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

Summary

Earn Your Leisure Podcast — Episode Summary

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

Date: February 19, 2026
Hosts: Rashad Bilal & Troy Millings
Guest: Mark Barnes (Legendary D.C. nightclub and hospitality entrepreneur)

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Overview

In this episode, Rashad and Troy sit down with Mark Barnes, widely regarded as “America's #1 club owner” and the mastermind behind D.C. nightlife institutions such as Dream, Love, Republic Gardens, and Park at 14th. Mark pulls back the curtain on the challenges, breakthroughs, and business acumen that have shaped his $60 million entertainment empire. They discuss the intricacies of creating lasting venues, the unmatched spending power of the Black dollar in nightlife, transitioning away from artist-driven events to customer experience, and the upcoming evolution of nightlife with membership-driven models.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Power of the Black Dollar in Nightlife

• Mark underscores the unparalleled economic impact of Black clientele in the nightlife industry:

  “There’s no money like the Black dollar and this is the Black dollar and it’s Black excellence. 100%.” — Mark Barnes (04:29)

• Historic parties (like Gilbert Arenas’ million-dollar birthday) highlighted how Black patrons outspend others on bottle service, events, and more.

Origin Story: From Outsider to Industry Titan

• Early career started running parties at other people’s clubs, often when Black people weren’t allowed into “nice spots” downtown.
• Mark innovated by demanding hospitality standards (clean bathrooms, respectful security, trained bartenders) and learning from top restaurants like Houston’s (Hillstone Group).

  “What you’re going to leave with is, how did they fix it and how did they make you feel?” — Mark Barnes referencing “Unreasonable Hospitality” (08:45)

• Built business through differentiating on service and ambiance, not just star power.

The Evolution of D.C. Nightlife: Republic Gardens, Dream, Love, Park

• Key venues changed the city’s social landscape—from running massive parties at hotels/venues with 8,000–10,000 people (16:00–18:30) to launching legendary nightclubs.
• Recounts epic parties, including homecoming events drawing national celebrities and local socialites.

Entrepreneurial Lessons: Investing in Experience over Artists

• Early success relied heavily on booking artists weekly, but Mark realized this left him beholden to outside forces and diminished margins. Shifted focus to building an experience customers would evangelize.
• Illustration: The “penny double” analogy for referrals shows exponential growth when you invest in experience (25:00):

  “The key is, if you can get one person to leave your place and tell two people it’s amazing there, you’ve won. You don’t need artists.” — Mark Barnes (25:32)

• Relentless focus on cleanliness (shampooed carpets nightly, clean bathrooms) and safety (“If it stinks, people won’t come back!”).

Building from Scratch: High-Risk Financing & Scaling

• Detailed journey of acquiring decrepit properties, borrowing at 32% interest, and personally overseeing $6M+ renovations (41:22–45:40).
• Describes sleepless nights, running payroll for 350 employees, and creative cash management (e.g., using money tubes, managing huge volumes of cash when cash was king).

Managing People: The Talent & Loyalty Paradox

• Reflection on staff:
  • “Good is the enemy of great.”
  • Paid managers high salaries, but only those willing to go above and beyond thrived (31:59).
• Not every employee wants greatness—some content to collect a check.

Operational Excellence: Customer Flow, Margins, and Events

• Broke down weekly financials:
  • Average Friday: $150K–$350K revenue (57:57)
  • Parking and coat check alone could net $30K–$50K (47:19)
• Corporate events are extremely high-margin ($120K–$190K a night with minimal overhead) (81:35).
• Success comes from maximized venue use—from 11am brunch to late-night club, with seamless transitions between each revenue stream.

Brunch as the New Black Nightlife

• Brunches (especially on big weekends like Howard Homecoming, Super Bowl) can rival or surpass night events in revenue and energy (76:10).
• Mark’s philosophy: focus on service and ambiance over food cost (“I don’t care about food cost... it's all about unreasonable hospitality.”) (77:46–78:43).

The Hidden Keys: Hospitality, Service, Referrals

• Mark’s “multiplication game” (25:00, 101:29): the real money is made when every customer brings two more.
• Invested more in customer service than artist bookings—“I want people to love the people at Park.” (57:57)

Revenue Protection: Shrinkage, Theft, and Modernization

• At the height (Dream/Love era), 10%+ of revenue lost to staff theft was typical (74:47).
• Shift to credit cards reduced internal theft but increased fees from processors.
• Security systems: hundreds of cameras, “nothing gets missed” (61:23).

Transitioning the Business Model: Membership & Facial Recognition

• The next phase: membership-only clubs with facial recognition.
  • Projection: With 5,000 guests weekly, transitioning A & B clients (~1,250/wk), $100/month membership could mean $2.5M/month recurring revenue before selling a single bottle (87:39–90:00).
  • Add-ons for multi-venue access, Netflix-style model (89:10).

  “I’ve told hundreds of people this model, and nobody does it. People can’t do what you do.” — Mark Barnes (92:18)

• Brings best clientele, aids operational control, and creates predictable income.

The Business of Safety, Demographics, and Culture

• On ensuring safety: music and clientele drive club energy, but Mark plans on using memberships and facial recognition for better control (85:15–87:33).
• Dress codes and music do play a role, but client selection is key.

Family, Succession, and the Challenge of Legacy

• Mark’s children work in hospitality everywhere—from Bar Rescue to offices in Chicago and Toronto. Challenges of working with family (97:21–99:29).
• He stresses the importance of living out the model you want your employees to follow and teaching through example.

