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

Transcript

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

• 0:00
  John Terzian: Every night is there crazy shit going on at your nightclubs? We had someone it was so upset refused to pay his bill because he wasn't allowed to order cocaine from us. Is the customer always right? I'd say 50% of the time they're kind of wrong, but it's not worth it unless there's something like any sort of sexual harassment, any sort of drug related outside of that, the customer is always someone's
• 0:21
  Randall Kaplan: gonna spend$100,000 for a booth that holds 10 to 14 people for four hours worth of entertainment. They're
• 0:30
  John Terzian: very smart. A good time is priceless.
• 0:38
  Randall Kaplan: You're listening to part two of my incredible interview with John turzi and one of my closest friends, the founder of the HW group, which owns legendary places like Bootsy Bellows, the night sky, delilahs, and they're building six more as we speak, one of the things that's made you successful, and one of the great things about humanity, and we'll talk about more, is the loyalty that you have toward people who've done nice things for you.
• 0:58
  Randall Kaplan: So tell us about John, Sophia and the deal that you did, and then the relationship that you've developed over time. So
• 1:05
  John Terzian: feel is, yeah, he's our designer, builder, everything. And I met him, I think, through guy starkman, to be honest, early on, he was really building homes. I didn't have $1 to my name, and when I got shore bar, I had to redo it, and I had no money. And so I told him, if he did this, because, you know, anyone can look at it for basically nothing, I'd use him for my empire that I was going to have and, and, you know, most people think that's crazy, and, but he did it. He was like, you know, I believe I'll take the shot. So I've stayed true to my word.
• 1:41
  John Terzian: He's built for for 12 years. I mean, we've done, I think, 30 places now, or something, 25 places. And I've he's done every single one. I've stayed true to my word on that regard. And I'm very big on that.
• 1:55
  Randall Kaplan: You're not in the mafia, but you built a place that you call the friends mafia, your first restaurant. So tell us about the nice guy, where the name came from, and then the evolution of that concept from start to finish. So
• 2:09
  John Terzian: the concept came from as we got we got pretty big. We were, we were getting going in the nightclub world, where we were really known as, like the nightclub guys, which is good and bad. So it's great.
• 2:20
  John Terzian: We're making money. We're successful, ish, you know, at a young age, but we're really two things. We're really pigeon holed as nightclub guys, and then also we're mostly, like normal guys and like, our friends and stuff, aren't all going to nightclubs, like they actually want restaurant or a lounge or whatever. So we have this idea, especially as paparazzi got even more massive with this idea of doing a super private like almost hybrid club and restaurant. Didn't know where we were going to do it or but this idea of doing it, and everyone's like, Oh, you know, it's crazy to do that. You know, you kind of one or the other and, and the original plan was, I'm a I'm like, I eat like a five year old. So the original plan was only pizzas and a bar, right? And we ended up finding a space. And the where the name came from is, is to two ways. Is Adam was one of our partners at the time actually had a dream about having a place called nice guys or something like that, and and so that always, like, stuck with me. And when we were building it, we had this one investor committed to it.
• 3:32
  John Terzian: Whatever we were, we were, like, midway through, like sticks in the ground and like, not anywhere near close, but like, had already, you know, we were more than pregnant on the space that we had. And he walks in one day, and he basically is, like, I just found out, you guys aren't doing a nightclub. We're like, I never said I was doing a nightclub. He's like, Well, you're doing a restaurant. Like, No way. I'm investing in a restaurant. And I'm like, well, it's like, a hybrid. He's like, that doesn't work. And so anyway, long story short, as he went off, he's like, I'm not doing it. I'm pulling out. And he was like, You're he's like, also way too nice. You're way too nice of a guy to have this work. And so name the place a nice guy, you know, based on this guy pulling out, we got completely screwed on on, that ended up finding investors to build it. Built out more of an actual restaurant. Whole Italian thing kind of based it on, like, our, my whole thing was, like, we were gonna have a place that's like, our friends and their friends, almost like a cheers. I call it a mafia where it's like, you know, it's everyone that like you're friends with and associated with, because to this day, but especially then, is the only way you could get in. Our reservation was from on our Rolodex, so you got to be through one of us. And so that's how, that's how the nice guy came about. It's
• 4:55
  Randall Kaplan: an awesome venue. I've been there 50 times.
• 4:58
  Randall Kaplan: I had a birthday party there once we. With all my buds and friends and family. It's, it's what you've done there is incredible. And the food has really improved dramatically. I mean, from and from where you were when you opened. It's, it's fantastic. Let's talk about the nightclub market itself. I'm going to read some statistics here. Sure. So there's 21,000 nightclubs in the United States, the US, bar nightclub market in 2023 in the US, $37.6 billion globally, $468.2 billion there's not a lot of data today on how much each night club does. But in 2015 Forbes printed. Forbes released the numbers. Excess nightclub in Los Angeles, 103$205 million hackathon in Las Vegas, 100 $203 million Marquis in Las Vegas, 80, $85 million tau in Las Vegas, 50 to $55 million and live in Miami, 40 to$45 million or some nightclubs really earning $100 million a year, yes,
• 6:04
  John Terzian: but that's Vegas.
• 6:04
  John Terzian: Las Vegas is an outlier overall.
• 6:09
  John Terzian: You know, it's just, it's, it's a place where everything comes together. So, yeah, they, they are doing that, and it's a, it's a great market, and it's great for that, but hard pressed to do that anywhere outside of Las Vegas, even Miami. It's it's really one in the whole world.
• 6:26
  Randall Kaplan: Explain what the economics of a nightclub business really is. How does it work? How do you make money? And then in Las Vegas in particular, and maybe in Miami, explain to people what a beach party is
• 6:40
  John Terzian: the truth. The truth is the way you really make money is by in the nightclub world, are whatever. Handful of bottle buyers are like the table buyers are like the bar itself is the minimus, and even the even the ticket, even if a place is in Vegas or whatever, we don't sell tickets in our places. But that's minor. It's, it's the table buyers, the guys or girls that are spending 50 100 grand on tables. That's, that's why it's big business.
• 7:08
  Randall Kaplan: Okay, so there's a lot of people watching this, 10s of 1000s, who probably never been to a nightclub. It's a crazy concept. So the nightclub may have 50 booths. Maybe there's the front row, they're more expensive the middle the back, someone's gonna spend$100,000 for a booth that holds 10 to 14 people for four hours worth of entertainment.
• 7:34
  John Terzian: Yes. Who are these people? They're very smart. A good time is priceless. I'm clearly very for it.
• 7:45
  Randall Kaplan: It's great. So it's
• 7:47
  John Terzian: just, it's at the end of the day, it's just, it's just an experience at the very end of the day, whatever it is, it's while it might be a lot of money, and everything is relative. So if you're into needing an experience, it's fun, and you want your own real estate. It's really a real estate game. Like, you have your own table, you have your own servers at the end of the day.
• 8:07
  John Terzian: Like, that's that's really what it is. And see, that's your night out.
• 8:13
  Randall Kaplan: The experience is someone's performing, typically, performer, or DJ, yeah, a DJ. So a lot of people also don't know how much these people are getting paid in a night. I learned about this. One of Madison's best friend was dating Calvin Harris, and we went to dinner one night, and which is very, very cool, by the way, I tell you another story so you know that I'm out in the scene, and I really don't know who's who in the scene, and Madison's friend Eva Shah, who you know, was dating Calvin Harris, and Madison tells me, I'm leaving the office. There are two interns there. I'm walking out at six o'clock, the dinners at seven o'clock, and we host. I got to go home change.
• 8:51
  Randall Kaplan: And one of the interns said, Oh, what are you up to tonight? I'm having dinner with one of Madison's friend. He's a DJ. And he said, Oh, you know, do you know his name? And I said, Yeah, Kelvin something. And they Kelvin Harris said, Yeah. And said, Who's that? And said, oh god, he's the biggest ever. And went back home and looked at looked online, and Forbes said he makes $70 million per year.
