Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - Las Vegas Mega Nightclub VIP Host Secrets with Adam Sadie EP 31

Episode Date: December 17, 2021

The Power Move Episode 31Mega Nightclub VIP Host Secrets with Adam SadieLearn and burn Entrepreneurship from serial entrepreneur John Gafford and his band of mayhem makers. From stripper poles to the oval office, business lessons are everywhere. This Week:Special Guest Adam Sadie lays out his journey from nightly rentals of an Indian land strip club to the top of Las Vegas Night life. With Adam Sadie and Colt Amidan

from the art of the deal to keeping it real live from the simply vegas studios it's the power move with john gafford back again back again for another week post christmas party extravaganza. Great party. And it was, dude, it was one for the books, Colt. I'm not going to lie, man. That's one thing I'm proud of, of this company. You guys know how to throw a party. Dude, everybody said it was just next level, the best party we've ever had. Yeah, it's like what happens when you get, you know,

600 high net worth or relatively high net worth individuals with a smattering of not so high net worth folks and put them in a room and give them open bar for several hours. Yeah, I mean, it was good. Some of the people showed, but we had a good time over at Tao. Yeah, Tao was good. myself on with our companies is we always have the best Christmas parties as I see all the other, you know, real estate company, mortgage company, you see them in like, you know, some stuffy room or, you know, some ballroom or a country club or worse, their office. And I just think to myself, man, that's just, it just makes me sad. It makes me sad. So we go and tell a nightclub. Yeah. And speaking of Mr. Town, which is in a perfect time. Well, we didn't even introduce you to the show again.

If you're a first-time listener, which hopefully you're not, I'm John Gafford. I'm your host. To the left of me, Colt Greenbubble Amidon, ruining your group text one time at a time. Can I stop real quick on that? Because I've got to tell you something. What's your middle name?

Greenbubble. He's the Greenbubble. He ruins. His goal in life is to ruin your group text. I literally updated my entire phone yesterday for the sole purpose of trying to get to where I could name a chat group with your green bubble ass in it, and you can't. I'm telling you, Apple, you think the Republicans and Democrats are driving division? No, it's Apple driving division against the Android people.

Because there was moments yesterday when i i really i questioned being your friend oh i thought i did it was a question the apple phone no it's overrated i was questioning being your friend anymore because it was it wasn't worth it to do this that's what i do there you go signal he's on board with me i love our new guest joining joining us today in the hot seat is uh since we're since we're you know did did the big nightclub thing this weekend, and we were hung out with Adam a little bit earlier in the week. You know, everybody has this dream. A lot of people don't live in Vegas, have this dream to come in, and I'm going to work nightlife.

I'm going to work in the clubs. I'm going to work in the casinos. I'm going to be part of the scene, is what they want to do. And, you know, this show is all about teaching the hustle from wherever it is you know however it is and this is the job in vegas that i think besides probably drug dealer and prostitute i would guess that you got to really hustle the most is what adam does and what adam does welcome adam he is thank you he's a vip host man he is a guy that the ballers roll in and they call Adam and say, we want to have fun. And he handles the entire experience for them.

And then he gets paid for it and paid pretty well. I'm guessing. Adam's nightly routine is eat at a five-star restaurant, go party at the hottest clubs with the hottest chicks. Yeah. Tell me how hard that job is. It's got to be a terrible job. It's difficult to be honest it's insanely uh it honestly like i know your story john really doesn't i don't yeah so we're all we're all gonna hear it today i i think adam's

got a cool story and also adam owns a really awesome little uh restaurant too so i'd love to talk to him which i which i saw for the first time Saturday night. I did not realize as I am hammered in the drive-through at White Castle, because why not? Why not? There you go. There you go. There you go. Adam, I think, I think once you talk to people, you'll realize all businesses are pretty much the same, just different experience. And I think real quick, are we doing Adam's last name or which are adam sadie adam sadie okay all right just adam sadie i didn't know how deep there's video i mean you got the hat pulled a little low so you could go you know you could go uni bomber if you want it's okay if you

want to you know we can blur your face the wsb just got done i'm really comfortable yeah yeah we'll blur the face out and make that happen but no uh you know so first of all man where are you from like like where's tell let's go back to the beginning so you want the story give us the whole story all right so born and raised in olympia washington okay love that uh mom remarried went to high school in baton rouge louisiana for a couple years did you move to baton rouge baton rouge so you okay so let's talk about that because you went from Washington. Prenominally white school to. To go Tigers, Baton Rouge. To Baton Rouge.

Baton Rouge. Yeah, to a completely different demographic than I'm used to and reverse racism and all the other stuff that you deal with down south. Senior year, moved back to Washington to try to graduate with my friends. And my dad had moved out to a small town called Rainier outside of Olympia, which is like graduating class 38. I think 38. We're actually at graduation, like 28 actually graduated.

Correct. I took only 28. It was like, there wasn't even a street light in the town I graduated in, right? That's awesome. So yeah, I turned 21. I got my bartending license, started bartending, and that led into club promotions and done retail. Well, let's see. I want to go back before that because there's a common theme I want to see.

If you hit the mark, all right, What was the first way that you made money as a kid? What was the first way you were making money? Paper route. You had a paper route. How old were you? You had a paper route. 10, 10 years old. Yeah. All right. You know, my parents, one of those things, my parents are, and my grandparents, if you want, if I wanted to go get baseball cards, if I wanted to buy a video game, they're like, all right, make money. So whether it was pulling weeds or washing cars or go get a paper route. I lived in a decent neighborhood next to our school to where there's a bunch of residential rooftops

to where I could actually have a fairly comfortable paper route as a 10-year-old. And, yeah, I managed my own little paper route for two years. You did that for two years. Yeah. So now you're 12. What do you do when you're 12? 12, we just got into sports, right? Tired of waking up at 6 a.m. and hopping on a bike.

Washington weather sucks, so you're riding a bike and pouring on rain, delivering every day. Yeah, that's brutal. Yeah, it's terrible. Not Florida. No, it's not Florida. And it's, I mean, you're not making enough money to where it's worth it, right? Yeah.

Not a good 401k in the old paper. So I moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana in high school, got a job making $3.62 an hour as a stock clerk at one of the grocery stores down there, and that was the first actual job. Yeah, but you always work. See, the reoccurring theme I was talking about is everybody we always have in, man. There's always a hustle.

Like they were the kid that figured out, I'll get the erasers from the dollar store, and I'll take them to school and sell them for three bucks. There's always that hustle, the football pencils. I get all the football pencils. Everybody that gets it was the hustler, man. They were the provider of all of those goods, and that seems to be a common theme. We don't get anybody in here that's like, oh, I started working know 22 when i graduated from you know unlv that's we don't yeah no i mean i definitely

i mean like i said i was brought up with if you wanted you know anything if you wanted a car if you wanted a bike if you wanted whatever it was like all right we'll go out and get a job and do it yourself start hustling yeah start hustling all right yeah so back to washington we were 32 class 38 classmates 32 38 classmates 32 38 classmates three classmates graduated and then uh did you win prom king at least tell me you got it you get it i was picked on my senior year in high school oh really i was the new kid in a you know like i said those kids all grew up in a small town my dad had a nice house and he you know had a five acre house with horses and shit and and um you know i had a car and so you know i was the new

kid in school that i also didn't i'm very direct right i'm very honest if you haven't met adam say adams is a director going yet and i love that about it i think we're all that type of people that i love that about people you you know where you fit in yeah with somebody like us or adam so dude i got mercilessly picked on and like but the reverse so like for me i was in that small town that's where i started and like i was the guy that skateboarded and you know listened to love and rockets and james addiction and stuff you outcast and all the rednecks were muddened and whatever else and and i did have you know even as a sophomore in high school i had a bad habit which was hooking up with the quarterback's girlfriends of which i did at my high school ideal and the high school

the town next door thank you much i'll give you props for that yeah i wasn't exactly i wasn't exactly it's called well liked by the uh by the football playing rednecks in my hometown and i ended up moving to a bigger city to escape that. And then when I got to the big city, I'm like, Oh my God, there's other people here that ride skateboards. There's other people that do the stuff that I do.

