Makris sits down with Rich Kleiman in the latest episode of Boardroom Talks to discuss everything from the business behind Zero Bond to what’s next for the hospitality mogul moving forward.
Five years ago, in the heart of New York City, a quiet revolution began to take shape — a place that would redefine nightlife, hospitality, and the meaning of belonging in a city that thrives on exclusivity. The place? Zero Bond, and the man at the center of it, Will Makris, didn’t arrive there by accident.
Makris didn’t grow up with a silver spoon or a ready-made empire. He earned his stripes in the corners of New York’s most iconic clubs. “I was always infatuated with nightlife in New York,” he said. “You’d see it in a movie, some cool scene where they go to the club, and you’re like, I need to be part of that at some point.”
His break came not from privilege, but from presence — from the relationships he built and the way he moved through a room. Places like Provocateur didn’t just open doors — they gave Makris the blueprint.
“That was the place that really put me on the map,” he recalled. “It became the spot for two, three years … I was around some of the best people in the world.”
He wasn’t just a promoter; he was an architect of energy, someone who could sense when a room was too cold or on fire—and how to fix it. Over time, Makris began to parlay his cultural Rolodex into deeper partnerships. “I didn’t know anything about the restaurant business,” he admitted.
But what he did know was people. That intuition would prove crucial for the next chapter.
Fast-forward to today, and, in addition to Zero Bond, Makris now operates some of the most well-known establishments nationwide, including Cucina Alba, Lola Taverna, Little Prince, and Alba. In Zero Bond’s case, Makris and his business partner, Scott Sartiano, took a swing during the COVID-19 pandemic, when most places were shut down, by opening this new members-only club in NoHo. For the duo, it wasn’t about exclusivity for its own sake — it was about building a community of cross-industry thinkers, including artists, founders, athletes, and tastemakers.
“To start it all out, we just said who would we want to be part of a group of people and a community that we respected that could all come from different aspects of life— different businesses, different parts of entertainment—bring them all under one roof. Who would want to be part of that and join it with us?” Makris said.
And they were doing something right, because soon enough, there were copycat membership businesses popping up all over the city since launching Zero Bond. Makris went from learning from others to creating the new blueprint in hospitality. He’s taking that a step further, eyeing West Coast expansion in Las Vegas, a place he admits he has much to learn but is excited about operating in.
“It’s a learning curve,” Makris said. “I’ll be honest, I’ve never lived in Vegas. Scott hasn’t lived there. But thankfully enough to me, we’re partnering with the best brand out there in the Wynn, and they know what they’re doing. They have a great core group of people that love going to their hotels, love going to their venues, and just want to continue that excellence of what they already have in their house and bring it there.”
Makris sits down with Rich Kleiman in the latest episode of Boardroom Talks to discuss his rise to the top of the industry. The two talk about everything from his humble beginnings in Long Island to understanding the business model behind membership clubs like Zero Bond to what’s next for the hospitality mogul moving forward.
This interview has been edited for length & clarity.
Rich Kleiman: Today, we are live in Zero Bond in New York City, and I have the privilege and honor to talk to a dear friend of mine — and also one of the hospitality moguls of today — my friend, Will Makris. Before we start, set the stage a bit. I feel like I do this every time we speak in general, but give me a little bit of the portfolio that is Makris Hospitality today, and what it is that you do on a day-to-day basis?
Will Makris: It’s broken up into two pieces. Mostly the mainframe of it, its one side is with Zero Bond being my partner and I, Scott Sartiano, we have Zero Bond. He also has the Mercer Hotel now, he has Anos, which I also help with, but those are his projects. And then with my other partner, Cobi Levy, I have Cucina Alba, we have Lola, Little Prince. We just opened Alba in LA, and we’re working on a few other things as well. So, that’s the general gist of it. There are a few other little things here and there, but that’s most of the hospitality stuff.
Tell me how you first got into this business, and then what those steps were that got you into that position where you could then start owning your own places.