• 9:17
  Randall Kaplan: And I'm thinking, Oh God, this guy's gonna be an arrogant asshole. Another Hollywood person is going to be all into himself and not ask me any questions. And I walked out of there with a man crush, the nicest guy in the world. Polite asking, incredible, nice but, but I learned, I said, you know, without being weird about it this public, I said, How do you make 10s of millions of dollars per year. Forbes said you made$70 million per year. And said, Well, he said, I got paid usually 500,000 to a million dollars per night. Yeah, to DJ, to DJ. So not, it's not a band in a stadium where you're traveling with 18 trucks and setting up and have costs. He's bringing like a little USB stick. He's got a turntable.
• 9:58
  Randall Kaplan: It's not even his. That's.
• 9:58
  Randall Kaplan: There, but he's the top of the game, right? But then you'll get the chain smokers now are a million dollars totally. What's an average DJ that people actually want to come see? Don't name names, but like, someone who can pull people in the door, how much they get paid? Yeah, like, what's the minimum? I'd
• 10:16
  John Terzian: say a good DJ that can, like, whatever that pulls names, is probably 20 grand. 25 grand can bring people in. Yeah, it doesn't have to be, you know, once upon a time it was, you know, $500 but, but you know, your average person is 25 grand.
• 10:35
  John Terzian: Then your your bigger DJs that are the Vegas Miami ones are, you know, anywhere from 100 to 500 grand a spin, you know, a set. La doesn't do that. Miami doesn't really even do that level. It's really only in Vegas and overseas and private where you do that type of
• 10:56
  Randall Kaplan: dollar amount.
• 10:56
  Randall Kaplan: Nightclubs are only open two or three nights a week, and there's different nights at this night club is cool, that night club is cool. You generally don't compete for those nights. So who decides who gets what night and what nights are cool? You
• 11:11
  John Terzian: know, it's just, it's a matter. It's like any business you're living and breathing it. So you got to just kind of know the landscape and who's the promotions that are the right ones, that know what to do and when, where people are gravitating to, and you know what the competitor is doing and what you should be like. It's, it's definitely just living and breathing. There's not a a science or a crystal ball to it.
• 11:32
  John Terzian: It's just, it's no different from any other business. You gotta like, like, live and breathe it. And that's why it's, it's not easy, it's hard. It's hard to know what it is, but if you're in it, you can kind of get a sense, you know. And what's the cost to open a typical nightclub can vary, you know, the way we build top of the line. So, you know, ours are, you know, five to 10 million, you know. So in Vegas, they're, you know, 100 million.
• 12:52
  Randall Kaplan: Someone spent$100 million to open a nightclub, yeah, who did that?
• 12:58
  John Terzian: I think it's multiple, actually. So I won't, I won't name names, but most of them spend a you're spending real money.
• 13:04
  Randall Kaplan: Delilah is your restaurant, signature restaurant, which the first one was in LA. Second one is in Vegas. $20 million build out.
• 13:13
  John Terzian: Yep, little less, but yeah, 25 huge, yeah.
• 13:17
  Randall Kaplan: Can some random schmo call and say, hey, I want a reservation until I love days.
• 13:23
  John Terzian: In theory, you should be able to, but it's been, it's, it's a hard, it's a hard reservation. Thank God. So we hope, hopefully, can get to everyone. But yeah, it's, it's, a long process of of getting
• 13:35
  Randall Kaplan: a booking. Glad we're friends. Night clubs don't stay cool forever. So what's the average length of period of time nightclub is open, and how do you keep it cool?
• 13:48
  John Terzian: You know, it's a tough question, because I used to always say, 334, years max, our nightclub shelves,
• 13:55
  Randall Kaplan: so, so, so spending five to ten million on nightclub, it's open two or three days a week, and it has that sort of a shelf life. Yeah.
• 14:02
  John Terzian: I mean, we've had Poppy open for, you know, eight years now. So I shouldn't say, you know, it's not and bootsies was open 11 or 12 years. Las Vegas, whole different month.
• 14:13
  John Terzian: You know, their places are open 20 years. Very different Miami, a little bit the same way. As far as keeping it cool or hot, if you will, you have to, just have to be in the venue. You have to have the right team that's there. And you have to, like, if the minute you're removed as an owner operator or the team is that's with you, you're going to lose that touch or that how to keep evolving?
• 14:36
  John Terzian: Because the key is to keep evolving and keeping on edge.
• 14:39
  John Terzian: Because, you know, music changes monthly. You know, DJs change monthly. I mean, it's a whole thing.
• 14:46
  Randall Kaplan: Are the investors in nightclub men who want to be cool and have sex with beautiful women.
• 14:54
  John Terzian: I love your questions. I would say that's probably a lot of people. That's not us. We have, unfortunately, to have, we have, we have a normal investor backing. Um, I would say, you know, look, I don't know if it's, I don't know if it's as direct as that, but I'm sure there's a lot of, I'm sure there's a lot of nightclub investors. It's like, hey, this will be my social life, you know. So I'm sure that's what it is. Anything more direct than that is pretty creepy and probably not the type of investor you want.
• 15:24
  Randall Kaplan: Been at nightclubs a few times, you know, I have like, a quota, you know, one, one or three times a year, depending on who is inviting me and where we are.
• 15:31
  Randall Kaplan: And I always looked at these people, you know, you make your money on the bottle service, on the tables, and those people who don't know, and for those people who do, when someone buys a table or a big bottle or something, the women come out.
• 15:44
  Randall Kaplan: You know, there's five or six women. It's like a parade of women carrying down Perignon bottles with sparklers coming out, like, who. People paying, you know, 25 you know, $100,000 for a table. I'm like, these guys are, are losers, right? And then at my bachelor party, hackathon, which you arranged, you know, all the girls came out with the other bottle of sparklers, you know, Randy on.
• 16:08
  Randall Kaplan: I'm like, Hey, man, that's pretty good, pretty fun, pretty fun. I know one and done, but it was fun. Maybe not one and done, but it was really fun. I'm
• 16:17
  John Terzian: telling you. It's human nature to see something sparkly and fun, and you're like, I want that. Yeah, it's as old as time. It's as simple as that. And that's like, what goes down honestly? You know, that's what happens in these places. Do
• 16:34
  Randall Kaplan: people pay you to put their brand of alcohol in your venues? You told me this story once, and I'm not going to name names, but there's someone who's very successful entrepreneur, very, very well known guy, billionaire, who owned a I'm not going to say what kind of brand, because I really don't want people to figure out, but they to figure out, but they own some kind of a brand, and he was coming into your venues to pitch you to carry his alcohol brand. Are people paying for shelf space to get in? No,
• 17:07
  John Terzian: I mean, you can't.
• 17:07
  John Terzian: You really can't do that. They do, they do sponsor parties. So when we have events and stuff and we need a liquor sponsor or something, and they're putting those marketing dollars there, that is a very massive thing.
• 17:25
  John Terzian: That's, that's like a major aspect of it. But no, you, you don't you, it'd be too it. You can't do it that way, on, on being paid to, because the big companies then would have a monopoly. So who's the
• 17:42
  Randall Kaplan: typical customer coming in and spending 25 to$100,000 on the table? It's funny, I
• 17:47
  John Terzian: have this. It varies. Like, every few years.
• 17:50
  John Terzian: It's like, whoever is up like, right now the crypto people, you know. So thank God for crypto up, you know, you know, few year or whatever it was few years ago, it was the mortgage people.
• 18:03
  John Terzian: It just, there's, like, a cycle of people always, like, who knows, you know. So there's that, and then, you know, there's inheritance, there's corporate, there's, it just varies, you know, and, and look, you're talking about the extreme 25 grand. The average table is, you know, like two grand, 2500 something like that. So you get your, you get your nuts and bolts, or your, you know, off of the average table. And then the hope is, every night, but the hope is, I don't know, once a week or whatever, you get someone big spending 50 grand, 100 grand type of thing. That's that's the name of the game.
• 18:36
  Randall Kaplan: Petra Ecclestone is the daughter of the f1 founder who famously bought the old spelling mansion for 100 million dollars. Ex husband, James stunt would come in when I spent $150,000 on Crystal champagne. Oh, yeah, he declared bankruptcy two months later, two years later, sorry about that?
• 18:58
  Randall Kaplan: Oh, not really, because he Yeah, maybe you're sorry because he didn't come in again. Yeah, it's unfortunate. Then, then you've had Middle Eastern clients come in as well spending. There was some rose vintage down per young bottles that were $40,000 each.