So it was better. Other good looking people. I mean, I had, I had that. If you're familiar with geography and Rainier is a teeny little town and there's a lot of like two way, like literally two way roads out in the middle of wilderness or whatever.

And there's people that played chicken with me at 55 miles an hour driving down roads. Straight up footloose. Oh, yeah. Footloose for real. Tire slashed at high school. Cars getting egged. Yeah. So it wasn't an amazing senior year.

Yeah. So that's over. So now you're free. Now you're free. So then, yeah, started working. Worked retail. Worked to Toys R Us. Then Babies R Us. Then worked at Gateway Country selling computers. yeah started working you know worked retail worked uh toys r us then babies r us then worked at gateway country selling computers then worked at best buy and was a you know manager

best buy and and the whole time i'd been doing that i was bartending so i'd always been you know bartender since i was 21 and that kind of led into uh club promotions and people like you know i've worked at a bar and a pub and then uh finally the nightclub and and i've you know been around town i used to throw big parties in my house and had you know three kegs and 50 gallons of spody and have 300 people in my house and what were you what are you charging for that because i know there's a cover charge yeah we charged uh twenty dollars uh at the door and it was uh all you can drink um cops would show up and be like you're not allowed to have um you know x y and z you're supposed to have this license. I'm like, I'm not, they're like, you're charging. I'm like, no, I'm charging for the DJ. I'm not charging for alcohol. I'm not charging alcohol.

It's see, see Colt. There there's a, see, it's a, it's a, it's a loophole. There's a loophole and then the cops like, yeah, but you're like 18 years old. So you're, I mean, I had, I literally had, you know, this monster Simone buddy of mine stay in the front door, checking IDs. I'm like, listen, we're as everyone's 21 in here. It was like we ran it as a club. I mean, and so I threw, you know, big parties or whatever. And in 2003, I was a bridesman. I stood up on behalf of a woman named Jennifer, and she was getting married to a buddy of mine.

And me and my sister were both on her side. And she asked me to bartend the reception. So I bartend the reception so she's like bartending the reception and she's like hey my buddy drew who's a boeing executive uh you guys are familiar with boeing right sure so stocks kill me let's talk about it you want to talk about it no i don't know i mean listen if you don't sell the software i mean like see i was having such a good time and you gotta bring the market. Literally just ruined my whole day with that. Jesus. So, um, at any rate, so he had him and his buddy and a couple of investors had again, figured out a loophole, right? So they were going after, um, they'd found a 16,000 square foot geodesic dome,

three story building on five acre property that was on private property in tribal land. So in the state of Washington, for a strip club, it's not full nudity, there's no alcohol, and a lap dance is a four-foot rule. So you give a girl 20 bucks and she stands four feet from you, gets topless, and is like, cool, 20 bucks. You're just like, is that still a lap dance or is that like a proximity dance?

Yeah, I don't know what it is. Speaker 2. Yeah. I mean, it's perfect. It's perfect for COVID. Yeah. Speaker 1. Speaker 2. Rubber gloves and a shower curtain involved. So at any rate, they had found a loophole and they were going to, they plan on opening this, you know, full nudity, full liquor strip club because you're on tribal land, it's foreign sovereignty. So they could do full liquor. They could do full nudity and no one's going to, you know, fuck with them because they were on tribal property right so that was 2003 and then

over the the following you know 12 16 months i'd always drop out drop by the property if i saw a car there and said hey listen you know i just want to make sure my foot's on the door i'm bartending here whatever you guys need like you want me to help you clean up etc etc and uh the tribe kind of just kept stringing them along so they they got their certificate of occupancy, and they're like, oh, well, based on your occupancy, you need to now retrofit this building with a sprinkler system. So then they had to build a well house and then retrofit a 15,000-square-foot geodesic dome with a sprinkler system, which cost money and reset everything. I didn't think they could even do that on tribal land. I thought that was sovereign to the tribe. The tribeates the tribe was dictating this okay so the tribes because the tribe is making money right so i got it he's paying the lease i got it as it's getting

retrofit i got and now it's two years in and then and i'm like oh well the code has changed you need to rip out your bars when we do your bars and it was just like this long drawn out thing so about like so they didn't really want the club. They wanted the lease. Yeah, right. Fix the building. Well, they also didn't want to have a destination to people leave the casino, right?

I mean, it was like just down the street and they didn't want to take away from their live entertainment, whatever. So he calls me one night and he says, listen, he's like, we're throwing a private party. Love for you to come up and bartend. I was like, listen, I get off at Best Buy at 10, 15. I'll be up there at 10, 45. I'll stop by my house, get changed, and zoom on up there.

It's between Tacoma and Seattle. It's like Fife, Milton area. And I get up there. There's like 30 guys. I think there was one or two dancers. The DJ never showed. He's got three family bartenders that are like i know how to pour roman coke i mean like i know shit um so i get up there everything's a mess and i just kind

of put my head down grabbed a bus tub i'd you know and just kind of got to work and just start picking up the glasses and reset i was like you guys go ahead and smoke a cigarette i'll reset the bar and wiped everything down i mean bottles are just everywhere there's no organization you like if someone asks you to pour a drink it's like what the fuck's that bottle you know and so um literally just give everybody a break um reset, reset everything, bust the entire venue. And then, uh, broke up a fight. Uh, everything's winding down. And at the end of the night, after everybody leaves, I'm sitting with him and, and, uh, I said, how much money did you make? And he's like, well, I lost about 2,200 bucks. I was like, wow. And he said, well, I paid the

girls. I bought the liquor. I paid my bartenders and only 30 people showed up. I'm like, okay, I'll rent this venue from you for a thousand dollars. I was like, I'll come up with my staff, my team, my guests, I'll pay for the alcohol. I'll pay for the food. I'll pay for the chef. I'll pay for it all, but I'll give you a thousand dollars. So at least you're making a thousand dollars towards your lease and you're subsidizing a little bit. All right. So wait, at this point though, you're working at Best Buy. Like that's your gig. And bartending. And bartending, yeah. How many nights a week are you bartending?

Bartending two nights a week and at Best Buy five days a week as a computer supervisor. All right, so how much money, how old are you at this point? 23. 23. So how much bank are you sitting on

to sling it out there like that? I want to see the level of 23. How much money do I have? Yeah, I want to see the level of 23-year-old balls. Nothing. You just pulled this out of your ass. When I was 21, I got a DUI. The day I got out of jail from spending my time in court for my DUI,

I could have gone to the DMV and got my license reinstated. Instead, my friends were like, yo, let's go float the river. Grab my Jeep, go float the river. Get another DUI, which wasn't even a DUI. That's a long story, but got that one dropped. So I'd always had these like, and I never asked my family for money. So I was always, I worked multiple jobs. I feel like kids, our counselor's not here today to do legal disclaimers.

If you're listening to this, drinking and driving is a bad move, especially with the holidays out. This is pre-Uber. There's no excuses now. This is pre-Uber. This portion of today's story should not be taken as a glory. When I was young, I made some dumb, foolish mistakes. This is the down and out part of the story. This is the setback to become the launch forward

is what it is. And due to those, I always work two or three jobs. So back to this you're 23 years old you just made a promise you're gonna rent this place out you're gonna bring in your whole staff you're gonna bring in the booze everything else and and how many racks you got in the bank right now none none zero yeah all right so i had to paycheck just grinding and living and grinding it out yeah so how okay so how'd you come up with the okay so how'd you come up with the money to do the party how'd you come up with money well okay. So how'd you come up with the money to do the party? How'd you come up with the money? Well, so, uh, we sold $50 full nudity, full liquor, all you can drink strip club parties

to a private event. So me and my boy. So you pre-sold it. Yep. Okay. Yep. So me and my buddy went to every strip club in Washington state and basically like the within, let's say an hour drive.