The Essence of Mark’s Blueprint

• Service, customer experience, and referrals bring sustainable success. Talent management, risk-taking, and relentless self-education are nonnegotiable.
• “Before you say, you want to own your own, come in here and learn everything I do… Learn about every… Do everything at a job.” (93:09)

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Notable Moments & Memorable Quotes

• The Black Dollar’s Power:

  “Nobody spends money like black people on nightlife… and that’s why Gilbert’s party was a million-dollar party.” — Mark Barnes (02:08, 66:08)

• Referral Multiplication & Service Focus:

  “If you can get one person to leave your place and tell two people that, it’s amazing there — you won.” (25:32)
  “Unreasonable hospitality… You can mess up a steak, you can mess up a meal. What you’re going to leave with is, how did they fix it and how did they make you feel?” (08:45)

• Artist Dependency Trap:

  “My problem with Dream is that I was doing an artist every week. I was dependent on the artist....I said, I’m going to spend more money in customer service. I don’t want no more artists.” (02:49, 57:53)

• Brunch Brilliance:

  “There’s nothing like brunch. Nothing. The formula that I’ve gotten for brunch is everything to me. And the key to that is service.” (85:49)

• High Risk, High Reward:

  “$6 million at 32%... But it only took me six months to build a 54,000 square foot building.” (42:56–43:57)

• Dealing with Internal Theft:

  “They were taking 10% of everything. That’s a lot of money. That’s $30,000 a week, you know, 40, 50,000 a week.” (74:53)

• Club Evolution & Membership Model:

  “If they all pay me a hundred dollars a month, I take in $2.5 million… before I sell any bottle service or food. That’s the model. And I can tell everybody about it, and they won’t do it.” (89:10–92:18)

• Legacy & Management:

  “Good is the enemy of great… some people are satisfied with good… she could probably be making 250 [thousand], but she’s good with the 100.” (31:59)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [04:29] — Black spending power in nightlife
• [08:45] — “Unreasonable hospitality” philosophy
• [16:00–18:30] — First legendary D.C. parties & transition into club ownership
• [25:00] — The “penny double” referral business model
• [31:59] — “Good is the enemy of great” in staff management
• [41:22–45:40] — Financing and building Dream nightclub
• [47:19] — Cash flow from parking and coat check
• [57:53] — Shifting from artists to service-focused experience
• [66:08–72:49] — Gilbert Arenas’ $1M birthday party breakdown
• [74:47] — Staff theft and adapting to credit economy
• [76:10] — The rise of brunch as a revenue engine
• [81:35] — High-margin corporate events
• [87:39–90:00] — The membership model and scaling recurring revenue
• [97:21] — Working with family and succession

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Takeaways for Entrepreneurs

• Service & Consistency trump flash and celebrity for building a sustainable entertainment business.
• Referrals should be the core of your marketing — create such a strong experience that each guest brings two more.
• Risk & Resilience: Don’t expect overnight profits, and be prepared to borrow (and bet) big — but always invest back in creating a better customer experience.
• Revenue Stacking: Maximize your physical space with multi-use: brunch, dinner, nightlife, special events, private parties.
• Process & Control: Limit cash loss, invest in security, clean constantly, and don’t compromise on operational details.
• Future-proofing: Embrace technology (e.g., facial recognition, memberships, apps) to control clientele, ensure safety, and build predictable revenue.
• Teach by Example: Understand every position in your business; don’t ask staff to do what you wouldn’t.

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Final Quote:

“I’m bringing all my people along with me. Let’s go, y’all.” — Mark Barnes (92:49)

This episode is a must-listen for entrepreneurs who want the real, ground-floor blueprint of scaling a hospitality or entertainment empire by putting people, process, and integrity at the core.

Transcript

[Mark Barnes]

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[Interviewer]

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[Mark Barnes]

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[Interviewer]

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[Mark Barnes]

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[Interviewer]

You're the number one club owner in America.

[Mark Barnes]

I think the thing that people in America don't realize, there's no money like the black dollar dream used to do. 8,000 people a night. That's why Gilbert's party was a million dollar party. Because we sold 400,000 in bottle service. Table. How did you even get into hospitality? Did the Washington Hilton? That's when they give the correspondence dinner and a minimum of 10,000 people and they said, you'll never do a party here again. We couldn't get nobody out. Six, seven in the morning. How much are we bringing? Average Friday night is 1:50. A good Friday night is 3:50. But I got artists. Dream was lit. But my problem with dream is that I was doing an artist every week. I was dependent on the artist.

[Interviewer]

You said nobody spends money like black people on nightlife. What about brunch?

[Mark Barnes]

The super bowl party wasn't amazing, but the brunch was with 780 people. This is the black dollar and it's black accident for all the money. And I'm up here and all my people down there. It ain't right. I'm bringing all my people along with me. When I did the podcast with you all, I was telling you probably the most impactful interview I've done in my career. Heroes now, like real heroes.

[Interviewer]

I heard Rashad Detroit talk about the tax lift.

[Mark Barnes]

We talk about finance, but we talk in a language that is common to the people. That's from the communities that we gre. Welcome.

[Interviewer]

You all are the bright spot.

[Mark Barnes]

Thank you. Real estate.

[Interviewer]

Thank. And entrepreneurship for black Americans.

[Mark Barnes]

This is the knowledge that actually matters. I applaud both of you for this. Thank you. Literacy isn't a a country issue. It's not an American issue. It's a world issue. He came to earn our leisure.

[Interviewer]

All right, guys, welcome back. EYL. We are in D.C. and we at the legendary park on 14th.

[Mark Barnes]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

And what a legend. What a legend. Actually, it's very rare to actually be in establishment and talk to the owner of the establishment.

[Mark Barnes]

This is.

[Interviewer]

And that's actually what we're currently doing right now. Mark Barnes, somebody who's a legend in the nightlife game. You know, we have a mutual friend called Luke Tucker.

[Mark Barnes]

So Tucker, everybody knows. Everybody knows.

[Interviewer]

Shout out to Lou. He put it together. But he also says something. He said that you're the number one club owner in America.

[Mark Barnes]

So he was telling the truth is what you say. I've done the numbers. And I guess if you go up against everybody else, there's Tao Group, which I applaud them for what they've done. But I think the thing that people in America don't realize, there's no money like the black dollar and this is the black dollar and it's black excellence. 100%.

[Interviewer]

That's a fact. So for people that don't know, we are in District of Columbia dc so park is a four story with a patio in the back. Establishment, that's a restaurant that's a club. You have brunch. It's like.

[Mark Barnes]

It's an event center.

[Interviewer]

It's an event center. It's the whole.

[Mark Barnes]

We got. It's in the owner of the Spurs. Two weeks after that, we got. What's the square footage for 15,000 square feet?

[Interviewer]

15,000 square foot establishment. And you. And you own the real estate.

[Mark Barnes]

I don't.

[Interviewer]

You don't own the.