Yeah, I was always infatuated with nightlife in New York. Whether you were watching a movie or something, you saw some cool scene where they go to the club and you’re like, I need to be part of that at some point. So I got introduced to coming out a little bit and getting into places, really, I probably had no business getting through some friends I knew that had the relationships, and kind of fell in love with just being out. So I got a chance at a certain point. Funny enough, the guys who owned Provocateur used to own this other place called Stereo, and I got to self-promote with this other promoter at the time that was a fairly big name, and he kind of took me under his wing, and I got to go out with them a lot. So that kind of started the trigger of me being out and mixing in with everyone. But like you were saying, provocateur was kind of the place that really put me on the map, where I was around some of the best people in the world. It became the spot for two, three years where everything kind of elevated, and I was more wanted by other hospitality groups by what I was doing there. That’s kind of where it really started getting more interesting.
Cucina Alba is a restaurant, Lola is a restaurant, Little Prince, a restaurant, Zero Bond, a membership club. Zero Bond felt like it kicked off this new wave a bit. What was the strategy for you guys in building this?
I give all the credit for the idea to Scott. He brought me into it, so I want to give him the shout for that. Yes, of course. But we basically sat down, there’s a little office downstairs on the ground floor. Him and I would sit in there and to start it all out, we just said who would we want to be part of a group of people and a community that we respected that we grew up with that could all really come from different aspects of life, different businesses, different parts of entertainment, bring them all under one roof and who would want to be part of that and join it with us? And I’m not going to lie, it was not easy because, besides SoHo, there was nobody in the business. So to ask somebody to pay something to get into a place at that point in New York was kind of unheard of, except for one thing.
So everyone looked at us: Why am I paying for this? Why don’t you just open it, and we’ll come? And I’m like, no, it doesn’t work like that. So that was kind of a hard thing to get over on top of the fact that we opened literally in the heart of, so we had a lot of hurdles to start, but that’s kind of just how we started. We put a bunch of names together, and Scott and I kind of come from a little bit — he’s a little bit of the older generation than I am — and I kind of was more relevant in the younger spot. So our networks didn’t always go exactly like this, but they were like this. So it really worked well because we kind of covered every aspect and got so many different people of different ages and different groups together in that form.
But when you were hosting Provocateur, you obviously knew you had that knack, right? There are people who work at clubs and restaurants that you don’t remember. Then there are people who form those relationships, understand who the important people are in the room. And I would imagine you had built up this network with the idea that there was going to be something that you could turn on prior to Zero Bond, had you opened Little Prince and Lola yet?
I opened Lola with Cobi. He had Little Prince already, and I came in after that part, and I really didn’t know the restaurant business at all. And truthfully, how it got me to Zero was more working for other hospitality groups, working for Noah. I actually worked for Scott and his partner, Richie, at the time. So I built all the relationships with them as well, and got to know all their VIPs and all their celebrity friends, and took care of all of them as well.
I think that part really helped. Once I got to Zero Bond, my book was so big, and I just had so many different groups of people because even though everyone knows each other, you kind of have that core group of the 10, 20 guys you call for everything. So I got to know everybody’s core group, and they all got along with me. So, bringing everyone together was a big part of Zero Bond being created the way it was.
And when you launch it, do you have to tier the way you let members in? Do you start to think about the diversity of the group and not just in terms of the makeup, but the types of people that will be there all the time?
Yeah, I think you see it now, every month there’s a new members club opening at this point. So you kind of see everyone go after the same thousand, 1,200 people at every place. It’s like they want you to be a founding member at every place that opens. And then what ends up happening is those people stay for a year, and they come two, three times a week. They’ll be there really frequently, especially in the first six months. Then things tend to trickle out. They go to new places, the new restaurant that opens, the new members club that opens, and then you kind of have to expand it. You can’t just rely on that group of people. So I think in the beginning, you start with the core group of people who you really think are going to build a brand for you and help you build it as far as you can. And then you expand from there. And not everybody comes forever, and people move away, and people get older. Things just happen. Life happens. So you just have to adapt and adjust with the times and what you’re given.
And just so I’m clear: the membership model, the revenue that comes in for membership fees, is one thing. The real revenue that’s generated is from food and beverage, right?
Yes, food and beverage is a big part of it, but when you get those membership fees, that pushes you over the top. The margins in food and beverage are so small now. Opening restaurants is more of a passion project as opposed to a money maker unless you’re going to sell the whole thing. So it’s become very, very tight. I would say having a membership place that succeeds and being able to have those fees come in will make it so that you can continue to stay open, because the margins are small. It’s small, tough.
How did this boom happen? Obviously, in London membership clubs were always the way and were how people socialized, but how did this happen so quickly [in NYC]?