And we just went to all the hottest strippers and said, listen, instead of you coming here for a night, this specific Saturday night coming up, we have this event. I'm not going to charge you rent or a house fee, so you can just come down, make as much money as you can make, whatever you want to do. It's on tribal land. There's not really rules. I'm not going to ask any questions.

And they're like, yeah, whatever. The tribe rides bareback, if you don't understand. And my jump ship, right? So I'm approaching every, the hottest girls in Washington state. And they're like, yeah, whatever. I'm like, listen, you grab your pimp, your boyfriend, whoever you want, you come down, I'll show you the venue. I'll walk you through and you tell me whether or not I'm legit. Right. So we have this event, we planned it and we sold, I think we sold 140 tickets tickets 120 tickets the first time so six thousand dollars minus food drinks i think i made like 2 500 bucks all right but

let's stop for a second you gotta stop because you understand like right there that that hinge point man that moment that's the moment that most people that's the difference between success and failure because most people will find an excuse why they can't do it. And you found a way to get around it and find a way why you couldn't do it. What I mean by that is like, you look at, you know, people want to buy real estate and shit. And now I'm not just pulling this all back to real estate, but dude, if you say I can't get financed for a house, go find a seller that'll do seller financing. Go sign somebody that'll carry the note, you know, do an AITD, do a wrap, do that stuff. Like you had no money as a 23 year old kid and you were like, you just saw an opportunity and you're like I'll figure out a finance this thing later

I'll figure it out Yeah We get the deal in place and so many what I can tell you about real estate deals Especially big ones like big big real estate deals so many of those deals are just put in place and tied up an escrow with No money. Yeah, they go out and find the money after the hours and they just do what it is So I love that. And again, it all runs the same with all the stories we have, that young hustle, the getting it done,

and then just finding that hinge point, that place. We just have to count the balls and just go do it. Yeah. That's a turning point. Yeah, a turning point. So you got. Yep. So that was November 2004.

Okay. That was our first one. And so then he's like, well, do you want to do it again? Because now he knows he's going to make a G. Sure. So we did it. Basically we started throwing one every month and every month it built. So the next party was 160.

The next party. Oh, it was a G to him. He never took a, he never took a piece of the house. So after the third one, he was like, I want to split profit. I think the third one, the third one, we had like 240 people. So then it was like, all right, well I made like 10 G's minus fees. I made like like seven grand so if i do that on top of my job i'm like yeah i'm making like 80 grand a year so now you're in rural washington making 10 grand a month as a 24 year old kid yeah and i'm guessing nobody's nobody's picking on you anymore are they yeah so you're the guy

he calls me and he uh he's like listen this is this is March, late February 2005. He says, listen, the tribe's given us our licensing, but not to open as a strip club, to only open as a bar and grill and a nightclub. And I said, okay. And he's like, well, would you be interested in being a part of it? And I said, yeah. I was like, but if I'm coming, like, I'm going to be the GM. And he's like, okay.

And I was like, I'm hiring, I'm firing going to be the GM. And he's like, okay. And I was like, I'm not like I'm hiring, I'm firing, I'm doing everything. And he's like, okay. But we're broke. And I was like, well, what do we need? And he's like everything. He's like, we need ice machines. We need cash registers. We need POS systems.

We need merchant services contracts. We need the alcohol to supply it. So one of my buddies put me in touch with one of his friends who worked at US Bank. And at 20, I just turned 25, um, had great credit and went and got $50,000 on credit cards, three different credit cards and maximal out,

ran around and got all the equipment and got everything up. And that was my $50,000 investment towards the club. That was my buy-in. And we opened in March and obviously not knowing what the hell I was doing as a general manager of a nightclub, we opened seven days a week for the restaurant, opened two, three nights a week for the club. But only Saturdays were busy. And Saturdays out the gate were like insanely busy, which subsidized the entire week.

Like everything else was in the red. And that one night we crushed. And then, and now mind you, this is like to your point, rural Washington. There's not a lot of different markets there. Like you're all in one market demographic. Okay. So the night that we had running was a top 40 hip hop night and I was renting collared shirts and renting dress shoes to people that showed up at the club. This is God on story. So I'd have guys up the club and they'd be like, y'all tip'd have guys up at the club, and they'd be like, yo, I'll tip you $100.

You know what? I was like, listen, you can give me $20, and I'll rent you a college shirt and shoes. I ain't wearing that shit. I'm like, all right, well, you're not coming in because that's our expectations.

All right. Yeah, go ahead. All right. We haven't really talked about this, but so much- You've never heard the story. No, no, but so much of your story is my story.

Yeah, because you ran a nightclub, right? Dude, so much of it. And I'll back up. So I'm not going to give you the full thing because we're here to talk about you. And I don't know if we've ever really talked about this on the show before, but at 18, I was a bar manager. Same thing. Staying in a puddle. Same deal.

I was a bar manager. And you were in Florida? In Florida. Florida State. The greatest university on the planet. So yeah, but yeah. And at 20 years old,

I had, I lost my fake ID. I lost it. And I was like, I'll be 21 in like six months. And it wasn't worth getting another one. Again, kids,

fake ID is not good for you. Don't follow that advice, but no, it wasn't worth getting another one. So my buddy shag, his girlfriend worked at this little bar, right? And I started going to this little bar cause I could go there and drink and whatever because

they didn't cart me. And I started, you know, the owners were these guys that had no clue about anything. And I was like, so finally start saying, you should do this. You should do that. You need to do this. Guys, you need to do this. You only got one night a week. You need to, you need to figure this out.

And one night they pull me back and they go, we're broke. I'm like, okay. They go, we got like another solid month of this and if you come in and turn it around and for you can have a third of the bar and i was like done yeah and we turned that thing i hired all the bimbo girls hired all good-looking my fraternity brothers because in then bimbo girls bring in guys if you hire hot guys they bring in girls who bring in guys i think that model still works today. Still works to this day.

Still works to this day. I'm pretty sure that's still operating. That model has been. Has been tried and true. So, yeah, literally kind of the same thing going along is you is getting that buy-in. And that progressed into a corporate job. And then, eventually, wound me back up in Atlantalanta with with cobalt lounge where we had similar nights so anyway back to you so it's just it's it's funny because we've never had anybody

on that has similar nightclub very similar stuff so that was march 2015 we opened um and again every saturday was busy oh yeah 2005 sorry 2005 and uh every saturday is busy every saturday and then obviously the goal is to layer in one extra night to really start making things profitable. So about halfway through the summer, we had this promoter approach us. His name is Kono. And he was, you look at him and you'd be intimidated. He's like 6'7", Tongan, has one eye because when he was in grade school,

he got flicked with a paper clip. And then he like randomly went into a coma. So his eye never healed. So he has like one wide eye and he's this monster six, seven, the nicest guy, right? But like a monster.

Right. But when he walks in, you're like, roll him up and lock him. He had a promotional, he wanted to do 19 and up. And because we had three stories we could do. So the middle floor was,

um, uh, all ages. And then downstairs in the bar and the, the bar and grill was 21 and up and the vip up top was 21 and up so we do 19 and up and everybody got id and all the other stuff and and uh so that was tuesday night so now we have a banging tuesday night and saturday night was great we really started like hitting our stride and and there was a night that jason terry you're familiar with jason

terry the basketball player right so i get a call the front door, and they're like, Adam, we need you at the front door. And I get up there, and my security buddy, Lucky, he's listening. He's like, you know, Jason Terry's out here. I think he's NBA finals or whatever. And he's like, but they're all out of dress code. I was like, well, tell them to leave. He's like, they want to talk to you. And I was like, you told them?

He's like, yeah. I was like, awesome. So, you know, I walk out and and he's got 10 guys all wearing black sweats no black jean jackets black boots black jeans and black durags and i was like yeah you guys you guys i can't have you come in the guys let me talk to you let me talk to you he's like he's like you know uh i got jason terrier i was like listen i'd appreciate it if you guys came in and spent a bunch of money i was like i just can't contradict myself because i can't have you guys walk in this venue.