• 19:14
  Randall Kaplan: There was one in particular. I'm not going to name names again, but who bought two bottles? Tony le Penna. Shout out to Tony.
• 19:20
  Randall Kaplan: Love them. I think he had to go to drive to Las Vegas to go get these bottles. They're very, very hard to get, and then bring them back. You're catering to what's known as whales. How do you recruit them and how do you keep them happy the
• 19:35
  John Terzian: end of the day, I always say I'm not in the bar business or the food business, I'm in the people business. So our whole thing is catering to hospital. We're all in hospitality. So we do anything and everything for our clients, especially our whales, which are big spenders. That's legal. We don't do anything outside of that, but anything they can do to make their entertainment life like enjoyable and perfect. They want a certain type of cigarette, they want a certain type of ashtray, certain type of liquor, water, where they stay like whatever we are doing, every aspect of it in that regard. And I think that's what really separates a real a good Hospitality Group. It's
• 20:17
  Randall Kaplan: sort of like Vegas, going after the gamblers.
• 20:20
  Randall Kaplan: You all know who they are, so but where, where do you how do you compete with these people?
• 20:23
  Randall Kaplan: They know you already, and how do you develop relationships with new ones?
• 20:28
  John Terzian: You we, that's we've you built it. You have a track record. You build it over time. You get referred. You know, a bunch of different ways.
• 20:33
  John Terzian: That's the only way to really, you know, do it is you gotta have, you gotta do good work and then have people say, hey, go with this person.
• 20:42
  Randall Kaplan: How has only fans essentially ruined or badly hurt the nightclub business?
• 20:47
  John Terzian: It's hurt it bad.
• 20:47
  John Terzian: It's very interesting. It's made it so easy for. Or male and female. But obviously lot of females to just make a fortune doing, you know, whatever, online, not even nudity anymore.
• 21:02
  John Terzian: And so why that's changed a lot is a lot of that demo and age, whatever that would be, waitresses, waiters, hostesses, hosts, bottle girls. It just completely changed the workforce in a lot of ways, just made a lot less options. But
• 21:21
  Randall Kaplan: isn't it the flip side as well? Because back in the day, a lot of guys, and again, I'm a guy, and I have friends, and a lot of my friends went to nightclubs. They go to nightclubs to meet beautiful women. And today you can DM beautiful women. And beautiful women don't have to be in the nightclubs, right? They're just right. They're there, yeah. So they're the human element of meeting beautiful women, which is a motivation for a lot of guys who do go to nightclubs, not there, and there's fewer of those women who are going to nightclubs now, because they don't really have to. It's true.
• 21:55
  Randall Kaplan: Let's talk about another thing that's really hurt the business.
• 21:57
  Randall Kaplan: Today's generation drinks less alcohol. It does so let me just read some numbers here. In 2023 the boomer spent $25 billion on alcohol. Gen X, 23 point 1 billion. Millennials, 23 point 4 billion. Gen Z, $3.1 billion i dollars. How much has the younger generation affected your business not drinking as much you see,
• 22:22
  John Terzian: you see the effects. They're not drinking as much. It's not, it's definitely not a, not a rite of passage to start drinking. It's definitely not the cool thing to do is to drink, you know. So you see a massive drop off in that regard.
• 22:40
  John Terzian: But the end of the day, you know, I'm all, I'm a big believer on there's always like pendulum swings and things and, you know, it is, it is what it is right now. That doesn't mean that, you know, there isn't the still need for entertainment and going out, and I don't think that's ever going away, you know, going out to meet people, socializing, AI, and in our life, in our living lifetime, that's not going to be replaced.
• 23:06
  John Terzian: So that's the good thing. But there is a big difference on the drinking. You can see it
• 23:11
  Randall Kaplan: is owning nightclubs a good career. Stuff to say, you
• 23:15
  John Terzian: know, you got to love it. I got, you know, I, you know, if I didn't own nightclubs, I wouldn't be here today with full hospitality company. But that's, that was my way of getting there, you know.
• 23:26
  John Terzian: So, yes, it can be a great business. It can also be a terrible business. You can lose, you can lose everything on a nightclub. You know, I
• 23:35
  Randall Kaplan: think there's a general impression of most people about what it means to own one. Are nightclub owners rich.
• 23:41
  John Terzian: They can be, I mean, it just depends. Honestly, it's like you're, if you're, you can be if you're, if you're a big, if you're the winner, if you're the big, the big, if you're the one that's doing it, you're gonna, you're gonna do very well, you know? And if you're, if you're not, if you're mid tier, you're, you're not very rich, you're actually just like any other entrepreneur that's that's killing themselves, feeding the beast over and over, you know, you go
• 24:05
  Randall Kaplan: to a nightclub, or you go to one of your restaurants, there's a long line to get in. There's a doorman.
• 24:11
  Randall Kaplan: Parker was your doorman for a long time. Now he's the head of creative. We'll talk about what you've done for your employees on a long term basis. Who's getting in?
• 24:20
  John Terzian: You mean, how do people get in? Yeah, you know, for the most part, it's through, it's through relationships. So, you know, they're, they're, it's all on who. They know what, promoter or what, whatever. And that's, literally door the doorman like, That's literally how it goes
• 24:35
  Randall Kaplan: so but there are random people who get in a line of nightclub they want to get in, and then someone like Parker's picking and choosing.
• 24:41
  Randall Kaplan: You know, you're four dudes, you are never getting in.
• 24:46
  John Terzian: It depends. It doesn't go like that. It goes more if you know the landscape of who people are and if they're out and about. And if they're right, it's more about, it's more about that. And I'm more about because, because you gotta, it's like, I said, it's just like any other business where you you know who the you know, who the players are, who the right people are that are, like, going out there are different venues that are not causing issues, that are not, you know, that are bringing good things to table. So it's less about, you know, if you're four dudes, like you said, it's like that, because that can happen.
• 25:16
  John Terzian: You know, where the four guys do get in? Because if they're the right ones, if they're the right if they're the people that are out and other the ones that that we know, the ones that Parker knows, or whoever the person is in the door is, it's a different story. Right before
• 25:31
  Randall Kaplan: dudes who knows no one who's coming to LA and there's four guys, six guys want to go to nightclub. Hey, I heard boots is amazing. You guys are not getting in. Don't even bother to come. Not easy.
• 25:38
  Randall Kaplan: There's a lot of cash exchange at the door, right?
• 25:43
  John Terzian: I think. So, you know, I mean, 100 bucks to get in and give the door man, 100 bucks. You know, I don't know how. I mean, hopefully that's not at ours like that.
• 25:53
  Randall Kaplan: Uh, you know, but it happens sometimes. I mean, I've seen it happens a lot, you know, some change exchange here and there. Yeah,
• 25:59
  John Terzian: it happens a lot.
• 25:59
  John Terzian: It's part of the it's part of that
• 26:01
  Randall Kaplan: business. I think one of the things that you've done is so important in business is be loyal to your employees. If you're great to them, they'll be great to you.
• 26:10
  Randall Kaplan: And one of the great things you've done is you've promoted people been with you for a long time. Parker was a doorman for I think, five or seven years. He's now head of creative Seth Miller has been with you for 11 years.
• 26:20
  Randall Kaplan: Shout out to Seth, you always take great care of me. I love you. Been with you 11 years, and he started one level. Now he's at a whole nother level. Yeah, he's
• 26:31
  John Terzian: in Miami at our Delilah Miami operation. So he's we, I'm a big believer in people rising with us, you know. And I do think it's really matters. We have so many people that have been with me for since the beginning, you know. And the idea is that everyone, kind of, you know, grows together and keeps growing. I mean, it's the it's the best way, if it can be done. A lot of
• 26:55
  Randall Kaplan: crazy shit goes on at your nightclubs, and you're constantly putting out fires. I mean, I've been with you. We've been sitting at a club. We've been talking like, Oh, shit. You know, gotta go deal with this right now. Yep, every night is there crazy shit going on at your nightclubs?
• 27:08
  Randall Kaplan: Give us two examples of something absolutely absurd that went on without naming any names. It
• 27:14
  John Terzian: just, there's just always something. It's like, you know, there's, you know, someone in a fight in the bathroom.