I think a form of feeling a little more secure. I think as COVID happened and people wanted to have a little bit more privacy in their lives or got used to privacy, you were by yourself a lot more, things became a little more secluded. Having a membership club, we really control who’s coming in. That played a big part of it. I also think that when we opened [Zero Bond], and definitely Casa Tripani as well, there was kind of a boom for members clubs in the sense of it was just us and them, and everybody was going back and forth. You could see it, it was fun. We had a thing going. I think people saw the success of those places and said, ‘Well I know those people. I could do that. I could do a hospitality thing, I could raise some money to do it.’
I think you’re going to see a lot of them come. I mean, I know about at least 10 or 15 more that are being worked on currently, and it’s going to be a tough battle to see who survives. It is going to be really, really hard. There’s only so many people that can afford so many memberships, so it’ll be interesting to see how everything plays out. But if you can get it to work and do the right thing with it, it’s an amazing thing.
How are membership club customers managing this process right now? How are you managing the idea that so many of them are out there adjusting business and dealing with the changing of that landscape every month?
It’s a battle. I mean, this year especially, there’s a lot of new places opening, and you’re going to get that moment where a lot of your clientele and your membership is going to see the other places, see what they’re about. You also have a lot of people, if someone who’s single has been in your place for three, four years and nothing’s come about and they’re still single, they might want to go check out another member’s club to see what’s out there. And it’s understandable. I’m a little more social than my partner when it comes to being out and about. So I think I see things a lot differently than maybe he does. I like to be out and about, I like to go see what’s new, and I try to be as friendly as I can be with everyone. So it’s kind of fun to watch and be part of and see what places where everybody flocks to it, what people like about it.
And as time changes too, as you know this in your business, you got to keep up with the times. The new places that are opening might do something better than I do it or might do something worse, but you get to learn from everybody else, and I get to see where people fail or where they succeed and what they’re doing with their new projects or where they open or how they open or how they do the menu. And we are fortunate enough that we can also adjust our platform here and make it so that we can make it the best of be and continue to be good in the future.
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And I would imagine you have to be careful, right? In some ways, you could just probably let new members in and generate that revenue, but you have to make sure you don’t compromise the brand at all.
100%. I don’t think anybody likes going to a place where they can’t find a seat or not feel special. I think that’s something we really focus on. Whoever is part of this community really feels like they’re part of it. When you walk in, the waiters generally know who you are. The staff knows what you like to drink, they know where you like to sit. I think that’s a big part of having a membership place. Whereas if it’s more like cattle and everybody’s just coming in and out and you don’t feel like anything. So I think that’s a major part of it, and how you’re going to keep people staying.
And private events, and that revenue from booking the space out becomes a real source of revenue for the space, as well.
For sure, for sure. Private events are the core of if you can get a good private event business, it changes your numbers for the year.
You guys are now opening Zero Bond in Vegas. Vegas is a totally different animal. What becomes the strategy when you go to Vegas?
It’s a learning curve. I mean, I’ll be honest, I’ve never lived in Vegas. Scott hasn’t lived there, but thankfully enough to me, we’re partnering with the best brand out there in Wynn, and they know what they’re doing. They have a great core group of people that love going to their hotels, love going to their venues, and just want to continue that excellence of what they’ve already have in their house and bring it there. As far as membership, we definitely want to have a core group of people who are local. We definitely want to have the local support. Vegas is a thing where we’ll go three, four times a year or something like that for big events, big weekends, but we definitely want to have a core group there, and there’s a ton of great people in Vegas that go there, that live there, that support it, and we want that to be our core. And then you have the LA crowd, you have the New York crowd that’s going to come in everywhere else around the country, where we definitely want to have something stationed in Vegas, where we really make it a staple in town with the core community that’s there already.
That’s probably the benefit because these people from New York, just like us, these people from New York, LA, Miami, London, they’re only in Vegas so many times. So you have to serve that high roller and serve that Vegas resident 100%. And the pricing is different in Vegas.
Pricing’s around the same. Even here, we’re not trying to charge anything more than what we think is fair. That’s another thing I see with some of these fees that places are trying to charge. I think you can outprice yourself very, very fast. Our fees are very, very fair. It’s more about getting in and becoming the member as opposed to you having to pay a large sum.
Is the gig up on this founding member fee? Man, it’s such a joke.
They’ve gotten us both. You know that.