[Mark Barnes]

I don't.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Mark Barnes]

I don't. I couldn't. The guy wouldn't sell it. Okay. I wish I did. Yeah. And that is an important piece of people looking to do something. But I think the location that I do have has helped the situation. You know, I. I don't know that if park wasn't on. This is. 14th street is basically 395. 95 South. Right. Dumps right into this. So you couldn't get a better. I'm coming straight up.

[Interviewer]

Location. Centrally located.

[Mark Barnes]

Centrally located. I'm two blocks from the White House.

[Interviewer]

And before this, you had Club Love. I gotta give the whole. The whole history before we go into it. So Club Love. Legendary.

[Mark Barnes]

Legendary Club Dream.

[Interviewer]

Club Love turned into Club Dream.

[Mark Barnes]

Dream turned into Club Dream turned into Club Love. Yes.

[Interviewer]

I only caught Love. I don't think I caught Dream.

[Mark Barnes]

I mean. And I guess there's things that is really known for. Gilbert Arena's birthday party.

[Interviewer]

We're gonna talk about that. Talk about that.

[Mark Barnes]

But Dream was it when. When we decided to change to love. Because we had already been through a million or some people and, you know, it was. It was just a lot. It was a lot. And we became love. And everybody ought to be Dream to me. It'll be Dream to me forever. Two years into love. Oh, it's love. It's also love. It's all love. You left out the park. I mean, obviously, being located so close to the wild. The amount of politicians that come in. Oh, I mean, Congressional Black Caucus is obviously held here. But, like, there's nobody who hasn't been. Nah, that's what I'm saying. Everybody. Everybody's been here.

[Interviewer]

But I gotta paint the picture of people that have not been to D.C. okay. I gotta really emphasize how much the legacy from park is legendary. But then the Club Dream Love era.

[Mark Barnes]

Dream used to do 8,000 people a night.

[Interviewer]

I remember I was there. Like I said, I remember I used to go to school in Baltimore, so I remember coming to Howard Homecoming and coming to D.C. so you've been a fixture in the nightlife for over 30 years. Staple.

[Mark Barnes]

Yes.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Mark Barnes]

35 years. Because before that, I Started by doing other people's clubs. And we weren't black people, weren't downtown allowed into the nice spot. So what they would do, I couldn't get a night. So I got happy hours. I said, give me five to 10. You're not doing nothing. You and I were going to the white spots. And I said, give me five to 10. And then they realized I was doing more money from 5 to 10 than they were doing from 10 to 3. But my problem was the nightlife business. Back then, they. They thought that they were the gods, I guess, the bartenders, the security and everybody. And I went into these clubs and I was like, why your bartenders treating people like shit? Why your security roughing people off? Why your bathroom's dirty? And they say, well, we want to see you do that when you get a place. Well, I did it in their place first. I bought my own bathroom attendant. I bought my bathroom. I mean, my bartenders. I went to Woodmont Grill. At that point, it was called Houston's. Everybody knows Houston's has an amazing training program. I got a shout out to them because I try to model after what Hillstone, which is the parent company of Houston, has done. And. And again, it always makes it so interesting to me that people can't model things that are already great. There's just so many things. Like, I think the greatest thing going is unreasonable hospitality. It's a book that anybody in the hospitality business should read. And what it says and what it explains. You can mess up a steak, you can mess up a meal. What you're going to leave with is, how did they fix it and how did they make you feel? And that's what the most important thing is. When you are in the hospitality business and people don't realize that, how do you make the customers feel? That's important. That's important. It's important. How do you go out in. When you're in New York, where do you go? You ain't gonna take your wife or anybody to a place that you gotta go. Go get in the back of the line. Right. The treatment's important. Treatment? Yeah. Hey, come here. Come on. Or you call somebody. I'm on my way. And that's what I told you. As soon as we were here for homecoming last year. The first thing I said when I got home, I said, we gotta go back to love. She's like, what's. I said, no, no, no. You got. You mean. I'm sorry. We gotta go. We gotta go see Park. You gotta go to Park. And she's like, wow. Like, number one. The Mac and cheese is incredible. You know, I just don't eat anybody's Mac and cheese, But I'm like, the Mac and cheese is incredible. But the ambiance, feeling black excellence, seeing it, watching people, how they conduct themselves in the space. And it's four floors, and every floor is a hundred people packed. And outside when you leave, there's another hundred people trying to get in. I'm like.

[Interviewer]

I was like a 500.

[Mark Barnes]

It's like, that's happening on a routine basis. So the treatment is important, the ambiance is important. But how did you even get into hospitality? So when I was 19, I had my own. When my father was in the restaurant, this. His whole thing. And my mom. My mom and him didn't work together, but my mom worked for other companies. She worked for the United Mine Workers. But my mom was amazing at getting things done. My father, though, instilled in us, I don't care what you do, be the best at it. And my mom was just great at everything she did. She was a real worker. My father knew what it should be like. Unfortunately, he didn't make it as well as I did in the hospitality business. And I think there were different challenges at his time. And even the challenges that I run up against in this day and time, I'm number one by twofold of liquor sales in anybody in D.C. but there's a difference. And who wants you to win and who don't. And it's sad. But we got Trump. Y' all know where we at. You know what's happening in this world. And people is I. So my mom's white, my father's black. And I used to be one of those naysayers. Black people just need to get their act together. Blah, blah, blah, this, that, and other. And I realized after being in business, and I learned it the first year, first two years, I don't care how well you do. It's not a level playing field. You know, it ain't gonna be easy no matter what.

[Interviewer]

Used to deliver flowers. I used to Republic Gardens, too.

