on it. I just wasn't. So he comes down there, he talks, I saw saying, "You wanna birthday party?" Or do you wanna birthday party that nobody will ever forget? He said, "Well, what's the difference?" I said, "Burstate party gonna cost you 25,000." And one day, never gonna forget, it's gonna cost you a quarter million. He said, "I want the one they never gonna forget." I said, "If you wanna write the check, maybe I wanna take it." He said, "I want." So then, my biggest problem is, I can't half ask nothing. I can't. It's gotta be right, it's gotta be done perfect. So I said, "I wanna spend this whole quarter million to show myself off, to make it the baddest day." We did this invitation. It was a great gibbon ring, it was a ringus express. And it looked just like an American express car. And it had Gilbert's picture, you know that, what do you call it, you know, Centaurion? Or what's the guy, do they? American Express got in the middle of the car. Anyway, but it had his face on it. Mm-hmm. It was a sick of shit. So then, he said, "I wanna get puffed." He said, "I wanna get the game. I wanna get TI. I wanna 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 car, a ringus express, it came in this thing, just, you know, American Express, sing you the car. It looked just like American Express. Nickas was going into stores, dropping them down, you know, and everything. But every car had every single person's name on it. Special number. Special invite. 8,000 cars we made. We bought the machine. We had two machines running day and night. People begging the body invitations. We like it, somebody lonely, blah, blah, blah, blah. Just that another. Gilbert's giving me 200 names a day. I need these. We dropping them off the helm. His girls are where the, when I tell you, but this is January 5th. We're planning for co-check. We're going to check 8,000 coats of $40,000. I'm going to make in co-check. Tell me where 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 this. We tinted the whole street. And I'll give you also, pictures of this and stuff like that. We tempted 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 opened. The 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 'cause it was a big bar. I said, you just back here, this is your bottle service table. (laughing) 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, Golan. He paid 20,000 for a table. And he wanted to be right next to the art of the stage while they was performing. And he wasn't up. And they never came inside. He don't let me forget that. That's it. You know you only 20,000. That's it. 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 'cause we tinted the whole street and he drove right into the middle of the party. He's in sales. 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 sports center. Do you see this? You see this invitation? I mean, it was the most amazing thing ever. And everybody then knew Dream World War. I mean, it was a three-page spread in Washington Post. Like, oh my God, this party, pictures of him. 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 the deas and everybody and get his votes for all star and everything. They 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? And bought, now he had already given me 250. I made 400,000 in bottle service. Probably made another 150 at the bar. I don't know how much Niggas may trying to sell the invitations. I said, you know what I'm saying? Mark, I have two more of 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 the bottle or the idea that they would pay this much for a bottle? The problem was, I couldn't pay attention to inside. 'Cause there were 8,000 people trying to get in. I was 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 else in. Or like in those bank movies that you see, the money can just go missing. And nobody knew it. It wasn't sent out. It was still going on. It was still, it was on. I'm telling you, it's still in that all time. Everybody. You know it. 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. It's just too big. It's too much money coming through. You know, and the banks, we're switching up where we're dropping off the bank 'cause you don't want to get robbed. You know, 'cause the bank goes that's making 25 or 15 million dollars. And now we're back then. They're pillow talking. God damn, I had to count 300,000 today. I had to count 150,000. So we had the police following us to the bank. We, on the big weekends, the police would just sit there on that. I'd have a rotate just so we wouldn't get robbed. She was getting robbed internally. Absolutely. How much did they think you was getting robbed for? I think they were taking the money. I think they were taking 10% of everything. And that's a lot of money. That's 30,000 a week, you know, 40,000, 50,000 a week. Everybody was winning. And everybody was happy. How do you change that? Do you decide to pay them more or is just something? Oh, they're going to pay them out of home. They don't matter how much you give them. They said, "Don't take it." They're going to pay. It's cash. It's going somewhere. But that's changed now. Oh, yeah. Right. We'd also say cash now. Yeah, it's too big. What about that game? The chronic heart companies are stealing their 4% for them yet. You know, I'm saying so if you make 4,000, they're taking 16,000 every week. 16,000. Mine's always taken. It's not the same. 16,000. 