• 27:21
  John Terzian: There's someone screaming at a waiter or waitress. There's, you know, we had someone. We had someone, I don't know if you can say it on here, but we had someone demand it was so upset, refused to pay his bill because he wasn't allowed to order cocaine from us. Didn't understand that. So it's like weird stuff where people are just absolutely out of their minds. Are people having
• 27:45
  Randall Kaplan: sex in bathrooms. I think so. I don't know. It's funny, you see people go in your line, and then there's a door, and someone opens the door, and someone kind of goes in, and then, you know, five minutes later they come out. So, yeah, it's like, you know, I don't know something.
• 27:59
  Randall Kaplan: You know, weird things are going on in bathrooms.
• 28:01
  John Terzian: I hope, I hope not. I hope not in ours. But you never know. You
• 28:05
  Randall Kaplan: talk about how hard it is now to hire bottle servers. My wife, Madison, worked at finale nightclub in New York. She had four jobs when I met her, and she'd bartend for one night a month or two night a month, making 1000 $2,000 cash in a night. So the bottle servers, bottle girls, make between one and $2,000 on a good night. The clubs are open two or three nights, and they're open from 11 to two in the morning in LA, yeah, in LA. So you work nine hours, six to nine hours, and if you pencil that over the course of year, you can make$100,000 a year working very little time. Yep. Do you recommend being bottle girls as a career choice for some women?
• 28:50
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah,
• 28:51
  John Terzian: I think it's a great I think it's great. It's like, the end of the day, it's, it's, it's a sales job. So if you're good, if you're good at that in you know, you can do really, you can do a great for yourself. You can do great for the place. So, yeah, I do think it's great. How does
• 29:09
  Randall Kaplan: someone become and apply to become a battle girl? Do you have to be good looking and thin or have a good figure, and if so, how do you apply? Well,
• 29:19
  John Terzian: you whatever new club is opening, they usually do a they usually do a you usually do a call, like a call for new people working there. You do, you know, for the most part, you should, especially when it's like the bigger ones, you should have a experience, because it's not an easy job. There's a lot that goes into it, actually. So we hard pressed. We, like, I don't, I don't know if we would hire someone with no experience in the bot, like they have to have some sort of experience or training in it.
• 29:53
  Randall Kaplan: I had a waiter.
• 29:53
  Randall Kaplan: When I was in Vegas. Were there for the f1 race. Actually, I was there to interview Dana White for my for my show. We went to javiers. We had a very nice waitress. And I like talking to people. I like learning what they do, and what are you up to?
• 30:08
  Randall Kaplan: Is this your full time job? And she said she was at one of the beach clubs, there's a bottle service girl and no longer work there. And I asked why? I said, Well, I gained 15 pounds. I love that's fucking nuts. That's crazy.
• 30:24
  John Terzian: That's Vegas, I guess that's not LA or California. Yeah, she, I don't think that's legal in California.
• 30:32
  Randall Kaplan: I mean, who's gonna, you know, but Vegas gonna sue in California. I mean, I'm just saying, like, you know she, she's, yeah, I mean,
• 30:42
  John Terzian: I don't know that's, that's, that's definitely not. She lost the weight, by the
• 30:45
  Randall Kaplan: way, because we're Instagram friends, and I saw her posting again from the beach club. Yeah, I said, Oh, you got your job. Back said, Yeah, lost a little weight. Is that insane?
• 30:56
  John Terzian: I mean, it's, it's similar to the cheerleader world. Yeah, cheerleaders have a thing, but that is definitely more. That's definitely a Vegas thing. That's not, that's not la Delilah,
• 31:07
  Randall Kaplan: as you opened in 2016 you said you built it for your friends. Tell people what it is. I mean, good luck getting in. But tell people how cool it is
• 31:17
  John Terzian: with the success of nice guy, we were like, you know, we're actually on to something. And we felt that there was this new, like, desire for people to have a place where they're, like, having a night out and dining at the same time.
• 31:33
  John Terzian: And literally, people thought that you couldn't do that in LA that was like insane. And so, you know, what's ironic is, as old as time are supper clubs, and that's what they did back in 2019, 20s, it was like dining, live music, drinking, kind of all the above. And that's the concept of Delilah came from that bringing that back in a real way. And that's what we did. And it and, you know, it took a second to take off, I remember, and in the first week being on a Friday night, we had a close at like, 8pm and I was, like, literally in tears, like, I was like, we're screwed, but we stuck. We stuck to the model and, and it's definitely, you know, it's our beak, you know, Delilah is our flagship brand, and then when we opened it in Las Vegas, we've got global recognition for it, you know.
• 32:22
  John Terzian: And now we have it in Miami, and we're opening it in Dallas. One
• 32:26
  Randall Kaplan: of the dessert items is something called the slutty brownie, and it's named after Kendall Jenner. What do I have to do to get a dish named after me?
• 32:36
  John Terzian: Be a Jenner, see a Jenner,
• 32:40
  Randall Kaplan: get them to adopt me. She
• 32:42
  John Terzian: is, you know, she created that she I really credit her, and she's like the greatest friend and supporter. I really credit her with Delilah taking off because she did her birthday there early on, and from then it really took off. So I'll always be appreciative. But you know, she had this love of this, of this dessert, and it was a slutty brownie, and she actually, literally created the dessert, like literally
• 33:06
  Randall Kaplan: she came in your kitchen, literally together.
• 33:08
  Randall Kaplan: Hey, John, we taste Um, hey to our chefs. Yeah, okay, it's your chef. So that's where it stems from. You mentioned before that you do crazy things to make your customers happy. Tell us about Joe Lowe's brother and how on earth you went out and got a live chicken with a top hat in the middle of the night.
• 33:28
  John Terzian: Yeah? Zen Lo,
• 33:32
  Randall Kaplan: tell people who he is. First of all, you know, a lot of people don't know, well, he
• 33:35
  John Terzian: turned out to be the world's biggest fraud. So that's, you know, always fun.
• 33:37
  John Terzian: You know, he was, uh, at the time, he was, uh, you know, he was really famous for being the, like, literally, the world's biggest spender. He was spending a million a night on bottles.
• 33:48
  John Terzian: And think everyone assume, I mean, I don't think everyone assumed he was just a fun loving, but legit businessman, you know, he was always with, like, the right, you know, business people. And he'd come out and spent, you know, I don't know, literally, a million, $2 million on bottles. And we had him in in LA and Aspen, actually. And yeah, his is. His brother asked me to facilitate for him. He wanted to gift someone at the at the next table, a gift. And I was like, Okay, I'll make anything happen?
• 34:33
  John Terzian: The live chicken with a top hat?
• 34:33
  John Terzian: And it was like, I don't know, 11pm or something on, like a Friday, and I'm like, I found a farm open, and I don't know I did it
• 34:48
  Randall Kaplan: like you sent you. You're, you're asking someone to go back online search chickens for sale, and you sent someone out to go pick one up.
• 34:58
  Randall Kaplan: Like, did he bring it back at one in the morning? Yeah,
• 35:02
  John Terzian: it was like, I think it was like, 11 or 12 or something like that. And, yeah, I mean, PETA wouldn't be too happy, but, you know, make the guy happy. But yeah. And then late, years later, Joe Lowe turned out to be this, this big one MDB scandal, yeah. And
• 35:18
  Randall Kaplan: for those people don't know, he's part of the Malaysian government. Swindled$5 billion and Goldman Sachs was involved in raising that capital for the sovereign wealth fund, and Goldman paid a several billion dollar fine, yeah. And this guy also gifted Jennifer Lopez some kind of a $300,000 car, I think of Rolls Royce and Leo DiCaprio, and the government came back and, yeah, they didn't take the chicken, though. It didn't take the chicken. The chicken probably died. That chicken a couple days later, sacrificed. That chicken.
• 35:50
  Randall Kaplan: Sacrifice, not part of your chicken. And tenders. No, not part of chicken tenders. Which is, which is one of the signature dishes at Delhi and at your wedding, it
• 36:00
  John Terzian: is, yeah, well, I throw a chicken tender festival too. I'm a big chicken tender fan. Not healthy. It's not healthy. But you'd be hard pressed to find someone that doesn't like a chicken tender.