[Mark Barnes]

Yeah. Republic Gardens was my first place. So I was doing everybody. So how I got into the business, me and a guy named Jeff Burroughs were. He was a good friend of mine, young Jeff Little, right? He music guy, everything, the guy. We were in New York City, and he was telling me who Andre Harrell and Russell Simmons were across the room. He was like, that's who I want to work with. Blah, blah, blah. You know, he's going off about you might as well be giving me a calculus equation, because it didn't make no difference. I didn't drink, ain't never tried a drug in my Life. Don't know 10 words to any song and ain't got an ounce of rhythm. I got it all from my mom's side on that. You know what I'm saying? I just. It ain't me. I was the kid that. My sisters made fun of me, you know, when we were coming out, I was the show. They just said that they could get a laugh. But anyway, we get in, and I had thrown this one party one time at what is now the Waldorf Astoria. Before that was Trump Hotel. Before that, it was Post Office. What was it called? It was the Post office here in D.C. but they used to rent it out and everything. And I threw this party one Christmas, Christmas party, and it had like 2,000 people. Okay? So this girl that introduced us to Andre and Russell, when she got to me, she was like, jeff Burrows, he wants to get in the music business and this and other. And then she was like. And they were like, well, what do you do? And she interjected, because she didn't want me to tell him that I owned a messenger company. She said, oh, he throws parties. Okay. I'm going with it. You know what I'm saying? So they were like, what kind of parties? And Russell was like, what do you mean, what kind of parties? I said, the dopest parties in the world. And he was like, nigga, you might see Barbra Streisand sitting on the pool at the edge of the pool at my party. You know, he's going on. He's like. I said, nigga, I'll shit on any party. He's like. He said, shit on me. Next week, we come in there for the Hip Hop Conference at Howard. He said, you can write your own check in the music business. Do whatever the you want. You throw a better party than me. I said, done. And I was supposed to be going to LA with my wife and family the next week, and we end up. I call my wife. We were. Y' all heard of Nails? Is that before y' all died in New York? Nell's was the black spot or the spot period in New York back then. And so we were at Nails, and I'm on the phone, and, you know, we had gotten into conversations. Who had the biggest balls, you know, the whole thing. Me, Andre, and Russell. And Andre comes by, and he was like, who you talking to? Cause I'm on a payphone, man. We Ain't got no phones back then. We ain't got doses. And I said, oh, I'm talking to my wife. I'm telling him we throwing a party. So he snatched his phone. He was like, let me tell you something. If this nigga don't have the best party I ever seen in my life, it's gonna be a problem. So she get back on the phone. She said, nigga, you don't throw parties. She like, forgive me, we throwing the party. I said. She said, where? I said, at the house.

[Interviewer]

Oh, at your house?

[Mark Barnes]

At my house. And I live in Southeast Washington, okay, Hillcrest. So we called the caterer that did our wedding, and we called the tick company, and I tinted my whole backyard. Now, mind you, there's no Instagram, no blah, blah, blah. And to a point, that was good. But to a point, it wasn't good. Because it was up to me to let the world know who Andre Harrell and Russell Simmons were. Now, you know, Andre was really winning them because he had Al B. Shore, Heavy D, Mary J. Blige, Father MC Jodeci. Like he was. But that Alvy Shore back then was. That was it. That was it. So I just had. And the thing that I had going back then, receptionists were the baddest of the bad at these big corporations. You know, you had the beautiful women at the front. Destiny. I had 400 accounts, so everybody at every company.

[Interviewer]

You had accounts for what?

[Mark Barnes]

For my messenger company. So everybody at every law firm, at everything. Architecture company, everybody. And all the bad chicks in D.C. we knew because they were receptionists worked into. So I got my. One of the graphics companies that I deliver stuff for me to do me a little flyer and everything. And I went around to them. But back then it was fax machines. So I would call one person and they would say. I was like, faxing your names. We got these millionaire guys coming in and they're going to do a party at my house. The hype was there. 1300 people on the guest list for my house. I mixed dollars. It wasn't that. It wasn't that. But the backyard was humongous. The tent was the. It was free food, it was liquor. But this guy just told me I could write a million dollar check. You know what I'm saying? And I was like, okay, this is it. Still, to this day, I don't think there's been a party. Even Gilbert was the closest thing to come to that. That party at my house, it didn't matter. You might as well been at the granny, because that's how dope it was.

[Interviewer]

Why was it. What was the vibe? Just the girls, what was it?

[Mark Barnes]

Everybody, every fly. And then Andre and them showed up. Yeah.

[Interviewer]

So they was impressed.

[Mark Barnes]

They was impressed. Doctors, Rolls Royces, everything. You know, we parked all the cars on the street. You couldn't get eight blocks down. The police came. They were like, man, I can't shut this party down. I ain't never seen nothing like this, you know? And of course, me being the kind of cornball I am, somebody started smoking weed. Probably Russell. I canceled the party. You know, I was the anti.

[Interviewer]

You cut. You ended the party.

[Mark Barnes]

I ended. It's about 2 o'. Clock. Okay. And I'm like, somebody's smoking weed. Oh, my God. This is my. You know, because I'm the anti guy. And so I stopped the party. But everybody believe me, it's time for it to be over anyway. It's people all out front on the street. Police keep coming, but they keep. We just take them into the party and they're like, ah, damn. Can you just turn it down just a little bit? Change it just a little bit. But it was phenomenal. After that, I was like, I don't need these guys to do a party. I did a party. But you remember that party cost me 25,000. That was just. I'm going to lay this money. That was seed money. Next party I did at a place on 21st Street. I can't even remember the. I can't remember what. But it was this marble place held about 3,000 people. It was great. And. But I was going up against these guys that only needed, like 250, and they were the guys. It was a monsoon that night. Well, anyway, the night when Russell and Andre are leaving the first party, Russell said to Andre, he said, go ahead and get on your knees. Suck that nigga's dick. He said, Cause you ain't never gave no party like this. He said, we ain't never been to nothing. And basically, they were on. They were on. You know, they were on board and everything. And it was. It was it. So then Andre was like, you need to. And that's when Puff was just coming in to play with Andre. And he was like, I need you to do something with my man. Y' all need to do something together. So anyway, I did a party for Howard graduation with Puff. Not. No, that wasn't with Puff. Puff didn't come into Howard Homecoming, me and him. And that's when Lou. And Lou was. Lou was getting me because I was actually working with Andre. Helping him get records played here. And Lou was like my boss. And I. Lou was always pimping me out here. He was like, you can do the party, but I got to get these records played. If I got to do your job, you got to pay me. But he did the job. He did what I needed to do, and we just. It worked. But then I did the party that had the monsoon. I had 3,300. I was lucky it was a monsoon, because I wouldn't. It would have been twice as big as it was then. We did the Washington Hilton. That's when they. Where they give the correspondence then. And that was at a minimum of 10,000 people. And they said, you'll never do a party here again. We couldn't get nobody out. Six, seven in the morning, people still doing it. It's how a graduation. Nobody wants to go anywhere. It's the last day. You got 10,000 people. I didn't shut everything down so then. But I wasn't still. And that's what people don't realize. You're not making money when you're doing this because you don't understand how the hotel's gonna beat you and how the costs are gonna come in. They just, you know, costs coming in every which way. And I wasn't making money. I was doing the numbers. I was investing in myself, but it wasn't money yet. I mean, I'm sure with your first festival, it was like, damn, this cost us here. We got this there. And you constantly. Everyone gets better. Yeah, it's a learning experience. It's a learning experience. And there were a lot of learning experiences, and the costs were just going up. And the one thing I learned is that I never want my place based on my event, based on an artist, because then they got you by the ball. And that's what we did with Dream. But the price just kept going up. And every week we had to do a new artist because people be like, I'm gonna wait. They wanted to wait until there was going to be an artist there. The price to rent the spot out. No, the price to book. To book the artist. Hey, just. They were like, you need me now. When I built. Well, then I went into having. I was like, I need to get weekly parties. So I went into weekly. I went into people's places. I was just disturbed about the way they would run their places. You couldn't go to them. You couldn't bring real corporate people to them. You know, the places were dirty and this, that, and all that. And I said when I Got my own. When I got Republic Gardens, I did it perfect. I did it right. Is that the point? When you just figure out how to monetize this thing and like, what. What were the things? It was real. I was making money. Yeah. When I was doing the weekly thing. Yeah. But we weren't in control because it's somebody else's establishment. It's one is someone else's establishment. But now it takes so much work back then, you know, fly it, fly it, fly it. Like there wasn't no TikTok, you know, boots, you know, you want your restaurant to be. You get one person coming in. Now you can't even handle the business if the right person says, this is the place to be.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Mark Barnes]