4% or 10%. I'm going to take the 4% of you. You get to your employees. So we're going to give it to your employees. Oh, yeah. They'll have 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. And there's just so many other distractions. Well, talk about this too. You said nobody spends money like black people a night like, "What about brunch?" Oh, my God. I've seen the first hand, your brunch is a power home coming out. That was crazy. That was crazy. How are you talking about every week? Superbowl. That's what's superbowls. People are doing what on superbowl. They go into their friends houses and everything. The superbowl party wasn't amazing. But the brunch was 780 people. That's. It's brunches. What's the size for the brunch? You got a few. I didn't learn. I didn't learn anything. Yo, Lou, you got to get escorted out of here. Okay, well, see. I can tell them I can give them ABCD. Did you think a huge sense 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 useless? Amazing. Same thing with Michael Jorn. You know his workout, you can see his workout, but you still not going to be Michael Jorn? You're not going to be Michael Jorn. So what's the size for the breakfast? Because we've been told it's to have a few items. No, no, no. Mm-hmm. The key for everything is the service. Unreasonable hospitality. That's it. So about the food. Food got to be good. Food course. I don't give a fuck about food course. You don't care about food course? I don't care about food course. Because we can eat it all you can eat. That's why you don't never eat more than that. And 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 you buy. Good champagne. You give them something or a per second or 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 got to go to brunch. That's right. 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 were waiting. It's just a level of maturity, professionalism that you see. And that's why I talk about that. And unfortunately, that is why you 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. You're still in a dinner, a restaurant. I want you to dance. I want you to sing every song. I don't want that. But I talk to the TV. Right. I don't want the twerkin. I don't want the craziness. I want the true brunch experience where everybody in the room is going to be. But to me, DJs are stupid. Because they should own the crowd. This owned 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 data can be? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. greatest players in the world. But guess what? They don't want to go to practice. That's my man. But when you, they know it all. They think they know it all. They know it all. Three of the greatest people that I ever had worked for me, I had to let go. Because I'm out. They think it's for me. It's not for me. But when you, so you're doing a brunch from what's on the what? From 11 to 5, from 11 to 5, then the club opens up. Then you go to dinner. Here? Yeah. From what's on? From 5 to 10. From 5 to 10. Then the club opens up from 10 to 3. So, but the real money makers, you gotta remember, ain't them. What's the real money maker? The real money makers, I win 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. And then you give them the best party that they have ever had. 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. I feel like we trained one day and it was like Delaware rented out the space. I was like, what? They were like, yeah, all representatives. They took over all space. No, no. What's their revenue look like for the corporate, huh? I got three this month coming up. Each one I'm paying anywhere from 120 to 190,000. For a night. For a night. And those are the easiest thing in the world. Three, four hours. All the food, all the drink. No problems at all. How are the margins so? Because somebody with those margins are crazy. On the typical. Because there are a lot of people. There are a lot of people. To why is it crazy margins? Because you don't have no security. You don't have no problems. They don't have to place up. It's corporate. Typical night margins at dinner because that that resonance basis. I mean, those sometimes on a Thursday night. If I make 20,000. I'm breaking easy and even maybe lose. Finally night. I'm doing 75 to 100. After 60, I'm making money. Good. Saturday. I'm trying to do 140 to 175. I'm not worried about no food costs. Honestly, I tell my people my crab soot. People get tired of eating the crab in my crab so much crab. So much crab. It's I wanted to be just like that. I want you to go tell people you got to have this fucking crab soup. They used to be a place here. It was down in Southwest. They had the best sheet 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. When you talk about, oh, I did forget. I tried to go back and I forgot to go. The key to everything is my food. Other places aren't starting until what? Colors don't have, you don't get to the club until it's somewhere in there, right? 11, 12, 1. New York. So you messing up. I'm catching you at five o'clock. Because they come in 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 to the same thing as my brunch. That's what I walk into. Is it a time table on the brunch? Like you can't be here. I want to have. I want to have that's what you get to do. Two hours was too much. They would twist it. So a lot of rest of our tours say that I will let you stay for two hours. Sometimes if you're tables, but when we sold out, we'd do an eight nine hundred thousand. I got to keep people. I got to keep you. And it's hard. It's the hardest thing. They'll say, we'll pay double. We'll got balls. And I'll be like, you live over it. I'm just all the thirding. So what you make that known when they come in like, look, you're going to stay 90. It's a contract when a lot of rest of our tours that I know don't like nightlife. They shy away from that. They like, look, it's only problems. There's problems. Trouble people get stabbed shot. They don't get a lot of rest of our go to nightlife when they're rest of our starts struggling. But a lot of rest of our tours, I sit there. They were like, I just want