It’s such a joke, man. They really get to you. They get to your ego by saying you can get in as a founding member. There is absolutely zero that you get from being a founding member.
I think if you have multiple venues, the founding membership sometimes will give you both memberships. That can be something or multiple, depending on how big their group is. So that’s something that’s cool, and maybe they figure out special pricing once you pay that extra large fee to get in at that price. But I think for us, the founding membership was a little different. It was more about, again, it was a community thing. It wasn’t about charging people more money. It was as if you were part of the founding group, you would automatically get Vegas with it, or wherever we’d expand to. At the time, we didn’t know it was going to be Vegas, but that’s changed a little bit. As time has passed, it’s become more of a monetary thing.
But it felt valuable early on with you guys, too, because it felt like you were almost carrying the flag for this community that was being built, where now you know exactly what it is.
And people came in like, ‘Oh, I want to be part of the founding membership’ because their friends were, or people that they looked up to or respected were part of that. So I think, as opposed to a money thing, for us it was more about a little bit of a clout thing and a little bit of a cool thing, where you’re part of it from the beginning and be part of it with us the whole time.
We talked about Vegas, but these clubs are now opening in Miami and LA. What is the difference when you see these clubs opening, and what is starting to be the scene in all of those cities as it relates to membership clubs?
Some of them are just restaurants. They’re restaurants with a membership fee, and that works. And if you do a good enough product and you have good enough food and good enough vibe, I get it.
And others, they’re more geared towards sports or more geared towards entertainment stuff. So I think it all depends on their kind of niche of where they want to be. I think let’s say you’re going for something with entertainment or athletes or things like that. If you want to gear towards that kind of genre, that’s great. That’s something that you want to focus on. And I do see that kind of happening where people want to focus as hard as they can on their niche and what they’re good at for us here. And I do think others try to do this as well, we want it to be kind of for everyone. I want it to have a little bit of everything, and I think that’s an important part of building a brand and building something that globally will be respected because you want the groups from Europe to come see you want everyone. And that’s something that we always focused on, and we always wanted to have as part of our house here.
I know you have a few other places, but Cucina seems to be what you’re starting to be defined by, from a restaurant standpoint. How’s the opening in LA been, and what has that been like opening in LA? I know LA’s been notoriously tough for restaurants, so how’s this process?
We were over a year delayed, and then, where we were going to open, the fires happened in California, so we had our backs to the wall over and over and over again. The city is not exactly the easiest city to get permits and get things done. So that was another thing that we had problems. But I will say, since we’ve been open and since we got things rolling, it’s been pretty awesome to see LA come out for us. I mean, we are extremely, extremely busy, extremely fortunate to be doing what we’re doing. We love the community. I got to tell you, I’ve never seen other hospitality people support our group out there, whether it’s the guys from Bird Streets, John O’Brien have been incredible. Craig from Craig’s has been incredible. These guys have really, I mean, they’re checking on me, seeing how I’m doing, sending business. I’m trying to do the same thing back. I’ve never really been part of that New York, it’s kind of every man for himself a little more. Obviously, we have our friends that always support, but generally speaking, it’s a little more cutthroat. Whereas LA, it’s been kind of a really cool thing to see because people are excited to see something new come from a different place and do well. So it’s been pleasantly surprising, and we’re extremely fortunate, and we’re trying to put out something that’s a little different out there in LA
Obviously, we’ve watched Mark Birnbaum and Eugene Remm with Catch Hospitality build this incredible brand. It’s really amazing to see how big that brand has gotten. Do you see Cucina as the one that you can be a bit more aggressive with in growing and scaling once LA is continuing to operate and succeed?
[Mark] told me, We built a brand for 10 years in New York that was an incredible brand, and we didn’t get another deal. We opened LA for six months. I got Vegas two months later. So I think those things play a part if you do good in New York, and you can succeed in LA as well, you’re kind of really proving that you’re in the two major cities, and then the doors kind of open a little more. So that’s kind of our goal here. I think Alba, from a food standpoint, from a service standpoint, from what we’re trying to do with our staff and the uniqueness of what we’re doing with the food out there, it’s really starting to carry weight out there. So I think it’ll show that we can do this anywhere and really build a brand to other places.
And do you look at these other places that you and Cobi have as almost like the things that keep you defined as a New Yorker, as your New York establishments?