This place will fucking erupt. It's not happening. And Jason Terry pulls me aside. He's like, listen, I didn't know it was going to be like this. We'll come back and do things right. And because we had the All Ages Night during 2005, University of Washington basketball was great. So Nate Robinson, Brandon Roy, Will Conroy, Trey Simmons,

they were like, you know, they made it to the final four, I think that year, but they're all 19 and 20. So they're one of the places they could come to. Yeah, they can come to you. Tuesday nights, they could come down. So every Tuesday night, they came down. Now I had like this UW crowd come down. I mean, I had people driving three and a half hours to come.

Anyway. Oh, geez. So fast forward six months. It's a Tuesday night in the middle of October. I just turned 26 and the busiest night we'd had. And again, we have our own five acre private parking lot. So once that parking lot was full, now mind you, I'm on a four lane highway in the middle of nowhere, Milton, Washington.

And once the parking lot was full, people were parking across at these, like, you know, the Indians where they sell cigarettes and fireworks and shit. And they're parking across the street and running across the Foyerland highway to get to my club. So about midnight, we're standing outside the club and there's, I have a guest list this way for girls and a guest list this way for guys. And we hear this loud noise and this car slam on its brake. And we ran up this embankment to get up to the street and there's this kid laying in the road.

And, um, dude, is it, it's like my story. It's like my story. It's like my story. And here comes a semi it's 1230 night through the fall.

Oh God. 60 mile an hour. And, and like final destination was just like, Oh my God. Oh man. And all we saw was like, you know, you know and so you know blood streak and bone spurs and and uh we're all just kind of like oh god well maybe not exactly like my story and so uh i was like right uh you guys call the cops i'm gonna go back inside because my bars are overwhelmed everyone's running a liquor and so now like

all right i have a thousand people inside i need to go operationally help but we just saw a kid get killed so i'm like fuck right so i run inside and uh i'm kind of just like numb right everybody's like what's wrong i was like oh no this kid just died outside like and we're just you're in the weeds so you're just kind of like just going through the operations of the business right so cops come in about 35 minutes later and they're like hey um we need you to shut the club down and i was like all right well can i shut it floor by floor and slowly you know let these people get out of the club they're like no you need you need to shut down just pull the plug so i go up to the to the dj and uh i said listen i was you need to he's like i'm not telling him he's like and so i get

on the mic and i was like guys this is adam the gm um sorry to cut the night short you know we have a fatality outside. You all get home safely. Next week, it's going to be free cover. You know, be safe, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I think everything's gravy. Kono, who's walking out, you know, seven QL Asian girls, and they're walking out with these two monster Samoan guys,

and these guys are like, yo, we just paid cover. We just, you know, we just paid for Hennessy. Like, we want our money back. And he's like, listen, he's like, kid's dead. Like, yeah, let me get your names. We'll start next week. Yeah. And he's like, now fuck that. And spits on Kono. Well, without hesitation, his six foot eight Samoan security guard levels, this guy. And then all of a sudden I have a thousand people walking out and they see, you know, Samoan's guys and some, you know smones guys and some some african-american guys like fighting and so then all fucking hell breaks loose and in within minutes there's guys running around sucker punching girls running up and down cars oh god people are pulling out guns um you

know i had blown riot oh yeah and i had i had 20 security guards and kona had like six we had like 26 big guys i'm i'm probably the smallest one i'm 63 although i had i had 20 security guards and kona had like six so we had like 26 big guys i'm i'm probably the smallest one i'm 63 although i'm not you know massive like we had this crew right and it was just like a swarm of bees and you break up a fight another fire breakup you break up a fight and another fire breakup and i ran up to the cops and i said listen can you help us come clear the parking lot and mind you there is tribal police county police city police state police all on all the police yeah there's four different jurisdictions all the police four different jurisdictions dealing with fatality on this highway and uh they're like no we're told to stand down you're you're

private you're private yeah you're on your own oh jesus so five minutes in go back to the cops like a five minute swarm of bees and fights breaking out is a long time right that's right that's a really long time you know america's wildest video it's like a 37 second clip yeah yeah um so five minutes to run back up and this got on a story i mean this is like the most surreal day of my life and that just wouldn't help you they're like no patrol to stand down so i get on the radio i'm like guys go to your cars i go grab my nine millimeter sig p239 my boys are putting on kevlar and grabbing their guns and then we kind of just show there's like um the club was up above and then here's a parking lot. And then it kind of ramped down in the main parking lot.

And so we just stood shoulder to shoulder kind of around all the employees and all the girls cars and just kind of let these people fuck themselves up. Finally, about eight minutes in one cop car and one ambulance pulls in the back of our parking lot. And everybody like cockroaches scatter. Everybody leaves. We kind of all started decompressing and go to clean up the club. And the cops walk in and some girl cut her foot. we kind of all started decompressing and go to clean up the club and the cops walk in and some girl cut her foot. So walking in the front,

which is all this white, you know, tile, white, white pole. There's just like this blood streak down from it. It looked like it was like a horror movie, right?

Jesus Christ. So the cops come in and, uh, and they're saying, listen, like this is what we see you guys doing, right? This is what we see you guys doing wrong.

This is what you guys are actually trying to run a legitimate business yada yada yada and um so they left we locked the doors i paid my chef to stay an extra hour we all sat there and smoked and drank and like i said decompressed the chef made us all food and we all kind of just like what a fucking night right um and so i walk out to the front door at the end of the night with my security guard and he's got his bag full of collars shirts because every day we had to go get it dry cleaned for the next night. And he's like, what do you think? I was like, I guess we'll find out tomorrow. So the next day I drove up to my venue, and the doors were chained.

And so trying to be a white guy. Thanks for coming out. Thanks, dude. Thanks for coming out. So just trying to be a white operator on a tribal land to get all the tribal members together to try to dispute your license was never going to happen. It was just over.

So I lost my investment, lost my job, was maxed out on credit cards. I obviously quit all my other jobs to pursue this. And you're lost. Yeah, about 90. So let me take you to my parallel real quick. So Cobalt Lounge, we're running that. This is Atlanta now. This is Atlanta.

Okay. Atlanta. We've got, we wound up with like four busy nights, which was good. Great. One of which was Jermaine Dupri would have a party there every Sunday. And it was. Like live on Sundays before live on Sundays. Yeah, it was.

And dude, it was, and it was everybody and their grandparents would come to this party. And we would do like, and this is back in the day, and these numbers are going to sound stupid now, as compared to Vegas nightclub numbers, but back in the day, this was a banger. We would do $30,000 or $40,000 on Friday. We'd do $60,000 on Saturday, $60,000, $70,000, and then we'd do $150,000 on Sunday.

That's great. Because it was all just champagne. Champagne and hemp. That's all it was was all right. It was all just you know, champagne champagne That's all was and anyway, so super bowl comes around we get every party for Super Bowl We get in a for pro player party. We get the Playboy party. We get the maximum party We had them all back to back back to back to back as we go on and what years this this is 2000 Okay, and then so 2000 a week before so a week before we had it during Jermaine's party same thing Okay, come in unless you have a college shirt. Can't come in here.

But with us, it became a little bit more of a status symbol because you're out on the sticks in Washington. We had, like, when Michael Jordan walks up and he's wearing sweats, okay, Mike, I'll let you in. You can come in. So what happened was with all the athletes and the super rappers, it kind of became a status symbol that you could get in. To go ball

without wearing the fuck you wanted, right? And so anyway, the Sunday before or two weeks before Super Bowl Sunday, we had a murder outside.

Somebody got murdered in the parking lot across. Didn't make a lot. People don't even remember that because that wasn't a big deal. We were the only place in Buckhead open on Sundays.

