and Miami, and will soon open in Shanghai, Philadelphia, Seattle, New York, and Vegas. The hotels, which attempt to approximate a hipper Four Seasons, can be found in L.A. Nazarian’s most important partner has been design legend Philippe Starck, who helped create the company’s flagship hotel brand, SLS. And there’s Umami Burger, co-owned with restaurateur Adam Fleischman, which aims to do for burgers what Chipotle did for burritos. There’s Katsuya, Nazarian’s Nobu-like sushi spot that harnesses the talents of chef Katsuya Uechi at locations in Los Angeles, Miami, Kuwait, and Dubai. There’s the Bazaar, the high-end tapas chain headed up by James Beard Award–winning chef José Andrés. Nazarian has done all this thanks to the prudent deployment of his family’s considerable fortune, as well as a knack–reminiscent of a top Hollywood producer–for being able to find brilliant creative types and turn their work into bankable products. Over the past decade, SBE–the initials stand for Samy Boy Entertainment–has grown from a small Los Angeles nightlife operation to one of the fastest-growing hospitality companies in America, with revenue of close to $500 million and a portfolio that includes five hotels, 14 clubs, 13 restaurants, and a couple dozen hip pizza parlors and fast-casual burger joints. Hyde Bellagio, the modest nightclub that he opened in 2011, reportedly earns more money per square foot than any club in the country, raking in more than $25 million a year in a 10,000-square-foot space, and it’s just one of dozens of remarkably successful properties that Nazarian’s company manages. Nazarian, 39, is a newcomer to Las Vegas, but he’s already made a mark. Sam Nazarian, puts quite a bit of thought into his businesses’ “flow.” With the rise of Internet gaming and the proliferation of Native American casinos, clubs now threaten to displace what has long been the city’s most important industry. Las Vegas remains a city built on gambling–and just outside the club’s walls are hundreds of slot machines, waiting to be unwrapped and plugged in–but nightclubs have been gaining ground fast. It’s where rowdy bachelorettes and drunk conventioneers will buy $1,000 bottles of champagne while aerialists perform overhead. In just three months, on August 23, Life will open as the centerpiece of Nazarian’s new SLS Hotel and Casino. Nazarian, sweating profusely, a white hard hat sitting uncertainly atop his 6-foot-4-inch, 250-pound-or-so frame, introduces the club. The floor is bare concrete, the walls are covered in scaffolding, and the place smells like burnt steel and a Porta-John. Though the complex is in the last stages of a $415 million renovation, the old theater, where we stand now on a blistering late-spring morning, still has a long way to go. The glory days of this spot–formerly the Sahara, a Rat Pack hangout on the north end of the Las Vegas Strip–are a distant memory.
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