For sure, for sure. I think us taking a space that was never a restaurant before—we took this parking lot and turned it into this Italian garden—was an important key. But we’re really bringing New York service there. Kind of a New York flair to it. The food’s a little different. It’s not the same Italian, I don’t think, as some of the other places, even though there is great Italian in LA. So we tried to definitely bring the New York flair, and we’re going to try to carry that wherever else we go as well.
It feels like this wave has all been very complimentary of each other. You’re all friends with each other. Is there a lot of game sharing and game-recognize-game that you take from each one of these people, and that you guys share with one another as you kind of build yours?
Yeah, I got to work with a lot of them. So, before Scott was my partner, I worked for him. Noah and Jason are incredible at what they do. I’m closer to Noah just because he was the New York guy, and I talk to [him] a couple times a week if I have anything to bounce off him. It’s amazing what he’s done. Mark in LA is like my brother. So I have these guys really to bounce all these ideas off of, and if I have any questions or I need help with something, if there’s something I can’t do and they can do it or vice versa. We kind of always have an open dialogue to always help each other out. And some of my best friends work for the group, so it is a lot of really fun synergy. You grow up with these guys. We’ve all been out here for over 20 years now. It’s like you become family. So we all want to see each other do well. There’s really no hater in the group, and everyone’s pushing each other to be better. And watching what Mark and Eugene did with Catch and then watching what Noah and Jason did with Tao is inspiring. It’s something that I definitely want to do at some point with me and my partners.
Do you see young people coming up? Do you see this young generation potentially being able to start mirroring a bit of what you guys did, or has it just changed so drastically that it doesn’t exist for this young generation in the same way?
Well, I think there are two sides to this. I think one is that we just won’t let anything go. If you would asked me 10 years ago, would no and Jason still be dominating stuff, I’d be like, no, they would’ve moved on and they still are doing what they’re doing. And then it’s the same guys from when I was young in New York that are still doing it, and I’m like, how is this humanly possible? But they just have the drive for it. But I think the major problem for the young groups coming is that they see myself or someone where they might see a form of success, but they don’t want to work for it. I had to grind out for 20-plus years. I really only started doing fairly well five, six years ago. That was my time when things really changed in my thirties. I’m 44 now. It was a grind. I wasn’t doing well. I was having my moments of the heck am I doing. So when you’re in your twenties and you think like, oh, I see what Will’s doing or I see what this guy’s doing or that guy’s doing that takes years of work. You’re not just going to fall on top of that. And because of social media, because of everybody trying to show off so much all the time and how much money I have and what car I’m driving, what apartment I just got, they want that immediately and that doesn’t come immediately unless you got a rich dad and that’s different. Which is nice, but you got to work for it. And that’s the part where I think we’re missing from the younger generation. I don’t know if they have that drive to work. They want everything immediately. So it’ll be interesting to see what guys actually are. I’m willing to put that time in.
Where’s the club life now in New York? [You got LA now], obviously, Vegas is a different animal. Vegas will always have clubs. But has that completely changed?
I would’ve agreed with you a couple of months ago and said yes, and it has completely changed. I do feel like myself at my age, I like going to the different members’ clubs where I’m a member and where they know me, and it’s kind of just easier to do that during the night. But I have seen a little bit of a shift recently where younger people are definitely wanting to go out and party and go to real nightclubs, which is kind of refreshing because I thought that was dead for a minute, and I was like, okay, that’s going to disappear. You always get the festival dancing and the festival times and all that stuff, or the Brooklyn raves and things like that that wasn’t going anywhere. But now in New York, people are actually, they’ll go to the members clubs, they’ll do that till 1:30, 1:45, and then they’re like, okay, where can we go out and really party? So let’s hope at some point it comes back. It’d be nice to have that part in New York. The city that never sleeps was sleeping for a little bit.
And I’m noticing more and more where the nights are getting a little bit later, and you hear about the ‘Oh, we were out to this place till 4:30 and I’m like, ‘What?’ It’s coming back a little bit. So, I hope that’s a change that happens for sure.
Do you miss that golden age in New York City?
I also miss having to go to one venue that, as long as you could get in it— it’s like Butter Mondays, where else was I going on a Monday? Maybe Bungalow 8 late night. But that was it. You were done. If you didn’t get in there, you go home. I miss those days where everybody was in one place, or every guy you knew all worked for one person, and it was all, it was the golden age of being out and I was fortunate enough to be part of that and see that especially I was really, really young, but it was cool to be part of that. And I do miss those days for sure. I know you did too. I do miss those days, man.