to keep you clean. It's over at midnight, 11 o'clock. I don't want to go into nightlife. You do both. You do rest of our end nightlife. I do. And events. So and rush. So what's your thoughts on that philosophy that nightlife is too much trouble? I think it's all going in once we get the facial recognition for everybody else. They have that London. Yeah. Because the London we went to the, you know, we, you got to turn your head around. So it's going to the or turn around. I'm taking it off. It's understandable. Cause it's like, you don't want hats. Yeah. That was because it's like, why would you wake it? Why, why wear it to the back? They didn't realize that they had the facial record. They, they, 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. Is it how have you been able to sleep? No, look 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 shooting? Shooting stabbing. Like that's a lot. Let's knock on with because it can happen anywhere. Demograph. Are you? Is it dress code? Is the music? Cause somebody is somebody somebody. We had to be weird to view. 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 not all dress code anymore. He said, it's the music. He said, you play a certain music. You want to track the certain demographics. If you purposely play a different type of music or even if you see it at some level of friction, you tell it DJ switch the music. Like his thing was the music dictates the energy. I 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 was that was that look like? What does the membership model look like for part? Okay. So right now we do, let's say we do 5000 people a week. Yeah. Five percent of those people are a's or what a's pace like highest quality. Okay. That means you spend eight clients are eight client and eight client. 20% of these 60% of these 14% of these and 1% is asked after you don't want to have to just go up the whole building. Just look at the he just said nothing. He got a problem for a fuck it up. If I just take the A's in the B's every week, that's 25% of 5,000 is 1250 people. If I went and offered those people and they tell me this, which of the place to go to my favorite place and restaurant cloud anyway. In America. Yeah. The part. But if you lived here, like what's convenient, soul houses, convenience, something like that. That's my personal listen to this. If they said you don't go to soul house because you also get a bill for them every month. You got to spend so much or you do this that is out of. But it's 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? I was going to include three any time you come any time you come and you get three trades. So if I get is that even profitable? Let me tell you how profitable it is. If you say you can get three drink and these are all members. Now, remember you want to be here worth now because it's what all A's in B's. High clients. So high and clientele. Okay. So if I go 20 weeks at 1250 people a week, all A's in B's that's 25,000 people. That means at the beginning of a month. If they all pay me $100 a month, I take in 2.5 million. That's $6 million. I mean, 600,000 a week before I sell any bottle service or food. But that's the right. That's saying that they had different people. It might be the same people every week. That's 25,000 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 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 bottle 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. And 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 gonna go buy up four little spots so you not stock just come into park." And for $25 more a month, so I'm now getting $200 a month, you can go to all four D spots. So now I'm taking in $5 million, $16 million a year before I sell one drink, a piece of food or a brunch, all bottle service tables. No, that's the model. And I can tell everybody about it and they won't do it. 'Cause everybody shows people what they do and people just can't do it. - Oh, perfect. - Well, perfect. That is a fact. - People can't do it. You can tell people exactly what you're doing. They can't do what you do. - Sure. - I'm 100%. - Now, there'll be somebody who come close to it and there may be somebody who does do it better, but after 100% 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 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. Let's go, y'all. - Have you seen a decrease in revenue from people not drinking alcohol as much as not used to be? You know, group 13%. 'Cause you know about that, that's right. And the $22 billion worth of liquor is sitting and reserved. - When it's not affecting you. - I grew 13 together. You have an older audience though too. - No, I don't. You don't have an older audience? - Then, can I take you with the real problem is I'm here? - What? - Downhoolio Repo. They are selling the hell out of that shit. You know, I go through 60 to 100 cases a week. - It's killer. - It's a killer. It's a killer. I ain't never seen nothing like downhoolio Repo though. (laughing) I saw there, rock days, the gray goose days, the hide and see day. - Oh, what's your name? - I didn't see everything. - They all want shots. There's nothing like downhoolio Repo. - There's one thing that I said. - Sure. - In fact, everybody, he talked about it before we started weather. Hopefully, but don't think about that. But, and, - So, can I tell you this is the first year in the last five years, I've worried, or I had weather really affected 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 here and learn everything I do. Learn what the insurance is. Learn what the challenges are. A thing, learn about everything and a job. I wish 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 to learn the credit. Never. But, the whole thing is that you got to hire good people. And you got to, now, no matter how you try. But, I try to tell people, you got to live the way you want your people to be. Hey, dream. We had 300 employees, and okay. So, now we got the guy. I got Boot-Yo, I got TVs, I got 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 you to fill off the truck." I said, "You want me calling and tell them they fell off your truck?" 