• 36:11
  John Terzian: So I bonded with, like, the craziest people, like the biggest from whatever people over a chicken tender. We
• 36:18
  Randall Kaplan: both have young kids. Always chicken tenders at the birthday parties. I have 100% take rate on the chicken tenders at every party. You do, yeah, love them. It's the best.
• 36:30
  Randall Kaplan: Love them. Another interesting thing you did. You were in France. I think they can film festival with the CEO of hackathon, who, in the middle of night want to smoke some hookah at one in the morning and you don't speak French. Oh, yeah, so I just do that when you don't speak language. I
• 36:47
  John Terzian: figured it out with that. But I had to convince a I had to convince a place to open a shop to get a hookah. I mean, I must have run 20 blocks.
• 36:55
  John Terzian: I was it was actually insane, and convinced them to open it and made it happen. My thing is just making stuff happen. It's the only way to be so it's like, you know, and it's probably not fun for the people that work like with me, because I expect everyone to have that mindset, or it's just like, just make it happen. You know,
• 37:17
  Randall Kaplan: was there a customer who actually return a tire at Nordstrom?
• 37:22
  John Terzian: That's actually my my thinking is that vibe, that whole, that whole Nordstroms mantra, where it's like, you know, anything, anything, I don't know if they still do it, but anything that can be returned, they do.
• 37:36
  Randall Kaplan: You have a saying that at the end of the day we get it done, critical for the customer service business?
• 37:41
  Randall Kaplan: Yes, is the customer always right? The
• 37:44
  John Terzian: customer is always right, yeah, even when they're wrong.
• 37:47
  Randall Kaplan: So give me an example. When they're wrong but they're right. It's almost every night.
• 37:52
  John Terzian: You know, they're they're at the very end of the day. It's not worth arguing with the customer, even if they're even if they're right, it's not worth even they're wrong. It's not worth arguing with them.
• 38:05
  John Terzian: It's their night. It's it's a moment in time. So unless there's something like the, you know, where we draw, where I draw the line is, you know, any sort of sexual harassment and any sort of drug related, okay, or or harassment at all. So outside of that, the customer is always right. So it's like, if you do one of those, you're in the wrong and you're going to be out. But if you're arguing over, I don't know, you didn't order something and it's on the bill, or you didn't get the table you requested. Or I every night, there's some version of that.
• 38:42
  John Terzian: And, you know, I'd say 50% of the time they're kind of wrong, but it's not worth it, and it's like and I try to train the people around me, or teach the people with me that it's just like, at the very end of the day, just say, I'm really sorry.
• 38:57
  John Terzian: We'll make it happen. Like it's fine, like we'll do X, Y and Z, it's okay. It's not worth the argument of being right or wrong. You'd rather you get more by having them get back to their night and have and have an enjoyable evening or day.
• 39:13
  Randall Kaplan: Lot of restaurants have customers or VIP, you know, they get the better tables. Do you have code system for pain in the ass?
• 39:21
  Randall Kaplan: Customers?
• 39:24
  John Terzian: No, we don't have pain in the ass. We have very detailed notes, though, on on everyone's likes, dislikes, what they want, you know, what they eat, what they table numbers, what they prefer? Table number?
• 39:35
  John Terzian: Yeah, I
• 39:37
  Randall Kaplan: always ask for a table number. I put it in my phone, and then I'll ask for tables. You mean the table that you like? Yeah, the table that I like when I'm at the restaurant.
• 39:45
  Randall Kaplan: I mean, if, if I'm going there, you know, sometimes I'll call you up, John, I'm at Delilah, and I'm just lucky to get a table. No, even with our friendship, I'm lucky. I
• 39:58
  John Terzian: know it's not a pain in the ass mark. It's a mark of this person as high, high tension over X, Y and Z, right? You know, over, you know, make sure to not, you know, pour the water in front of him or her. You know, it's like, it's not detailed.
• 40:14
  Randall Kaplan: You have amazing relationships with celebrities.
• 40:18
  Randall Kaplan: Justin Bieber, Drake, Post Malone, tons and tons of people.
• 40:24
  Randall Kaplan: They come in your club.
• 40:24
  Randall Kaplan: Sometimes, I've been there.
• 40:28
  Randall Kaplan: People come in. Justin Bieber walks in. He starts playing the piano. How did you develop these relationships with all these famous people, the
• 40:35
  John Terzian: ones that I'm friends with are genuine relationships. Just happen to be, happen to be celebrities,
• 40:41
  Randall Kaplan: yeah. But I mean rant. I mean, if Post Malone was hanging out at the two tables away at the nice guy, and I love Post Malone, by the way, and I'm not going to really go. Up to them and say, Hey, post up.
• 40:52
  Randall Kaplan: What's his real name? Again?
• 40:56
  Randall Kaplan: Austin? Yeah, Austin. Hey, Austin Randy. Hey, yeah, let's go have a beer at the bar together. It's hard to become friends with a celebrity, Yeah,
• 41:05
  John Terzian: but you're not in the like. I've been in this I've been in the business, in the both music, entertainment and hospitality business, now for 20 years. So a lot of people I've been friends with since, I've been friends with posts since he started basically his career, almost, you know, essentially.
• 41:21
  John Terzian: So we've just been friends this whole time, and it's very genuine, like I don't at the end of the day. I think the key with me is I'm not. I'm not, I don't have an angle. I'm not expecting things of them or people. It's actually the opposite. I actually want to have them protected and feeling that they have a place that they don't get exploited. No one
• 41:44
  Randall Kaplan: really goes up to them. I mean, if I'm Post Malone was sitting next to me at the bar grabbing a beer, I'd definitely say hello, but I'm not going up to his table.
• 41:52
  John Terzian: Well, in my places, they don't they do in other places, yeah, you'll get kicked out right away, because the only way I can have anyone feel they you want to be able to have a night out or and not be harassed, you know?
• 42:07
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah, we were noble one night. America has got talent. Is my favorite show.
• 42:11
  Randall Kaplan: It's the American dream. I'll cry when I when I see these stories sometimes. And learning a lot today, you know Nobu. Nobu has security. If you go there a lot. You know who they are. And by the way, good luck getting reservation at Nobu. I mean, if you're really not on the list, you know you're you're not getting a table there. So, they have these guys, you've been there, and Simon Cowell walks in one night, and my daughters, who you also know well, said, Simon Cowell just walked in. And they know I love this show, and I do not go say hello. So he's passing by the table. I was already up out of my chair. I said, Hey, Simon. I introduced myself, and you could see these two guys walking toward me. I say, I'm a huge fan of the show.
• 42:56
  Randall Kaplan: I think so and so is going to win. And I just met this songwriter who had written songs for all these people, like Cole Swindell and all these interesting people, Blake Shelton. And I said, Oh, I've got, I've got this guy. Oh, you pitched him. I had nothing to gain from this whatsoever, but you pitched him. No, I just said, By the way, if you call it pitch, I was trying to help him.
• 43:20
  Randall Kaplan: I'm trying to help him. Yeah, you're trying to help and so I said, I think this guy is going to win. He did not win. But I said, you know this guy? And what I did say is, so we were at Gaza, and I'm sitting next to Joe Russo, one of the biggest directors all time. I think the second biggest spoilers first, and we're at dinner, and his friend is from Vegas or from Nashville. I said, Okay, whatever. He's a he's written songs for these people, and I just had dinner with him, like a week before. And so I'm home and I and so I said to Simon Cowell, I said, Oh, by the way, I just met this guy, and he also is a fan of this singer, and he had never met the singer before. He never listened to the show. But I said, Oh, he's interested in writing songs for so and so, because I wanted to get to know Simon Cowell. And so I and Simon does not have a phone, and his fiance was there, and he said, Oh, you know, take Randy's number and, you know, let's see if we can make the intro or not.
• 44:18
  Randall Kaplan: But I took my shot at Simon.