And I try to explain to people. So I've always had this way I run things. If I said to you, I want you to give me a penny every day for 30 days, but every day I want you to double that penny. 1 cent, 2 cent, 4 cent, 8 cent, 16 cent, 32 cent. Double it every day for 30 days. And I said, if you could bring me that penny every day for 30 days, double on time, at the end of 30 days, I'll give you a million dollars. Would you do that? No, you won't. I was going, well, yeah, it's going to cost me. It's going to be tough to do after. You can't do it. Yeah. Because you would have given me. I did the math on it. $10,737,000. So the key is to any business. Any business. If you can get one person to leave your place and tell two people that, it's amazing there, you won. You don't need nobody else. You don't need no artists. You have won. And you want people to come because the place is right, not because there's going to be someone else there, because the other person is then in control of you. And that was. That's where a lot of these places have their challenges. Instead of investing, invest $40,000 more in one night in your staff. Make them. Let them make the money. Let them make people want to come back. If anything, if I were a real estate agent, if you bring me two people, I'm going to pay your house note. They're going to buy houses. It's the same concept, but I'm going to have my plumber together, my contractor together, my electrician together, my roofer together, my landscape person, so that you're going to all use these people that are going to do perfect. And the first thing you're going to say is, oh, just call Mark whatever it is you need for your house. You want to buy a house, he gonna find a lone person. He's gonna find everything for you who's going to get you perfect. He gonna find a motherfucker that's gonna straighten your credit out. But so it's a one stop shot. So you going to call for real mistake there, two. And all I need you to do is tell two people and then those two people tell four, then they tell eight, then they tell 16, then you 32. If you're winning, you can't handle your. You can't handle it after 32 weeks. It's crazy money. But people, they shortcut. The bathrooms are dirty. They're going to save money on the cleaners. I shampoo my carpet every night. You don't smell nothing in here. And people going to come to brunch if it stinks is. I don't know what they're doing down in the kitchen. You know, everybody says, oh my God, you can't have a restaurant in D.C. without rats. You can. You just got to put ring cameras behind your couches. You got to know what's in your building. You got to go after them. You can't half ass anything because if you do before they tell two people that you're good, they'll tell 10 people that you're bad. So five times quicker than you can go up, you will come down. And that's what the challenge is with most people in business.

[Interviewer]

That's a fact. That's good game. Because that's like the law of multiplication.

[Mark Barnes]

Referrals.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, that's when I was a financial advisor, I was always trying to get referrals. That's how I was taught.

[Mark Barnes]

That's it.

[Interviewer]

That's the easiest way to grow.

[Mark Barnes]

And all you got to do is be good at your game. Pick up that phone. I hear people all the time to say, oh, they don't pay me enough to work on weekends or pick up my phone when I'm on. That's not for them. That's for you. Anything you do when I ask somebody to dress well or do something, that's for you. I had a guy to come in here, I wouldn't even take his interview. White guy, corny looking. I was, I did not take. I sent another manager and the other manager is, he's a good guy, but he just kind of like, he don't really care. He goes out, talks to the guy. I said, just get rid of him. He comes back down I said, nigga, didn't I tell you? 20 minutes later he comes down, he said, I think you want to talk to him. Now, I don't really believe his judgment anyway, but I said, he's like, no. He said, you can take $50 out of my check if you don't think he's good to talk to after. So I said, okay, I'll go up there based on that. I go up there and talk to him. I'm still not convinced. But I told the guy, I said, I'll try you at $20 an hour when I tell you this corny looking white boy was the baddest ever thing ever with all the black people. When he left here, the attorney general had asked him to work for him and everybody else. He left here to go to Austin, Texas, because guess what? His wife was twice as good as him. And they wanted to take her from the Fairmont Hotel here down to Austin, Texas so that she could run that. But he was the baddest thing that ever came through these stores. His name. And there wasn't one employee. He never had a problem. He did have one customer that he couldn't get. She was just a bad apple. But just one in the whole time, I could go, go handle that tape. Go handle that tape. And he was just amazing. I try to explain to people in any business there are people that do great and then there's the people that don't care. Now there's three areas don't care, good and great. Good is the enemy of great because you know, they got the potential to be great. And you're like, come on, man, I got a girl. I want to pay a whole 160 thousand to run the host thing. But she don't want me to call her after 7 on Sunday and before 5 on Thursday. She want four days off when instead of the 160, she could probably be making 250. But she's good with the hundred. And that's why good is the enemy of great. Because she's like, I don't want to be great. I don't want to work that hard.

[Interviewer]

It's good enough not to get scolded, but it's not really what it needs to be.