We were open as a restaurant even though we had some cheese trays or whatever. It was nothing. All the other bars were closed because we had a restaurant license while we were open. And then Super Bowl Sundays, so they

all come in. There's a fight in the VIP. It involves Ray Lewis and some people. We actually closed down the club because it was like, dude, we're done. It's 3.30. We've made all our money. Call it a night. Clear everybody out of the club because it was like, dude, we're done. It's 3.30. We've made all our money. Call it a night. Clear everybody out of the club. We're literally giving a toast to everybody.

Congratulations. Blah, blah, blah. Great night. Blah, blah, blah. Or we would hire off-duty cops to work for us. And Purvis, who was the cop, walks in and he goes, got another murder down the street. I'm like, oh. And it was like two blocks down the street.

And the guy that called 911 didn't know where he was. So he's like, the 911 call is – I just left Cobalt. I'm at the Cobalt. I'm at Cobalt. I'm at Cobalt. So that's the 911 they got to put everywhere. It nuked the club. And first of all, the first thing that happened was –

So you never even made it to Super Bowl parties. No, we did. No, we didn't. This was Super Bowl Sunday this happened. Oh, okay. This was Super Bowl Sunday. That happened. Oh, okay.

So it was the end. I mean, I walked in – Bank of America used to wait for us on Mondays to fill out their ATMs. They'd call us and say, we need your money. Yeah, we need your cash. Yeah, yeah. So cash. No IRS on it back then.

No. So the first thing that happened was there was something called the Buckhead Coalition, which was like all the old, you know, well-to-do folks in that part of the world ran the Buckhead Coalition. And I don't remember the guy's name, but the head of it came and visited with us. And I was sitting in the meeting. And it was me, Tom Cook, cook the owner and i'm sitting there and he goes we think you should change your sunday night format and tom goes to what he goes we think you should do country western tom was like uh pretty sure that'll kill the night and the next question was exactly how much food do you sell oh and, and everybody at the table is just like,

here it comes. So it was country Western. Yeah. So no, so no, it wasn't country Western. It was just like, can we all agree that if we agree to close on Sundays,

you'll give us a nightclub license. And they were like, we'll do that. And so we had to close. It was the end of it, but that, that ended the whole thing. So I ended up losing my job the same way.

But anyway, similar story, same thing, parallel so far. you know, obviously we're going to see where this is going. We're going to take a real quick break. Come job the same way. But anyway, similar story, same thing, parallel so far. Obviously, we're going to see where this is going. We're going to take a real quick break. Come back for the break. We're going to get into Vegas now.

These stories are going to be a little bit more, are we naming names? No, we're not naming names. No naming names. We'll be back in just a minute. Hey, it's John Gafford. If you want to catch up more and see what we're doing, you can always go to thejohngafford.com. We'll share any links of things we talked about on the show,

as well as links to the YouTube where you can watch us live. And if you want to catch up with me on Instagram, you can always follow me at thejohngafford. I'm here. Give me a shout. Back from the break. Back from the break for part two, man. This has been, for me,

I love stories about the hustle and hopefully you're picking up some nuggets here as we go along. You're just like memory lane. Yeah, dude, it is. I don't know if it's a memory lane or a flashback. I don't know what's worse.

I think what's best to take from this is you can be riding high in life and it can knock you on your ass. Dude, no. Overnight. No. Both of you have been. Shit.

Yes. I don't think people realize that. You know, these people in real estate and businesses, they don't say for rainy days. It can literally turn overnight. Knock you on your ass. Well, that's again, you know, one of the points I make when I speak and I made it at the event the other night was don't become too attached. Don't let what you do become your identity because if for some unforeseen reason like a tractor trailer runs over some kids or an NFL star you know his friend stab somebody whatever it is you know you know whatever

happened there um it can all be gone that quick man so you've got to maintain your sense of self because that's really what's going to get you through that time and i and i'm guessing that's back you know back to you man so so your club gets shut down that was the moneymaker at 20 you're 26 now 26 26 the moneymaker's running that shut down and uh and now we're back to here so what happens now um so i tried staying in seattle in the night life scene which wasn't really fruitful and and my cousin at the time was working at the paramount studios gym in nla uh and he's like listening he's like i'll try to help you get into the industry out here and then i had some you know acquaintances of friends that were from

my hometown that lived here in vegas uh this girl worked at the rhino and she's like listen she's like you get down here and i'll introduce you to the people that i know and real quick for those of you don't know the rhino is uh experiment rhino the experiment rhino you know what gentlemen if you don't if you don't know just google it we'll go with that nice point so um i ended up basically selling all my belongings and assets and and leaving my friend's family and dogs and and drove 19 straight hours with a car full of clothes and i ended up on Green Valley Parkway for the first month I was here. And my first, the day I got here, I had a job interview at Mandalay Bay Pool to bartend.

And the guy's like, you have no union card, you have no experience, but you have a great resume. He's like, I'd love to hire you. Welcome to Vegas. And he's like, can you pass a drug test? I'm like, fuck yeah, I've been clean for six weeks, no problem. Six whole weeks. I smoke weed, okay? I I've been clean for six weeks. No problem. Six whole weeks. I smoke weed.

Okay. I like to party. And, uh, and, uh, so I go take the drug test and the lady's like, you're bald. I'm like, yeah. She's like, all right, we'll lift up your pant leg. I'm like, and she shaved my leg hair too, which they don't do anymore. But your leg hair doesn't grow out. Like it's lengthy.

Like it's there. Like that's 19 years worth of fucking love right there. Like'll go to jail on this leg hair so so anyway i didn't get that job and yeah that leg hair knows who killed kennedy yeah and so uh i ended up getting a server job at cheesecake factory here in henderson okay and promoting a tangerine night club at treasure island at night okay tangerine dude tangerine just talking about that we were just talking about that and then uh was that a win that was a treasure island was that a ti yeah oh my god that's a great place yeah okay you're pretty much almost homeless at that point coming to me i mean i was living on a girl's couch yeah and then she kicked me out i

was in a budget suite for a week and a half and and almost turned tail and then um i randomly had a friend that hit me up and was like uh he's like yo if you ever come down to vegas i'm down here i'm like i'm down here he's like what do you mean he's like i just moved down here i was like me too and so we ended up getting a house and we got a house together um and i was working two jobs for the first year second year i became a cabana attendant at rehab everybody loves Everybody loves Rehab in 07. Still promoting at night. And then quit both of those and became a bar manager at Dick's Last Resort,

which fits my personality amazingly. Yeah. Dick's Last Resort, for those of you, again, that don't know if you haven't done that, it's basically a place where your server is going to bring you your tea but tell you to go fuck yourself is pretty much what happens there.

Pretty much how it works. It's actually like four amazing months um and but if you're not familiar with pure management they didn't do everything by the book and so for me to be a bar manager they had me sign a document said that i was saying that i would work 60 hours but that i'd only get paid for 40 that way i could still be in the tip pool ah well so then after like three months of it the old pure management tip pool so the bartenders are like well wait a second so the bartenders went to the union and were like all right was he a bartender because if he is he has to be uh seniority yeah and if he's a bar manager he's not in our tip so which is it and they're like

yeah you got us so i basically got laid off, lost my job and was just like, fuck. And again, that same, like there's November, 2007. And I literally was like, I might move home. And Stevie, David Avicii, there's still, still a CEO of pure at the time was like, go, go talk to, you know, Alex and, and become a host. And so 2008, I became a host at pure nightclub. And once I became a host, it was like from that point on. Game on. The light went on. You're like, okay, wait a second.

This is way easier. I mean, well, not easier, but easier work. Once you're an operator, being a host is easy because you're just managing yourself and like your guests. Being an operator, you're thinking about the entire venue. So once I became a host, it was, I mean, it's still a grind, but it was easy for me. So I became a host and then a VIP manager at LAX, and I became a VIP manager at the Palms for two years, became a director of VIP services at Nikki Beach when it opened,

which didn't work out very long. And then after Nikki Beach failed. I forgot about Nikki Beach. That was Tropicana. Tropicana, yeah. And then after that debacle of a project, Alex, the guy that had, so basically Alex Kodove, he was at Pure

and then he went to work for Angel Management Group. And so when Nicky Beach didn't work out, he's like, listen, he's like, before you make another job decision, I'd love to talk to you.