• 44:18
  Randall Kaplan: How'd that go for you? I'm glad I did it. You know, it's like, I love Simon Cowell. I want him on my show. I will get him on my show at some time. Great businessman, by the way, as well. But, yeah, I wouldn't do it at your club. Unless he's sitting next to me. He would be escorted out. So I do want to talk about Post Malone a little bit more. You get a lot of really cool things, and one of the cool things was, you're in one of the songs, and the song is called couped up, and I'm gonna just read you the lyrics, okay, all right, and I'm not, I'm not gonna sing them. You're not gonna wrap it. I actually am not going to. I'll put a little bit of a beat there, but it's yeah, I'm off the Bud Light, not the bourbon. I might chop the roof off the Suburban. Tried to be a nice guy. John turzian, wow, till I started throwing your bur till I started throwing up in your burkin. Ooh. Then I woke up in the morning. Please showed up at my door with a warrant. Fuck that shit. I remember flushing something down the toilet, flush, flush. Guess he gotta let me off with a warning. You
• 45:29
  John Terzian: should actually this. That could be your whole show is doing reading verses of like raps and rock songs so incredible. So especially, we did skirt, skirt. So
• 45:40
  Randall Kaplan: my, my question to you is, are you close enough?
• 45:44
  Randall Kaplan: I mean, we're good friends.
• 45:44
  Randall Kaplan: You've done some nice things for me. Are you close enough to Austin where you can ask him to put me in. One of his future songs.
• 45:55
  John Terzian: I am but I won't.
• 45:58
  Randall Kaplan: You don't want to help. It's like It's on my bucket list.
• 46:02
  Unknown: I'm sure it's on my bucket list. I'm sure it is.
• 46:04
  Randall Kaplan: I'll make a I'll make a donation to my favorite charity. I'll donate to his favorite charity.
• 46:09
  John Terzian: I will take that into consideration. Yeah, he's never heard that before. Being paid to be in a song. A
• 46:14
  Randall Kaplan: lot of people don't know this, but fiction writers, fiction writers, people will pay charity to be named as a character in fiction books.
• 46:20
  Randall Kaplan: This is a very common thing.
• 46:23
  Randall Kaplan: John Grisham, all the big authors I didn't know that do stuff like that. Yeah, wow, yeah. I mean, I think it's a brilliant idea. They get paid like you like, let's say John Grisham is writing a new book, and John Grisham is some charity thing, and someone will pay, you could pay, you know, John Jersey, and put me in the book, cool, and the money goes to charity. I like that. Yeah, I think it's great. You should, you should auction off. It's like, the chicken tenders is, like, named after a stadium.
• 46:50
  Randall Kaplan: That's a stadium, rights. But I think you know some of these other dishes. Mike Melvin has a dish, doesn't he? At
• 46:58
  John Terzian: Craig's,
• 46:59
  Randall Kaplan: yeah, his dish
• 47:00
  John Terzian: at Craig's, Melman, honey, chicken or something.
• 47:03
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah, Mike's coming on the show. The best I started to have him great, great man. Elements of success, how important is brand building?
• 47:09
  Randall Kaplan: What you've done with H wood, as in your success. I
• 47:14
  John Terzian: think it's the number one paramount. I think it's, I think brand building is the key to kind of anything we do.
• 47:23
  Randall Kaplan: One of, one of the things that I know has made you successful, and you're going to be a little bashful about this, is you're a great friend to your friends, and everybody will say that about you. I mean, I meet people all the time. Your name comes up on a regular basis. So nice guy, terz is the best you're one of these guys that no one says a negative word about ever. I appreciate that. I mean, Rarity, appreciate that your friendships and your relationships. How important have those been to your success?
• 47:51
  Randall Kaplan: I think
• 47:53
  John Terzian: this. They've been everything for me. I would not be sitting here doing any of this without, without the friends and family that I have along the way. They're like a full network of just, I don't know, it's weird. It's like you feel like you have this I have a full support team of, like, people that are so reliable, and so I'm, you know, I go overboard for any friend of mine on purpose. You know, where I want them to make sure that they have that same for me, you know, I'm
• 48:25
  Randall Kaplan: going to share my bachelor party for you, one of the highlights of my life, Madison and I both had it in Vegas. You said I crashed a bachelor party. Boys did something one night. The girls did something the next night, we went to the hackathon. The next night, Calvin Harris is playing.
• 48:40
  Randall Kaplan: We're in the DJ booth. I'd never been in a DJ booth. Loved it one of the highlights of my life. I mean, this still is that sound.
• 48:49
  Randall Kaplan: And I remember saying to one of my friends, Josh, you know, we're then all the champagne came out, Randy, Randy, Randy.
• 48:56
  Randall Kaplan: And you know, we're looking we're drinking. We've had a lot to drink. And I said to Josh, you know, he said to me, yeah, we got to do this again. And I looked at him like, Dude, we're never coming back here again.
• 49:07
  Randall Kaplan: Like, tough, although it did happen again, but that's another story for another lifetime. On the flip side, on the flip side of this, can you be an asshole and run a successful nightclub?
• 49:19
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah, I
• 49:21
  John Terzian: think there's plenty of assholes that run, run places. You know, I think you can be successful. I think I think it'd be hard to have some longevity.
• 49:30
  Randall Kaplan: One of the things you're great at as well, in terms of relationships, you text five people every morning, random people, Hey, how you doing? Checking in? Anything I'd help with?
• 49:40
  John Terzian: Yeah, huge. Yeah,
• 49:44
  Randall Kaplan: it's great.
• 49:44
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah. I had, when I was a law clerk, I worked at this big firm in Detroit, most successful firm. I was there for the summer, and they let you, the partners could take you out one on one for lunch, you know, you would ask all the partners, and there's a guy named Dick Burstein, who was the biggest Rainmaker in the firm, and to the point where he wasn't really practicing law. I mean, he was, but, you know, he wasn't his senior partner. He doesn't do the work. The junior people do the work, but he's not working all day. I said, you know, Dick, what's the secret? And he said to me, he said, I'll text three clients every single day. How are you doing? Is there something I can help with? And he had, I mean, back then, eight, ten million book of business. This was 30 years ago.
• 50:25
  Randall Kaplan: I have massive, biggest Rainmaker in the entire firm.
• 50:29
  John Terzian: You know, it's, I had never heard that story, but it's a good one. It's that it's that extra personal touch that I think most people like overlook, you know, and to me, I genuinely mean it and enjoy it. You know, you
• 50:43
  Randall Kaplan: often don't tell people that you're coming to your clubs or your venues, and one of the things that you've said has made you successful as well with just listening and watching. Yeah. Yeah, talk to us about that.
• 50:54
  John Terzian: I kind of view myself as like an ultimate observer. So I like to see what people are gravitating to or talking about or liking or disliking, and, you know, it's sometimes hard get to hear what people dislike, but I think it's really good. And so I try to, I try to be as stealth as possible. A lot of the nights and other other nights, I'm just there, and I just like to, like, observe and watch. But it's a good way to know what's like working, not working, new places like it's a it's it's a whole thing. One of
• 51:29
  Randall Kaplan: the main ingredients that's made me successful is something called extreme preparation. I'm writing a book on extreme preparation.
• 51:34
  Randall Kaplan: That means when someone prepares for a podcast one hour, I prepare an average 14 hours. How important has extreme preparation been to your success? And can you give some examples? I don't think I'm on your level of extreme preparation. Well, just give some examples of where you've really prepared, where you think more than anybody overboard that's contributed to a, yeah, like positive outcome
• 51:55
  John Terzian: when I, when I am up for something that we want for business wise. So a new space, in a in a hotel, or a new investor group, or whatever, I do an obscene amount of kind of background, deep dive on who they are, their family, their what they like, dislike, kind of all that. And really try to like, really try to, like, use that in a positive way. I mean, on what I'm, you know, what I'm gearing towards, so that, you know, I go in there with, like, kind of a leg up. And I think that's been a major reason, and why I've gotten some, some certain, you know, venues of ours, or some deals. Most recent, you know, was, was an investor group, you know, I prepped for, I don't know, a week or two on just every aspect of it. And when I went in that door, it's funny, when you go in the door, it's like, it's all that preparation. It comes a lot easier when you're when you're in there, you know? So it does matter. It makes a big difference.
• 53:03
  Randall Kaplan: Work ethic, this huge SAE house at USC, yeah, rumor was you didn't even have sheets on your bed. You're just a pillow because you were out all the time. This crazy work ethic that you never sleep.