[Mark Barnes]

It's, well, I'm so tired of people telling me I want to own my own. If I work for myself. You are working for yourself. That guy that, that white guy, he could go anywhere and get anything. He left here when he went into construction when he got down in Austin, and I still rave about him Every day, the most amazing thing to walk through these doors. Y' all gonna have to cut this. This don't walk. Yo, I want to know. Hold on, sir. Turn around real quick, because this guy walks in with a glass of wine. He just walks in with a castle watch. That's Lutaka, baby. That's Lutaka, baby. That's L. Oh, my God.

[Interviewer]

These.

[Mark Barnes]

We're gonna find a way, man. Always, always. Good thing. Going good. Everything going good, man. So then. But anyway, keep going. Make it great. Mention my name. We didn't say your name 20 times. All right, look. Hey, can you tell me to get some waters, please? Thank you. But it's. The life is real simple. Do you want to own your own? Do you know what I do? Do you know? I work eight days a week. Talk about that. Because people think they want that life because you. You may think they want to be. Yeah, I make it look good. No. No, they don't. They. They don't understand what it took. When I borrowed that money, when I had to borrow that money at 32% to build Dream. Okay, so I went in to talk about that.

[Interviewer]

Talk about that.

[Mark Barnes]

Okay, So I have Republic. I got Republic Gardens. These white boys had a place. They couldn't make it work up on U Street. That was the neck of the black neighborhood. U Street needed to be bought back. Ben's Killy bowl was right down the street. You know, it was trying to do that turn into white gentrification, you know, thing up there and everything. And so I went up there, and they couldn't make any money. Well, the first night, they see the black people come in their place, and it was a good crowd and everything. They were like, mark, this ain't what we can do, but we're going to sell you our lease. We're going to give you the place and everything. The problem was they had done it. Dive bar, like, that's Dream. No, that's Republic Garden. It was dive bar, like. And I was like. And they had a slum lord, and he wasn't doing nothing to the place. And when I went in there, you know, I bought all these people. We. We packed from head to toe. And the next day, they were like, this should be your place. We're going to sell it to you. And they gave me a good price. And I said, that's amazing. I want it. You know, I'm gonna do it. But I got two things into it, and it wasn't up to my step. Two weeks into it, and I was like, I got to get this place right quick. But I didn't have the money and to do it. And then I did this. I had this thing called Blossoms. That was crazy. It was crazy, actually. I went from Spy Club to the Ritz to Blossoms. And Blossoms was something I did on Saturdays only. And I swear to God, it didn't matter what Saturday it was. It was like God would turn his pick it off. It was pouring, raining, because it was indoor, outdoor. As a matter of fact, the God had partnered with me at Spy Club. He said, hold on, you're telling me that they're going to pay money to go just across that line, but they can see it from right here? He said, no, you go ahead and do it. And I said. I said, but you lost money with me on this other thing we're going to do. So you in anyway, Blossoms, Shaq, I mean, everybody flew in town. And I used those. One of those. Remember those searchlights, those big spotlights they use in Hollywood, and they got. I would have there, and everybody would see the light, and they couldn't wait till they got in town. They just followed the light and everything. And every Saturday night, three, four thousand people just trying to get. It was. It was just crazy. Well, when I got Republic Gardens, I gutted it, and I was using the money from Blossoms. And then I had this beach party. Well, I thought it was crazy. It was crazy. Look at. It was crazy. Out of my pockets, too, because it cost me. I lost 80,000. But again, you're only as good as your last party. So I had to make everybody think it was the greatest thing I've ever. You know, everybody thought I made a million dollars. The people that was working on Republic Gardens were like, ooh, good, he made some money last night. No, nigga, I just lost 80,000. And, you know, but you got to keep it going. So, of course, you borrowing from here. You're getting them from that person. We got Republic Gardens redone open. Republic Gardens became it. It was my son's, I think, 11th birthday party. And we were tired of the slum Lord that we had. He used to do everything. We had all star at Republic Gardens. We had a parking lot, had 5,000 people, Jay Z. R. Kelly and somebody else all on stage. It's crazy. And it. I mean, it's just phenomenal in the parking lot. But this landlord, he's bringing dumpsters blocking the alley. Just stupid things. Anything he can do. So we're going out to Annapolis, and I'm telling my wife. I was like, we got to get our Own place. We got to do something. We got to get out of there. And I'm just driving down New York Avenue and I'm like, like, that building right there is for sale. She was like, okay, we are in the worst neighborhood in all of D.C. that's what Ivy City was. It was literally the worst at that time. She says, I said, call the number. She said to me, she said, your friend is going to meet you there tomorrow and talk to you about the building. Guy named George Basilico. He meets me. I walk through the building. This place is so dilapidated and messed up, they use it for police dogs, to search for drugs, to train them. I mean, it was. It's just the worst building ever. The floor is dirt. It used to be a Kodak factory 40, 50 years ago, you know what I'm saying? Like, it was just. And just, just a warehouse that was just dilapidated. So then I said to him, I said, what do you want for the government? We do the walkthrough. He said, I want a million dollars. I said, I'm gonna pay it. I said, you just gotta take the note back. I'm gonna give you $10,000 a month between now and next year. And this time next year, I'll pay you for the building. He said, okay. He was getting ten grand for. I. I didn't even, you know, try to work no deal with them. I wanted the building now, mind you. My boy called Reed, God rest his soul. I had to go borrow the first $17,000 to get this one to put down on the building because I didn't have. And then I went around to all the work spots where you get the people that, you know, the day labor people. And that's where I got all my people.

[Interviewer]

Home Depot.

[Mark Barnes]

Home Depot. Home Depot. We got a place called Weenie Beanie out here that I used to. Shelby get the truck in. Yeah, yeah, the truck. And they fighting to get in. But I'm taking 20, 30 guys every day.

[Interviewer]

Good old days. You can't do that anymore.

[Mark Barnes]

2000s. That was 2000. Yeah, I mean, 2000. One, twenty a day type. Nah, nah. We was getting, they was getting $10 an hour. They was getting $10 an hour. And we was playing, you know, right then. And I had a brother in law that was Spanish that had left my sister. And she didn't even know he was living with me at the time. But he was the key because he spoke, he spoke the language, you know, and even when I be cussing them out, they'd be like, what do you say? He loves the work y' all are doing. Y'. All. Just me. I say what they say. So he just kept the piece. He got it going and everything. Anyway, I thought it was going to cost me a million, five, six million dollars later, borrow that. And I got a group called Six Million.