So this is the end of 2011 and he go to his office and he's right here on Horizon Ridge and he's got this blue Plyce glass box and he opens it up and it's the renderings

and the design of what was going to be Hawkks on. So Hawks on didn't open till March of 2013. Yeah. You know, I was hired 18 months in advance. That's such a dope move though. You know, I'm gonna steal that move. See, it's great on these days when I actually learned something for myself. What a great move. Not as such a soft recruit to you. Like, bro, I'm not trying to recruit you today. Come see me. It's great on these days when I actually learn something for myself. What a great move. That's such a soft recruit to you. Like, bro, I'm not trying to recruit you today. Come see me.

Just saying, look, if you think about making a change, have a conversation with me the next time you're thinking about making a move. That's soft and dope. I mean, that guy, people don't know, listen to this, because we have people listen throughout the country. These are big nightclub people. These are the top of the top guys. Very well known people that are reaching out to you. Yeah.

And I know in your, in your, where, if you're listening from a smaller place or even a midsize city, the nightclub business, do you, I mean, like I said,

the numbers I threw on earlier, that's like, that's still respectful for any club. Yeah. But I'm thinking that some of those, some of those, these clubs are millions. How much,

how much did it take to build out Hakkasan? $100 million. $100 million to build out. $100 million just to build it out. Plus like a $30 million marketing and talent budget. You know what? Okay. Riddle me this because I have a dream.

And this is what I would do if I went to a nightclub in Vegas. You ready? This is what I would do. And tell me if you think I could pull this off. And you're welcome to use it if you can. Chick's behind the bar. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no id here's my idea you ready i go to a guy and let's call him

sam okay all right and i say sam here's the deal i'm gonna put your face on every billboard in this town and we're gonna call you dj quickspin or whatever the fuck you want. Right. I'm going to put you on every billboard and you're going to spend here for a hundred dollars a night. I don't care what you, what you charge everybody else, but you're going to charge, you're going to, you're, you're contracted to me for a hundred bucks a night. I think I could materialize an international DJ in Vegas doing it that way. It'd be a hell of a lot cheaper than paying these guys. Some of them make a million bucks a night.

Well, well, yes, some of them sunk an entire business, but yeah. So yeah, that was, and then,

and then I pulled that off. No, it's a tree. Well, Calvin Harris, Calvin Harris, the year that he got started and he was making big money, he also had like more number one hits on his album than anybody before michael jackson that's a good point and he had and he actually broke michael jackson's record he had

more number one hits on that album than anyone's ever had on an album here's a question all right one more question real quick before i'm sidetracking with random nonsense do you think there has been a gig that marshmallow has performed when it wasn't the main guy? What do you mean? Like he sent a buddy and said, here's the hat. Go throw it on your head. Yeah, like I don't feel like going. Plug the flash drive in. Yeah, plug the flash drive in.

Here's the hat. Jump around. That's one thing about Deadman. He takes his hat off and on throughout the show. Yeah, so you know it's him. Yeah, you know it's him. Right. I don't know.

That's a good question. All right. We'll leave that one to one, two. What may be the theories? I know. It is. Oh, we have a whole episode about that. Let me ask you, if you don't know Vegas Nightlife, it's a bunch of good-looking people and a lot of egos.

Best-looking people. How do you stand out? How do you stand out as the VIP guy to take care of? Real quick. I mean, we got to break it. What do you do? People are like, what does a VIP host really do? All right. You said I was a VIP host.

I'm not a VIP host. No, you're just a host. You're beyond that. Are you a real estate agent? No. No, exactly, right? It's different. I'm magical.

I'm now a corporate director for the company. So I oversee a sales team just like any other organization, right? You know, our sales in some of the clubs, you know, are $70, $80 million a year in sales. So if you have multiple venues, you're at, you know our sales um in some of the clubs you know are 70 80 million dollars a year in sales so if you have multiple venues you're you know 400 500 million dollars a year in total revenue throughout your portfolio of venues so just like anything else you're creating a sales culture in a boiler room of guys that that are willing to pick up the phone calls or go up and talk to random people or approach people that don't know anybody and it's you know literally

whether it's cold calling or you know obviously, obviously everything is report based now. Um, but online lead generation and cold calling and just marketing yourself throughout both social media through the city. You know, I go out to London every year. So when I'm out in London, I'll go out and party, you know, and, and meet everybody that's in my industry out there. And if they ever have any people come to Vegas, because no one else does that. Um, you know, there's, there's, I don't have a great network in let's say Florida. Right. But there's some guys here that own everybody in Tampa or everybody in Miami. Right. And that's, that's their network. That's their niche. You know, each, each host has their kind of their own niche in addition to whatever the hotels feed them or their lead generation

feeds them. But yeah. Do you, do you, do you recruit the guys from the other organizations that you know have good networks? Is that, is that a, is there? So when we opened to, when we opened Hawkinson, we had such a headstart because like I said, I was hired in 2011 and we didn't open for about 16 months. So in the 16 months that progressed leading up to the opening yeah, we, you know, we, we recruited a guy named Jasmine Medar, who's a stud from Detroit and was like the guy in Detroit. Right.

So he came out and we hired a guy from SB inar, who's a stud from Detroit and was like the guy in Detroit, right? So he came out. We hired a guy from SB in LA named Drew Gates, who now runs third base in LA, which is the dope little sports bar right there across from the Drew. And so, yeah, we hand- So you go into markets and pull them here, because you're like, you have the crowd here, we're going to pull you here.

For that project, because Hawkson was such, it was, you know, XS is obviously an amazing club, Marquis is an amazing club. Hawkson was kind of like this dynamic was you know excess is obviously amazing club marquee is an amazing club hawks on was kind of like this dynamic you know five-story michelin star restaurant nightclub and the dj roster that when we had open was you know who's who everybody hardwell calvin harris dead mouse tiesto stevie oki um everybody yeah and they put such so much so much marketing and branding when you reach out to somebody who lives in Detroit. You're like, yo, yeah, cool. You run Cobalt

in Atlanta. Do you want to come run the newest, hottest $100 million nightclub in Vegas? They're like, yes, I do. Easy sell from Detroit to Vegas. Well, I mean, yeah, LA everywhere, right? The cost of living out here is cheap. The traffic's non-existent. The people you meet, I think the network building and if this is what you're into is network

building, there's no better city in vegas everywhere in the world is transient to vegas because of conventions or because of gambling or because of events etc and so you can go to miami you can go to new york and yeah there's there's melting pots but vegas has everyone from everyone in the world comes here everyone what is your king to networking because you're really good at networking um you're really good you can go anywhere with you and you network the shit out of it i would just say i mean listen i think you talk to so many people so like you start off as a promoter you start off as a host whatever you're you're not worried about rejection anymore right i don't care about getting a no from a guy

or getting a no from a girl if i walk up like hey you girls what hey, girls, what do you know? Go fuck myself? Okay, next. You know, at that point, it's a game of numbers. When you think about it like that, like, you know, there's tons of books, you know, throughout, you know, the sales world. Like, the more rejections you get, you know, you're getting closer and closer to a yes, right? Right. And so, you know, you just find people that you get on with.

And I'm very sarcastic and very dry and very witty in a sense. And so, that's why i have a lot of rapport with british people because they have a lot of banter and they don't get offended everybody in america is like oh he's insulted me sorry you can't talk to me that way sir um so again everybody's got their own i don't think people realize you you handle you know football star you know soccer america you you handle everyone ceos every and that's why I love, like, want to have Adam in here because this seems like such a, oh, you just sit there and people walk in and you get paid.