• 53:13
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah,
• 53:15
  John Terzian: that's true.
• 53:15
  John Terzian: Actually, I did not have sheets on my bed for like, two years.
• 53:21
  Randall Kaplan: You come home late and you just kind of crash out. Yeah,
• 53:25
  John Terzian: yeah. I sleep maybe four hours, four or five hours a night at most. It's like my it's always been that way.
• 53:32
  John Terzian: It's like a gene or something I don't know, or I'm gonna hibernate for three years. One day, you start
• 53:37
  Randall Kaplan: your day, typically at 736 30. Start your day at 630 you're in the office all day, come home for dinner, a few hours rest, and then you're out two or three venues a night, often coming back from two to 230 in the morning. It's brutal on the body.
• 53:53
  John Terzian: Yeah, it is. I mean, you know what's, what's, what's I have to what I'm doing more and more as a is, I've been doing that for so long. What's more important now is a balance of my kids and wife and family life and work. So I try to have, you know, two or three nights fully off. I'll leave the office at five, you know, type of thing. I take my kid to school every morning. Now, that type of stuff, as far as the like, you know, late night, early morning, you know, I'll I just went. I the other day, I was like, super tired, and I was like, I wonder What's so weird. And I literally had forgotten that I missed an entire day of sleep. I had come I'd flown back on something. I just completely skipped a day in flight for the Super Bowl. Super Bowl, our event, just completely skipped it. It's crazy. Let's talk
• 54:43
  Randall Kaplan: about that business, event business, it's more profitable margin wise than the restaurant business. How does that all work? What kind of profits do you make? And can anybody get in? Well,
• 54:57
  John Terzian: each event is different, so we're fortunate enough to have a really good partner this year and last year too. But this year with DraftKings, they're amazing with us. And so the whole thing was, just have a great event, you know? So this was all invite,
• 55:15
  Randall Kaplan: mostly invites.
• 55:15
  Randall Kaplan: Or do you get invites? Like, like the players do to the Super Bowl. They get two tickets each, where you can say, all right, I got 10 buds to get in. You mean, who were inviting? Yeah, no, if it's
• 55:26
  John Terzian: a private party, pretty much plus one, no, it's H wood and drought, yeah,
• 55:30
  Randall Kaplan: oh, let's invite people. Yeah.
• 55:32
  Unknown: Okay, yeah. But
• 55:35
  Randall Kaplan: I can come next year, if I'm going to Super Bowl and you guys are doing the party, you're
• 55:38
  John Terzian: good, yeah. But in most years, you know, we get a sponsor, we sell tables. It's very it can be really amazing.
• 55:47
  John Terzian: You know, next year's in San Francisco, year Afters in LA so those are. Big ones. You know, we sell tables and sponsors and the whole thing people
• 55:56
  Randall Kaplan: who don't know, give these are massive parties.
• 55:58
  Randall Kaplan: Give people an example of what the budgets are for these and how many people are actually coming. I mean, it
• 56:04
  John Terzian: varies, you know, we did. We did a sewer party that I think was 10 million or something, ten
• 56:11
  Randall Kaplan: million budget.
• 56:11
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah, the sponsors spent ten million what do they get out of it? Well,
• 56:18
  John Terzian: what you get out of it is, besides press is the whole idea is experiential. So you're entertaining they're entertaining their whatever corporate clients, or whatever it might be, they might be launching a product. It just all varies in that regard. But on average, I'd say the events that we do that are like big off site, because we try to have where, you know, we do Coachella, Monaco, Cannes, Film Festival, Super Bowl, you know, NBA All Star this weekend we're doing in San Francisco. I'd say, on the most part, you know, it's anywhere from 500 grand to a million, you know, type of budget.
• 56:58
  Randall Kaplan: And you have your own parties too. You throw this white party on July 4. Yep, people can pay to go to that one in advance. No, no,
• 57:06
  John Terzian: you we do sell a handful of tables, but everything else is all in by, I
• 57:11
  Randall Kaplan: saw your VIP host John Hines made some funny post on Instagram right before the white party. Stop DM me or texting me about the White Party, the answer is no,
• 57:28
  John Terzian: yeah, that became a big that became a big one. You started
• 57:31
  Randall Kaplan: a film and TV business as well. Yep, you did a great documentary in 2022 called Call me magic. You have some movies and things in development with Kid cootie and Post Malone.
• 57:41
  Randall Kaplan: Tell us, pardon me, kid Cody, tell us about what you're doing there. Well, you
• 57:47
  John Terzian: know, we started, I started media about four or five years ago, and the idea was that I'm the type of person I am to this day that if I introduce two people, or I do whatever, I don't expect anything. I want everyone to go on and do their thing. And it became, I was doing that so much with friends of mine that were talent, that were whatever I was, you know, putting so many deals together.
• 58:06
  John Terzian: They're like, you know, you should be. We actually want you in business with us. And so what I did was created HR media with, you know, Brian and I created Atri media as like the non hospitality arm. So we manage our our kid, Zach Mia in it. DJ is blown up, blown up, massive.
• 58:25
  John Terzian: But the idea was like music, TV, film, all the above. But what's really morphed into, besides managing Zach is, is the film and documentaries to me, because we love it. I mean, it's a very similar skill set to what we do with building places, being a producer side. So, you know, we have access to capital. We have great talent relations. I think we have good taste, and, you know, we kind of get stuff done.
• 58:50
  John Terzian: And so that's the true essence of a producer. And so we started with with, they call me magic, which was magic Johnson's documentary. And we're in the middle of the of a few other documentaries now, Basquiat documentary, and then we have a handful of feature films that are on the slate that are going so to me, it's amazing. You know, I really love that world.
• 59:15
  John Terzian: There's a ton of synergy with what we're doing. And we had our first indie film just got into South by Southwest. So it's gonna go on March 12 there.
• 59:23
  John Terzian: What's it called idiotica?
• 59:23
  John Terzian: What's
• 59:26
  Unknown: it about? It's about
• 59:28
  John Terzian: a young girl in her family, and she grows up, it's a comedy, and grows up in the Russian district of West Hollywood. You know that, like little Russian pocket, she aspires to be like a fashionista, and it's a really fun little comedy. It's cool. So magic
• 59:44
  Randall Kaplan: knows everyone in town knows every studio had he's how on earth the did you How on earth did you get magic to allow you to make a documentary on him when you never produced any TV or movie in your lifetime. That's
• 59:59
  John Terzian: a good one too.
• 59:59
  John Terzian: You know, it's kind of like everything I've done in life, you know, it's, it's, I just straight, I stay true to things, you know, the way I approached you with magic. So magic called me, or his team did about opening sports bars. And, you know, I kind of a long winded way. I kind of was like, without, let's, let's put that to the side for a second. I have this idea, because I'm launching this media and this is before the documentary craze. This is before Jordan. Everything was right before. And I said, Look, I'm an outsider. I'm an entrepreneur, and I what I want to do is make make your life story, and I'll bring in the best of the best finance it all, do it all. I didn't know how I was going to do that, by the way, but I did, and he liked what I had to say. He liked the fact that I was not in the film world. He liked. The fact that I was, like, a little bit of an outsider and hungry to do a great project and to pay for bringing, bringing all the right stuff. And so we did, and he agreed to it, and I stayed true to my war. We got great people involved, and it ended up being a massive thing. We sold it to Apple, a great project.
• 1:01:08
  Randall Kaplan: So a lot of people don't know how that works either. So people think, Oh, you're making a documentary, and it's like a nonprofit thing, you know? It's just like you're making the movie. How do the economics of a documentary work?
• 1:01:20
  John Terzian: I mean, it's the same thing as anything. It all varies. However much you make for it, what you can sell it for, you know? So, you know, for the most part, documentaries are low. This was a massive one magic thanks to magics name and who he is, and the product that they made was great, great sale, but for the most part, yeah, documentaries are, you know, a little bit more. What's nice about documentaries is, is they're, they're faster to make.
• 1:01:43
  John Terzian: So that's, that's pretty great.
• 1:01:47
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah, magic came to our charity event called The Imagine ball for imagine LA. We started this thing, thing going on 10 years ago now. Yep, I'd start an event called The Justice ball. And yes, I mess up when we're getting up there.