'Cause next week, you're trying to steal my liquor. Walk the cases in and accidentally walk a case out. Oh, I thought I overgave it to you. You know, this, that, now, but, but, I don't think people, understand what it takes to make it work. I can't duplicate myself. I really wish I could, because then I'd have fivities and be sitting on the beach. There are challenges. You know, keeping yourself relevant, no matter what is hard, no matter what. You're doing podcasts today. In a minute, if you don't have the right gas, the right people, the right thing, you gotta keep what's exciting, what makes it good, who's really given the right information? That's what it's about, what makes this work. You know, it's like what makes this country work. I think when 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 them. When I tell you, you're going to be able to have an iPad that figures out, you know, just like you talk to Groc or you talk to one of these other things there. They got different voices there. They're going to 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. What is that? World Star, right? The kids, everything that comes up on my algorithm is AI. Everything, every AI commercial, digital design, everything. I want, 'cause that's what I'm watching. I'm believing that it's listening to me and knows what I want. I don't even, I've never seen, except or other people's phones, this world star stuff. I'm not watching that. Before we, before we, so about working with you, your son works with you, right? He does. Now, my daughter was on bar rescue. My son, the poor, it's with me. How's that? It's challenging. I want him to do more, but you gotta remember, growing up in a house, and the thing is, is that, at one point, your mark's turned. Then at one point, it became your chase is bad. But he's taking the 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. Parents and kids and everything. None of 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 challenging, you know. I'm not easy to work with anyway, as animated. (laughing) As animated as I am here, and my biggest problem is, I want a joking play, but I want to 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 gotta give me your card, the person that ends up with the most cards, then just to try to break ice on some of the things we do. You know, in Park as 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. - What, we agree. - Well, I appreciate your time, my brother. Tell the people who are to follow, and yeah, when you're gonna roll out the, are you gonna roll out the membership? First, we got the Park Games coming. - Yeah. - I don't know. - Like, 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. We think it's gonna be a big thing. Right now, we're doing a 70,000, 20,000 for second place, 50,000 for first. We have to invite you and then, then you gotta be invited. The God that I got that's making the service God's amazing. He also made the membership app. But then, you know, we want to move these prizes up to like, Beast Gains, 100, 200, you know. And we want to make it a competition like nothing anybody's ever seen. The guy who did Beast Gains is, I'm sleep one night and I just roll over and I'm watching and somehow, and he's on board my TV and I'm like, "What the hell is this stuff?" You know, but have you seen that first, the first two episodes of season one? I just think Cliffs won't answer that. I hope we'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 it. And I know that's pushing somebody else's cell, 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. It was like, "Fanatic Fest also." They're saying, "Well, but I don't know much about Fanatic Fest." Well, it didn't make any money. No, they were losing, losing literally. You say he lost 17 million last year. Oh, okay. But I mean, tell me calmly, I got a way 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 you. All right, my brother. Well, it's been a pleasure. Man, thank you for the hospitality. You're just greatly appreciate my brother. Well, I said I'm sorry. We said thank you. All right, sure. So, rat. Good people, what's up, what's up? It's Questlove. So recently, I had the incredible opportunity to have a real conversation with actress and producer, Jamie Lee Curtis from routines to recovery, true lies, and a certain germane Jackson music video. Listen to the Questlove show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know Rol'dol. He thought of Willy Wonka in the BFG. But did you know he was a spy? In the new podcast, the secret world of Rol'dol. I'll tell you that story and much, much more. What? I must have been. I'm telling you because I was a spy. Listen to the secret world of Rol'dol on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. AGO WOTA is your host for the 2026 iHeart Podcast Awards. Live at South by Southwest. I think it helped. That's a good thing. Get to know AGO. Follow Thanks Dad with AGO WOTA and start listening on the pre-iHeartRadio app today. Hey, I'm Jay Chetty, host of the On Purpose Podcast. My latest episode is with Hillary Duff, singer, actress, and multi-platinum artist. You desire in family like this picture. And that's not reality. My sister and I don't speak. It's definitely a very painful part of my life. And I hope it's not forever, but it's for right now. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.