With that in mind, give me a top crazy night, one of the craziest nights you’ve ever had in nightlife.
This isn’t really a nightlife thing, but more of just a party experience. I would say when year two of the White Party happened, where year one was more like, let’s invite our friends and do a fun party in the Hamptons at this new house kind of thing. And we were friends with some celebrity people and they came. But year two was kind of putting everything on the map, where everybody was calling. Everybody wanted to show up. And being at his house on the roof with the fireworks going and seeing performances by incredible people and seeing all that kind of come to, we had a thousand calls about it and we’re trying to get everybody set up to get this person there and that person to see that all come together. I’d never been a part of something that big. That [party] was on every news front and every social media platform. And to be part of it, to see it all really just happened exactly how we wanted it to happen, and more, was something that was beyond special for me. And afterwards, for people to stay at a place for 12 hours, which is impossible to do these days, you can’t get people to stay a half hour. To have people stay all night and just kind of let loose and enjoy themselves and have really have something of a special night with everyone coming together was really, really cool.
Did you realize that that started to become something that you were going to have to do? How important is that in this business now in terms of building that brand and story about yourself?
I think it’s the most important. I’m not the most skilled operator. I’m actually a non-operator. Honestly, that’s the honest truth. A lot of what I’ve done is based on being as nice of a person as I can be and having a good personality and building from there. Having an identity bigger than you a little bit, and being around people that are bigger than you, and building around that is the key to everything I know now. If I’m doing something, I know who’s going to support me. I know the support group behind my back at all times. So it’s a large part of it, the last few years. That’s becoming a brand on your own is really the key to it. It’s what people are going to follow and what people want to see.
Back in the day, you went to a club and if you had somebody who was going to sit with you who was going to buy bottles, they were your best friend for the night, and whoever was buying bottles got the attention for the evening. Is bottle service from that standpoint still alive in the same way?
It is in certain places. I think from a cool standpoint, it’s a zero. I don’t think buying bottles makes you cool anymore. No, it doesn’t mean anything. If someone was known as a spender in New York, you knew everybody was going to show up to this guy’s table every night, try to be his best friend. They want him to buy the table every night. So I think that part, those days are kind of over, or at least for now they are. But I think in the last couple of years, it became uncool almost to buy bottles out of thing. It was cooler to buy drinks and just sit somewhere and someone take care of you. But it always serves its purpose. I think with the big DJs having a really, really big rally now and coming back even stronger than I’ve seen a long time. There’s always the use for bottle service and buying your table and getting it for those. So I think it depends on the situation, but more for basic nights.
I want to get to DJ culture in a second, but it feels like it also has to do a little bit. And this I’ve seen well-documented about liquor sales down in general. People are drinking less. Do you see that at clubs?
Yeah. You see a rise in restaurants with mocktails, where people are drinking those, and yeah, people are drinking less. People care more about doing their skincare routine at night and getting up in the morning looking fresh and doing videos on that than being out at night. The supermodels 20 years ago would be smoking cigarettes and drinking champagne until 3:30, 4 in the morning, getting up at 6 and didn’t care. That’s not the way things work anymore. If a girl doesn’t have her skincare routine, she ain’t working tomorrow. The day’s over, it’s over. So I think that’s also something that changed. Quality of life is a lot, become a lot more important. I would say the last five, 10 years. Taking care of yourself, looking young, feeling young is a big part of things. So I think that also plays into the part where people don’t always want to be out all the time.
And what happened to champagne, man? I feel like no one drinks champagne anymore.
Yeah, it’s not like it was. I think wine’s become a much bigger thing. Everything kind of took over for vodka. I would say, 1942 kind of changed that. It did a period where everybody started drinking tequila. But you’re right, I don’t see champagne as much on tables or being bought generally. Someone’s buying it to fill out a minimum to get for the night, as opposed to actually enjoying it.
Remember when we thought Patron was the greatest tequila in the world?
I remember as a promoter, I remember Noah upgraded me from the $4 tequila that they give every promoter to the patron. I thought I was killing it.
You ordered it. You thought you knew something that no one else did.
Squeezing the limes and stirring, it felt like I was killing it.
Why the hell do people drink vodka?