And it is a business itself. It is just like you're running a corporation at that point. And I don't think people realize that. And that's what's great about this show is it shows other places, whether it's real estate, whether you're a stripper selling your body it doesn't matter you're a salesperson i think i think also though not in the level that you do but the guys that come in the the base level host that work on the team i think in vegas especially right what's it yes yeah i've got guys that work for me on my team that are hosts yeah several of them i i. I love hiring X-Night Club hosts that want to transition out of the business

because they'll talk to anybody. They don't give a shit. That's their job to run. And they understand the grind. And they understand that it's a numbers game. They get it. But I think one of the advantages is you're selling something, I mean, well, depending on where you work.

But if you work at Hakkasan, you're selling a key to cool. Yeah. You're selling experience, right? Your exclusivity. But even that, just the fact that they got your card. You know what I mean? Just the fact that you got a guy there. Everybody wants to have a guy there.

Like, oh, you're going to Hakkasan? I got a guy there. Or call my guy. Everybody, it's like a status symbol to have a guy, whether you use him or not. Well, it's just like going to your local watering hole. I mean, at the end of the day, you go to the same place because, you know know when you're 19 years old you know you can go there everybody knows your name it's like cheers right yeah you have that same rapport with somebody in a nightclub that's the that's what you want you want to be comfortable you want to go to a place that you're like i'm not going to get

hassled the front door i know i'm not going to you know i'm going to get in for free i get to actually enjoy the people i'm there with because i have rapport with them like that's what everybody wants right so whether it's at a nightclub or whether it's at your local bar and grill or your local pts i mean that's just kind of like what all of us want dynamically in regards to the social. So if I, if I come to Vegas and I want to have a job and want to get a job in the nightclubs and I want to be a host, what can I expect to make? What, you know, how, like what was my day look like? What does that look like? I mean, obviously you're way beyond this, but if I, if I call you or I get lucky enough to get in room with you and on a job, what's it look like?

I mean, is it really a job or you're working for yourself? I mean, it is a, if I call you or I get lucky enough to get in room with you and on a job, what's it look like? I mean, is it really a job where you're working for yourself? I mean, it is a job. I mean, like I said, it's kind of like bullet room, right? Like, so databasing follow-up, right? So you have a sale, you follow up with the guests. How was everything? Hope you had a good time. Feel free to reach out in the future. If you have any friends, you know, like, you know, a lot of, a lot of real estate agents put, you know,

my, my, the biggest thing you could ever give me as a referral, right? It's the same thing in nightlife, right? So, um, there's that, uh, follow-up database, uh, thinking outside the box. So how do I approach? So let's say for instance, for me, I've always kind of thought like, all right, well, how do I approach Toronto? I've only been once in my life. I don't know a lot of people. So I'll reach out to concierges in Toronto or travel agencies in Toronto and be like, Hey, do you have a point of contact for nightlife pool parties, restaurants, et cetera, the extracurriculars of Vegas? Because yeah, you can book your hotel rooms, but the guy that's booked,

you want to have a little more rapport. Like what restaurants would you recommend? What's good to go to on Monday? Oh, you don't know. Cool. Now you do because now you have somebody else like that. Right. So I'm thinking outside the box. All the hosts are assigned to a hotel, right? So if I said to you, you know, John, you're assigned to, I'll use my hotel as an example, you're assigned to Bellagio. All right, well, how many employees work at the Bellagio? Thousands.

Five, 6,000, right? Yeah. And you know two. Yeah. So every single week when I tell you to go to the hotel is to meet two more people or five more people, whether it's a bartender, a pit boss, a cocktail waitress, a server, a hostess, whoever, a retail person that's at Louis Vuitton,

because not only are they working with a hotel and they're meeting people that are walking to the hotel that want to go out, they're also locals. And we have a lot of industry nights. And so if you as a local want to celebrate your birthday, or if you want to do your corporate party with us, they're going to go where they know somebody. And if they don't know somebody, they're not going to call you. Right. So a lot of that is, is for the hosts to have an understanding. If there's 2.2 million people in the Valley, how many locals do you know? Because if you don't know locals,

you can know 300 people to send you business to Florida. When those people don't come, then you know everybody, right? Good for once or twice a year, max. Precisely. And so getting outside, taking your blinders off and realizing the big picture. If I say I've been assigned to Bellagio and I have 200 people in my database, I'm at, what percentage is that?

Not even two you know scratch the surface exactly it's three four percent or whatever so um you know there's there's a tremendous amount of locals that don't have that don't come to the strip because they they still have that disconnect and so we tell the guys like if you want to go out and have dinner in fucking summerlin then ask the bartender look yo who takes care of you at hawkstone who takes care of you who takes care of you in our venues nobody you don't have somebody well if you ever want to have your birthday, if you ever want to have people in down, please. And it's just that over and over and over again. That same speech.

So what do they make? What's the cut? What do they make? So let's say I bring somebody in. What's the split? So are they on a salary, first of all? So, yeah. So they're always on a salary.

Salaries range anywhere between, depending on the venue in town, depending on what company they work for, salaries range anywhere between $30,000 and town depending on what company they work for salaries range anywhere between 30 and 100 000 okay okay uh most companies have compensation packages of three to five percent sales okay so if you book a million dollars a year and you have five percent sales you know you make 50 grand if your salary is 50 grand you're at 100 yeah plus tips so now you make a little bit more money and then plus the perks of you know i can't tell you how many times i've had guys in town like hey you know, Hey, you know, we've got a 10 top at SDK. You want to come join us? So how many times do I go out for free and eat like a King without paying a dollar?

Right. So if you think about how much money you're not spending by going out and riding coattails or being, being in the company of your, your client, then, um, there's a lot of money in that, that way too. Plus I go to London, I don't pay anything. And they're like, Oh no, you're at my city. I'm like, yeah, when you're coming to my city, I'm not paying. Right.

Right. But that's fine. You're paying your city and my city. It's fine. It's fine. What is, what would you say an average table cost at a nightclub? And what's the craziest amount you've seen spent at a table?

On one table. So opening year of Hakkasan, we had a guy come in from Dubai and his bill was 600 and let's say $640,000. And when he got to the gratuity, he wrote over 360,000. So his bill was a cool million. Jesus. Or one night of nightclub.

They pulled, do the girls pull that or that? They pulled, they all walked in there. There's to say there's 50 girls and there's $36,000 in tips or 360 from that one table. Now you got all the other tables of that club. I'm like,

yeah, they all walked with down, whatever they walked with. Um, I'd say the average table, you know between a thousand five thousand is kind of standard obviously and i gotta tell you and that right there is what i've always said is wrong with education in the state of nevada people always like oh but the school is so terrible there it's like look this is what happens yeah you know mary graduate her dream is to be a third grade teacher and she

goes to college and she gets a degree in kansas on and then she moves to Vegas and gets a job because you know hey the Clark County school board's always hiring and they pay very well because our education is so crappy and she gets here and she works one you know one year one year in third grade and then she meets Kimberly and Kimberly holds a sparkler and a bottle of champagne and walks it to a table and Kimberly makes five times what she makes. And the next thing you know, if she's attractive, she's gone. That's the end of it. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, you also see them all become, I mean, it's, I think at the end of the day for any of us, I tell this to all the guys that I have working for me. I was like, if your, your goal isn't to be, I don't want to be in nightlife when I'm 50

or 60. Right. But hopefully I meet guys within the years of my experience, whether it's a hedge fund guy or entrepreneur, or, you know, if I ever dove in real estate, I have an amazing wealth of network in front of me in regards to someone that grew me into that, that industry. So, you know, the goal is to, to find somebody that actually wants to take you towards your passion outside of this so that, you know, you're set to fix success in the future instead of being like oh this is my lot job yeah i am you're the promoter i'm like no yeah whatever but yeah right right but now you you're at that point in your life you started switching over you just opened a restaurant it's a badass good restaurant fries and pies

i gotta ask you i gotta ask a question because I didn't know what it was. Right. I knew, I knew the pies was pizza, but I love poutine. Yeah. I mean, dude,

I love, I love that shit. And I was like, man, I'm going to have to come back. I mean, it's terrible for you, but I fucking love it.