[Interviewer]

For what? To renovate the whole thing.

[Mark Barnes]

To renovate the whole thing. I was working off a demo permit at first, but I wasn't half ass in none of the work. I only wanted the best because I said, if they come after me, I want to be perfect already. You didn't. Traditional mind thinks I'm going to a bank to get this. There was no. I started the next day. It took me 180 dumpsters to empty all the stuff that was in the building. 180 dumps. I mean, like, you can't even. I made my man. The guy had a dumpster company. I know. I made his muff, baby. I was just filling these dumpsters left and right. And then there was no architecture drawings. I said, we're going to put a bar right here. We're going to move a bar over here. We're going to do this here. This part took me three times longer. And his four dream was four times the size of this building. Because permitting. Permitting, permitting. Doing this, doing that, doing that. But the city. I had the city behind me. I had the higher ups there, and they came down on me and they were like, you got to get this shit right. You got to get these permits right. You got to get. But they. They embraced it. The neighborhood embraced it. They wanted something better, and they saw that I was doing something that. That became dream. That became dream.

[Interviewer]

So you. So you borrowed $6 million.

[Mark Barnes]

$6 million at 32%.

[Interviewer]

You borrowed $6 million. 32% from a lot. From like a hard money lender.

[Mark Barnes]

They're hard money lenders.

[Interviewer]

And they gave it to you. 6 million at one time or.

[Mark Barnes]

No, it was a million. One group gave me 2.5. So first of all, you got the million dollars first on the building. I had to get him to move to second place behind the guy that was giving me the 2.5 million. Then I had to get another one after that, and I had to get the 2.5 to move to second place, the owner of the building to move to third place. And then someone else gave me another 2.2 million, and then I got another 700,000 from friends. So I was $6 million in.

[Interviewer]

And were you making money at that time or not before it even opened?

[Mark Barnes]

That's before it opened. But it only took me six months to build a 54,000 square foot building. Six months. Six months.

[Interviewer]

That's how big that was.

[Mark Barnes]

Yeah. Are you sleeping at this time? Like, I mean, I can imagine that. No, no, hold on, hold on. Like $700,000 overdrawn is what woke you up every day.

[Interviewer]

What was your. What was your monthly payback? What was your monthly.

[Mark Barnes]

But I really wasn't paying back.

[Interviewer]

It was deferred. It was deferred.

[Mark Barnes]

It was. Everybody was deferring everything they saw. Nobody had a problem. And then they tried to get me to open it with just the first floor. And I was like, it's not going to be dream if it's not the whole thing. So I got them to believe and I got them to believe and everybody got them. And the guys like, you know, the last guys to give me the money, they were like, well, I know I can sell this with 2.5 no matter what. I'm going to get my money. They were all, you know, everybody else was behind them. Yeah, but everybody believed in it. Now, the guys that gave me the second money, they had a white guy that was in there and they were like, he's staying here till we get our money back. Now, of course, everybody that came to the building caught the white guy on the bill. You know what I'm saying? Well, you got it for a million. Did it appraise for a million or was it a praise for much more? They went and prayed for nothing. It was a dumpster. It was a dumpster. After you renovated, he's looking at like, oh, he did a good job. That's at least 2.5. Right. Gotcha. Well, remember, but he's after. He's got it. He's now not. He's after $5 million now. He didn't gone to third place on the building. So this guy was just a good guy. He really believed in me.

[Interviewer]

So how get it up and running and then how much money you start like how.

[Mark Barnes]

How quick you got to remember I had my first liquor order was a quarter million dollars liquor order for you

[Interviewer]

to get the whole bars.

[Mark Barnes]

All the bars. The next week I needed another quarter million dollars. And they wanted their money right there to.

[Interviewer]

Where'd you get that money from?

[Mark Barnes]

You borrowed it from somebody else.

[Interviewer]

So using a whole like $8 million.

[Mark Barnes]

Yeah, that's why you gotta have friends. More like 7 million Lu Tucker users.

[Interviewer]

So when did you start actually making money?

[Mark Barnes]

It wasn't until the second year because you gotta remember all the payments then as soon as people see you making money, they want their money. They want that money.

[Interviewer]

Well, I mean, you was making enough money to start paying people back.

[Mark Barnes]

I was, but I didn't know how to run a staff of 350 people. You know what I'm saying? Like, I. I don't know what payroll is for 350 people. There was. We had. You remember those tubes that Home Depot had? They used to put the money in and shoot them up. And you shoot them up to the office.

[Interviewer]

A wire.

[Mark Barnes]

That's the dumbest shit in the whole world. I spent $100,000 on those tubes because I thought, you know, we got to watch out. Is somebody going to rob us? What's happening here? I mean, everything was a problem. And the neighborhood, they loved me, but they hated me. They said, you can't park. You can't start any of your events before six because we need to get home from work. But they didn't want to get home from work. They would leave their cars at work and they'd be in there selling their driveway spots for fifty and a hundred dollars. Because you got to remember, there was no Uber back there. There wasn't none of the stuff that we got. People weren't going, this ain't New York City. There's no taxi moving around like that in D.C. so everybody was driving. Oh, parking was my money, though. Parking. All I wanted was parking. And Cochet.

[Interviewer]

How much was cochet?

[Mark Barnes]

15,000 a night. 15. Parking was another 15 to 20,000 a night. Cash.

[Interviewer]

Cash.

[Mark Barnes]

But I was paying taxes,

[Interviewer]

So he's getting 40,000 night off for parking and

[Mark Barnes]

coaching Gilbert Arena's party parking did $50,000.

[Interviewer]

We're gonna get to that. We're gonna get to the Gilbert. So, okay, so you up and running now, and now you really start to hit your stride.

[Mark Barnes]

I'm hitting the stride. But now at first, you remember. Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Two of you hit the stride.

[Mark Barnes]

The big club. I mean, y' all in New York, but y' all still a little young for knowing stuff about the tunnel.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, that was before my time. I know. I know about it.