I don’t. They don’t. Generally speaking. I’m sure there’s people who still enjoy vodka, but it’s more moved toward tequila.
You mentioned DJ culture earlier — remember when open format DJing was everything, and it was a big deal who was spinning where, like Mark Ronson or DJ AM? Then Provocateur marked a shift toward dance music and global superstar DJs, but do those celebrity DJs we once centered our whole scene around even exist anymore?
No. It’s funny, Mark just DJ’ed something for us at Mercy the other night, and it was like people were loving it. It was such a unique thing, and it was crazy. People were really, really enjoying it, and it was kind of like a throwback thing. But no, there’s not really too much of that. You see really the culture as these big electronic house DJs. I think when provocateur at those times, I was like 2009, 2010, that was on the rise. Then everybody started doing it, and I think then hip-hop had a comeback with after that about seven, eight years after that. And then everything became hip hop. And I feel like just based on, and I love hip-hop, I’m not hating on it at all, but I do feel it’s gotten a little, everything sounds the same. And that’s kind of dropping now a little bit. And then electronic music is coming back, where everybody’s following these DJs, wants to hear the mixes they’re doing, and people are following them around. You see a huge rise in people like the Kind Music and Ropa and those kinds of groups where it’s not even crazy electronic music, it’s just smooth music you just chill to. So I think those things are a really cool aspect of that type of music, now that’s coming into play and really becoming big as well.
People have no idea who the big movie stars are anymore. Some of the biggest actors or actresses could walk in, and people don’t react the same way. It’s streamers, it’s influencers, and models who have a big brand name. Has that changed? Is that not as important?
I think there’s certain celebrities that if they touch your place, it’s golden. I mean, Taylor Swift can change a room. Someone like a Drake can change a room. Those guys are names that kind of move the needle. Jay-Z, of course, still Jay’s anywhere it’s a movie. So I think there are certain things, but I think because of social media and how much press there is around these people’s lives, you see them so much. You see them coming out, going shopping with their kids, with no makeup on. They become more human. Whereas if we had a big night in the city on a Thursday night and we got some giant celebrity, Madonna, let’s say, and she was there, it was the front page of Page Six, and it was bigger than life. Now you get to see Madonna if she’s coming out of somewhere, and she doesn’t even want to be seen and be photographed. And it kind of brings them into a human level where they’re like, oh, they’re just like me. They weren’t looked at just like me 20 years ago. They were looked at as when Michael Jackson was somewhere, when Prince was somewhere, it changed everything. So, I think because we see them so much on our phones and everyone’s so stuck into seeing all this stuff, it makes it more mundane, more normal.
And it also was a bit of a shift. You can’t redo a time when uptown and downtown all came together, where you would have models and hip-hop stars in the room, and then Tommy Hilfiger could walk in. Totally, totally different time.
Yeah, I know we always say this because we’re older, but it really was a special time. And even looking back on all the crazy parties and different events I’ve been a part of and things I’ve done, and there’s been some amazing things that we’ve all got to experience. It was partial because we were young, and we weren’t, we were kind of coming into that. But it was a unique situation where you could walk into certain places and see 10 of the biggest names you’ve ever heard of in a room where you’ve only seen them in the newspaper once and they’d be sitting at a table next to you and that was like, wow, this is crazy. How am I here?
And that’s when Page Six had so much weight, where, if you got them in the room, you were quickly making sure that by the morning, that shit was running in the paper. When you think back then to all of these venues, Bungalow, Lot 61, Stereo at its heyday—Give your five, the five that if you could turn back time and be inside one of those places again, you would.
I would say Bungalow 8 would be No. 1, just because I had no business [being there]. I was a poor Long Island kid. I had no business being there. But getting in there was insane. That was incredible. So, shout out to Amy Sacco for having that space. I would say Butter would probably be No. 2 for me because Butter Monday nights changed my thinking on everything. There’s another one that’s a little bit of an audible that you probably wouldn’t expect is Centro-Fly is the first place I got into downstairs when Noel Ashman was doing the downstairs on Saturday night. And that was the original place where I’d never seen anything like that in ages. So, that was the one that really made me want to do nightlife. Marquee, when it first opened, was an incredible space. They did things that were really, really special. And then the other one I would say is Suede. Suede on Tuesday nights. Suede was one of those places where, again, I got to get into a place where again, I shouldn’t have been.
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