Yeah. Yeah. 2017. I went to, um, again, I was in, uh,

in London and I came back and I went back to my office. I had an office in that little center and the power was out and we were piggybacking our power from the restaurant next door. Um, cause the landlord had us set up whatever it was, his restaurant. And, um,

so I called landlords like, Hey, uh, the power's out. And he's like, yeah, we, we decided to shut down before it was us.

It was called the pie King, like some grace, but pie, like alcoholic slushies and hot dogs. It was 10. And, um, and so, yeah, so, so instead of me $180,000 or $200,000 in crypto in 2018,

I bought a restaurant. Idiot. It's so stupid. Idiot. So stupid. So, yeah, so when we'd approached him about putting a concept in there, and my business partner, Josh, who's a great chef, who's created menus for multiple concepts out here. He had a concept and we approached the landlord and he's like, no, I don't think that concept will work in our center. I got a bunch

of vanilla brands. I got Subway. I've got Dunkin' Donuts. I got Checkers Burgers. I got, you know, et cetera. And I was like, what about pizza? He's like, I'm a Jew from New York. Of course, I'd like to see pizza. I was like, all right. So I called Josh. I was like, listen, we need to create a pizza concept. And, uh, and if you're not familiar with Vancouver, when you go out in Vancouver at the end of the night, it's literally like when you leave,

what's to eat. It's like pizza, poutine, pizza, poutine. That's what it all is. That's all it is down in Granville and all Hastings and whatever. And so,

um, so I, while we're making this pizza menu, I was like, how come nobody's poutine? He's like, yo, let's just do the toppings on both.

And so now we have fries and pies. so you do the you have a poutine pizza yep every every recipe we have everything they i can actually or you can have that's poutine or pizza or you can so like what's some of your brain like buffalo chicken you can throw it on the fries you can put it on pizza you can team yeah poutine the gravy the cheese but over the years they've added you know lobster and pulled pork and steak etc etc You can throw it on the fries. You can put it on pizza. Poutine. Yeah, poutine. The gravy and cheese curds. Gravy and cheese curds. But over the years, they've added lobster and pulled pork and steak, et cetera, et cetera, and people change the recipes. And poutine is really roughly translated in French as a messy fry.

So it's messy fries. Yes, we have the traditional cheese curds and gravy, but then we also have Philly cheesesteak and cheeseburger and buffalo chicken and barbecue chicken. Is this where you're going to hate on poutine, Colt? No, I like it. We finally found something you hate. And do you know what?

Adam's going to. Adam's going to. His kids like it. Yeah. I'm over there. My kids. What is your favorite food? We never discuss this.

Pizza, tacos, pasta. Pizza? Yeah. All right. What's your favorite pizza in the world? Where's it from? We have fries and pies. We're cheating this.

But outside of Vegas. We'll make it outside of Vegas. No, no, no no no i will say it and i'm not just saying this like even my wife's like oh shit adam's place was really good and my wife we all know is hard to please no um i you know what it just depends uh some of it's not even that good like there's place tony's up in utah it's not even that good but it's good but i like it but adam's going adam's going to agree with this what do you like top five yeah top or do you think i could make an olympic oh do you think i could make an olympic sport god hurling i don't see my athletic ability zero chance if i wore glasses olympic yeah combinations classes. Riding the horse? Okay.

God. You laid one on the rim for me and I almost went to dunk it, but it's too politically incorrect. Let's not do that. I'm not going to dump it. But Adam's seen my... I'm a little athletic. I got to change to my joke. The Laugh Olympics maybe.

No. Adam's place is really good i will go there my kids my question my question was would you eat your before that before that was uh would you eat your moldy would you eat your favorite pizza with tom hanks no he hates tom hanks is the worst actor wow dude he's got a personal vendetta against Tom Hanks. Oh, my God. Anything after 1990? Turner and Hooch? Didn't like it?

No. I don't like Tom Hanks at all. I think he's kind of fake. Total tangent. I know. Total tangent. Sorry going off on you. No, he hijacks the show pretty much every time. And I didn't want to hijack because I know nothing about the nightclub industry,

but I just know that people think it's a lot easier, and I've seen Adam grow, and I've seen the stuff. It's stressful, dude. I mean, you can attest. There's nights where it's truly enjoyable, and you get home, and you're like, man, what a fucking night. And then there's other nights where you're just like, you truly have to take a second and just be like, fuck.

What a night. What a night. Same thing. And everything. Terminals go down. There's a fight that breaks out um you know issues with the guests and just you know what's the biggest issue you constantly see oh i don't want to try and do drugs in the club or i would just say like people's lack of intelligence in regards to what it takes to come to a night club and then they're like they're at a dress code can i can i ask you a question i don't need my fucking you fuck you it's like

i got a i got a question if you've never been to nightclub in vegas there's the there's the corral pin system yeah yeah they move you from one corral to another what is the fucking purpose of the system well so for instance i because my philosophy was always this like look we were always busy enough in their club that we always had a big line yeah right but i was never that guy that purposely held the line to make the club look better because we either we had some optics to the club that you could see in certain places and you could tell how busy it was so because of the last when was the november one shoot october one shooting two thousand oh yeah right we never used to wand every single person yeah and now you're doing that and now every single

person so if i grab say there's 300 people out front and this 10 people have have a table i can't wand them and id them out front in front of people so i bring them in wand them id them and then get them going and then grab the next group wand them and id then get them going so i kind of have to stage you yeah that actually makes sense there's also that makes sense before before the last five years the the wave of technology within the cannabis world there used to not be a million different vape pens you couldn't get wax and little things that get by get by security now everybody and their mom's got fucking edibles or vape pens or weed pens and that's hurting that's hurting the profitability of the clubs, isn't it? Well, it's just a sort of a risk.

You don't know what people are on, right? You don't know what kind of dynamics are in their body, whether it's drugs or Adderall or fucking meth or weed. And so you have to try to protect your liquor license and the integrity of your venue. So you don't need them coming in if they're not going to drink. Because I heard that's one of the things that really clobbered the palms when they opened that day club. That was right about when all the dispensaries opened

and then everybody was showing up on edibles, and they were like, we're not selling any fucking booze. Are you talking about the new palms? The new palms. The new one. I heard that was. You can't have a venue that holds 3,000 people open for three days and three nights a week when you have 700 rooms.

Yeah. You don't have a built-in demographic. Yep. Right? So that's completely different. Another story. Another story. Well, dude, it was fascinating.

If I'm somebody and, you know, I like to think that somebody out there listening to this has some money. But if they do and they want to come spend it with you, how do they find you? On Instagram or Twitter, S-A-D-I-E, Adam Sadie on Instagram or Twitter would probably be the easiest way. Adam Sadie on that. If they want to find you, Colt, how do they find you besides, you know?

My OnlyFans. Your OnlyFans? It's going pretty good. I got two people still. Are you still eating Oreos in the sun? That's it? Both guys and it's just both me. I forgot my password created another one.

Follow yourself. Yeah, follow them both. No, Colt underscore Amadon on Instagram is the best. Oh, there you go. Well, you know how to find me, guys. We appreciate the subscription. If you're listening to us Well, you know how to find me, guys. We appreciate the subscription. If you're listening to us on Apple, make sure you give us a like. And yeah, remember, man, if you like what we do, tell a friend.

And if you hate it, tell two, because it doesn't matter if they're talking good or bad. Colt, what is it? As long as they talk about you. That's right. See you next time. Hey, it's John Gafford. If you want to catch up more and see what we're doing, you can always go to thejohngafford.com

where we'll share any links that we have, things we talked about on the show, as well as links to the YouTube where you can watch us live. And if you want to catch up with me on Instagram, you can always follow me at thejohngafford. I'm here. Give me a shout.