• 1:01:59
  Randall Kaplan: Welcome to the Imagine ball, and it's the Justice ball. That was a very funny moment, by the way, where you look wild moment, yeah, you looked at me. I said, Welcome to whatever, the Justice ball, and you look at me.
• 1:02:12
  John Terzian: I mean, that was actually crazy. Yeah,
• 1:02:13
  Randall Kaplan: I know. Still have it on film, by the way, oops, you know, we you're nervous up there, whatever. So we started this event. House of Blues was, was our first, I think, two events. I had started the Justice ball for nonprofit law firm bets. Had a legal service. It ran for a long time, raised millions of dollars, and then I wanted to do something new. And I said, You know what, John would be a great partner in this, let's create this thing together. And I think we talked about various things. We wanted an organization that didn't have a big fundraiser, that we would be paying action, yeah, you know, Barbara chicken dinner.
• 1:02:48
  Randall Kaplan: And then we built this great thing together. I mean, you, at the end of the day, raised most of the money, probably 90, 90% of the money within your venue.
• 1:03:00
  Randall Kaplan: You donated the venue. You had magic come Serena Kevin Hart this year, how important is philanthropy to our success?
• 1:03:09
  John Terzian: Well, you know, I've from a young age, I was always big on giving back and doing doing good as much as possible. So I think it's really important. You know, I think people need to do more of it. I currently do quite a bit for Children's Hospital. It's a big one for me. But, yeah, I think teach their own on every on that. But for me, I think it's important. We're at the end of
• 1:03:29
  Randall Kaplan: our show, and I always finish the end of my show with a game called fill in the blank to excellence. All right.
• 1:03:34
  Randall Kaplan: Ready to Roll. Let's do it. All right. The biggest lesson I've learned in my life is not get too down. My number one professional goal is on a hotel.
• 1:03:42
  Randall Kaplan: By the way, we've talked about this now for for years. So what's happening on that front?
• 1:03:50
  Randall Kaplan: I'm in the hunt, tough to buy a hotel these days. Yeah, lots of, lots of economic issues.
• 1:03:54
  Randall Kaplan: Everything's
• 1:03:55
  John Terzian: tough, but yeah, one day, one day, it'll come together. My number
• 1:03:59
  Randall Kaplan: one personal goal is, have my wife happy. You have an amazing wife. Shout out to Lonnie. Shout out. The one thing that everybody should say to themselves when they wake up in the morning is you woke up.
• 1:04:07
  Randall Kaplan: The one thing that people should say to themselves when they go to bed at
• 1:04:12
  John Terzian: night is some version of relax, some version of turning your mind off. My biggest regret is probably not passing the bar. You can still do it. No, definitely not. That
• 1:04:22
  Randall Kaplan: was hell, man.
• 1:04:22
  Randall Kaplan: That was rough. My biggest fear is failing. The most powerful moment of my career is,
• 1:04:30
  John Terzian: I think the opening of Delilah Vegas was most proud moment of my professional career.
• 1:04:36
  Randall Kaplan: The craziest thing that's happened in my career is
• 1:04:40
  John Terzian: all of it. It's a crazy career that I'm very thankful for. The
• 1:04:43
  Randall Kaplan: craziest thing that's happened in one of my clubs is I
• 1:04:46
  John Terzian: got protested by PETA for having a llama in it.
• 1:04:49
  John Terzian: Nice. The llama was happy, though, nice. Had a good night.
• 1:04:52
  John Terzian: The
• 1:04:52
  Randall Kaplan: best advice I've ever received is play the long game. The worst advice I've ever received is take the money. If you could name one trait that would make somebody successful, it would be
• 1:05:02
  John Terzian: you can't ever buy back your reputation. If you could give your three
• 1:05:06
  Randall Kaplan: kids one piece of advice, what would it be? Do what you love? 10 years from now, I'm going to be doing a bigger version of
• 1:05:12
  John Terzian: what I'm doing. 20 years from now, I'm going to be doing a much bigger version of what I'm doing.
• 1:05:16
  Randall Kaplan: The most important thing that's contributed to my success is all my support, friends and family support. The one thing I've dreamt about doing for a long time, but haven't, is I'm trying to think, without being a hotel, if you give me one person in the world, who would it
• 1:05:30
  John Terzian: be that is Steve Jobs alive? I don't know.
• 1:05:33
  Randall Kaplan: I'm gonna digress about my Steve Jobs story meeting once. Here we go.
• 1:05:35
  Randall Kaplan: I was at Four Seasons Hawaii, Kona, and there was a resort next door called Kona village, and Steve and his family came over for dinner one day, and he was at a table far away from everyone else, and my. My ex wife, my wife, at the time, said, Steve Jobs is sitting over there. You're gonna go say hello. I said, No, you haven't dinner with his family. Said the old Randy would have I was already out of my chair when she said that. So I go over. I'm walking over. It's a long walk, and it's Steve his wife, two kids, and I'm standing right at the table. He didn't even look up, literally. I'm like, okay, so I said, Excuse me, Mr. Jobs, I'm Randy Kaplan, co founder of Akamai. They had invested $25 million in our C round, yeah.
• 1:06:22
  Randall Kaplan: And it tried to buy our company.
• 1:06:25
  Randall Kaplan: They put in 25 million to two$50 million valuation. And so he said, You're a co founder of Akamai? I said, Yeah. He said, You must have made a lot of money. Of Money. Weirdest thing.
• 1:06:38
  Randall Kaplan: And so I said, Yeah, we all did well. And by the way, at the time, Apple was nowhere near what it was today. There were rumors it was going out of business. Yeah, right. They had a 1% market share of the PC market, so they must have made a billion dollars on this deal. I mean, it's a stretch to say we helped save the company, but it certainly didn't hurt. And so I'm standing there and thinking, oh gosh, you know, I need to say something. So I said I loved your Stanford graduation speech.
• 1:07:04
  Randall Kaplan: And he said, thank you. I was dismissed, and I walked back to the table with my tail between his legs, but at the end of the day, I was glad I did it. Yeah, you met Steve Jobs. I met Steve Jobs.
• 1:07:17
  John Terzian: You also never want to meet your heroes. What's that? You never want to meet your heroes? You never do that's the rule of thumb. They're always going to disappoint. I do clearly, Steve to Simon. Steve
• 1:07:29
  Randall Kaplan: to Simon. Simon Collins, not my hero, but I do think the word of them, Simon, I hope you come on my show. If you could meet one celebrity in the world that you already don't know who you'd like to have dinner with? Who would it be?
• 1:07:40
  Randall Kaplan: Michael Jordan. You haven't met Michael yet? No, I'm sure you could. I have you know everybody.
• 1:07:48
  John Terzian: I don't necessarily care about meeting people,
• 1:07:50
  Randall Kaplan: but they have fascinating lives for me when I meet celebrities like that?
• 1:07:52
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah, I don't. It's not the celebrity. It's not for their sake that they're famous. I like learning about people, my Uber drivers. I get the whole history of actually pretty interesting.
• 1:08:04
  Randall Kaplan: I'm I they have the greatest life. I loved it. Well, they don't have other guys life. They have the greatest stories. Yeah, right. And so it's like, I want to know, I hear you, what the custodian in the building is doing, and I always talk to them, and I want to know what the CEOs and the founders are doing. I find it fascinating. If you were President Trump, what's the next thing you would do tomorrow?
• 1:08:24
  John Terzian: Somehow, whether you fake it or not, somehow instill some sort of uniting people.
• 1:08:29
  Randall Kaplan: The one question you wish I'd asked you but didn't, is, I think you answered. I think you asked everything. Got to give a shout out to your partner, Brian toll, yep, and all the other amazing people that you've introduced me to appreciate all the relationships, the friendships.
• 1:08:44
  Randall Kaplan: Appreciate you. It's been so fun and awesome to watch you guys grow because I met you. You were really the transition period and just it's so awesome to see what you guys have done. So happy for your success. Thank you.
• 1:08:54
  Randall Kaplan: Congratulations on everything you've done. Thank you for being really an amazing, amazing friend. Thank
• 1:09:01
  John Terzian: you. Appreciate you. Ready?
• 1:09:07
  Unknown: You.