[Mark Barnes]

But I'll hit close as we were getting. That was like they were doing the tunnel became the tunnel into our generation. See, once you. What happened is once the tunnel went blocked, that was the money. Oh, hold on. What is this? There's a difference between black money and white money. And there's no club that says they gonna start out black. They're not. They just. They not going to do it. They got Snake. They. They're Going to get the white money. They think. They think white money is this. Friday night was my white night. Saturday night was. I mean, Friday night was my black night. Saturday night was my white night at Dream. Friday night was doing a quarter million. Saturday night was maybe during a. You just can't get it. It's the difference, and nobody understands it. Do you want Neiman Marcus or do you want Walmart? Well, it. Parking, coat check, drinks, bottle service.

[Interviewer]

So you're saying it.

[Mark Barnes]

Bottle service. But I didn't even know back then.

[Interviewer]

So there's more money with the black.

[Mark Barnes]

Oh, it crushes. Nowadays, there are no clubs that stay white.

[Interviewer]

So talk about. All right. There's no clubs that stay white because black people spend more money on nightlife than white people.

[Mark Barnes]

Yes, that's what I'm saying. That's why people spend money on drugs inside the club. Inside the club. Allegedly. Allegedly. Alleged. But that's what I'm saying. So when they're allegedly. I can even say. You can say allegedly. Except that I would do 2500 white people here at Park. When I opened, I didn't want to cannibalize love. So I said, we going, I bought this white boy in from Vegas. We're going to tell everybody you own the joint when I open. When I open park, you own the joint. So we doing 2500 people a night. I'm doing 40, $50,000. I'm like $20 that. I'm watching bartenders, I'm watching the staff. I'm like, why the are y' all stealing my money?

[Interviewer]

They just buying beer.

[Mark Barnes]

That's when we get the 250 cameras. Yeah.

[Interviewer]

And so. And then the black people, how much they doing?

[Mark Barnes]

Oh, so then I decided here that I was going. I did a block party on a Thursday. On a Thursday, I did 75. I only got 1200 people. On Friday, I'm doing 45. Something's wrong with this equation. I'm doing 2,500 people. I said, we're going to try the black thing on Friday. I went from 45 to 135. What you doing? That's going to be Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It's going to be Friday. Saturday. There's no question at this time is food even involved yet. The food is always involved. Foods involved. So we include it. So hold on, hold on, hold on. So let me explain to you what happened. Yeah, yeah. I missed this step here. I hated. I loved doing happy hour five to ten at other people's club. I was done by 10 o', clock and I Had already got everybody drunk and killed everybody else's. I destroyed the club life. The late night. Then what you going to do after you drunk? You've been partying for five hours. I used to do. I would be like penny drinks for the first hour. Because, see, this is what you got to remember. It don't matter once you in there.

[Interviewer]

You do. You're not going to stop.

[Mark Barnes]

You're not going to stop. And once you can't get to the bar, you can't get drinks. You know, the guys would come in with their piggy banks. I'm buying the bar, throwing the pennies all over the bar, you know, all that stupid stuff and everything. But if I open at five and the penny drinks end at seven because people, you know, in line getting in there to go to work, the first drink is paying for whatever the liquor cost. Back then, it was 25 cents that the liquor was costing New York. Now it's 75 cents to a dollar, dollar and a half now, you know what I'm saying? Unless you're drinking.

[Interviewer]

So liquor costs a dollar and a half for a drink.

[Mark Barnes]

Well, when you were buying drinks for $7 and 50 cents, that's. Yeah, so like. Like right now, it's like $20 a drink. $20 a drink. But you buy a bottle of don repo for $40, right? You get 18 drinks. So let's say 15. Okay? That's $3 a drink. Yeah, right, right, right. But that's inflation. That's inflation.

[Interviewer]

But.

[Mark Barnes]

But now, when people say now, the pregame is crazy now, and especially in this younger audience. But we can get back to that. Let's go back to where you want to go back to dream how we got in it.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, dream. How'd you get so lit?

[Mark Barnes]

Dream was lit. But my problem with dream is that I was doing an artist every week. I was dependent on the artist because we went. When. When my numbers hit 5,500 people in one night, I went crazy. I got 40 managers. I'm like, what the fuck are y' all doing? Y' all bullshitting? Da da da, da da. We half assing 5,500 people, and I'm cussing people out. And the biggest problem is I didn't know how to clean carpets. So why do I got carpet? I learned this at Republic Garden. So I'm in Republic Gardens, and I got hardwood floors, beautiful hardwood floors. I'm replacing the hardwood floors, and the wood don't come in in time. But I already stripped them out. So I go into my man's Carpet shop. I said, give me some carpet. It's just going to be there for two weeks. Man. This bar in the back room that I put the carpet in is killing it on women.

[Interviewer]

It's easier to stand on.

[Mark Barnes]

Women can stand up twice as long on carpet as they can concrete. But what's the problem with carpet? So now you ain't gonna have no slip and fall.

[Interviewer]

Stains stinks.

[Mark Barnes]

It stinks. You gotta learn how to clean it. What carpet should you have? That juice is sitting down there. This is what I try to tell people. You have a party at your house ever?

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Mark Barnes]

Your friends, right? Yeah. They destroy it. Not destroy, but they up something. They gonna up something. They gonna up something. These ain't my friends. They definitely gonna fuck up something. Hummus. Your wife got hair? Yeah. How much hair come up with in the background?

[Interviewer]

Years? A lot.

[Mark Barnes]

A lot of hair. That's one. I don't know. How many girls you got in your house? Two girls, and there's a lot of hair in the goddamn vacuum cleaner. That's two people. And you cutting hair out of the vacuum cleaner.

[Interviewer]

You got weeds, right?

[Mark Barnes]

And when you get the weeds involved, I got 5,000 coming through a week. Are you kidding me? D.C. the homeowner, I got eight. I keep eight vacuum cleaners in the shop and eight vacuum cleaners in the building. So I can just trade out all eight. Even though my man can clean them, they still tear these vacuum cleaners up. The problem is bus boys don't care what it is. They'll vacuum it up.

[Interviewer]

They vacuum a cell phone up.

[Mark Barnes]

They will vacuum anything. They will vacuum throw up. And no matter how much you try to teach people. Is that so? You got. I had to go to Vegas. I was like, how the do they clean their carpets? I'm sitting up all night watching these motherfuckers clean the carpet. The problem with carpet is you can shampoo it as much as you want. What happens when you leave your clothes in the washing machine? It's going to stink. It's going to stay. Don't dry. If you don't dry it. So now I had to figure out that you got to dry your carpet or it's going to stick. And you got to have the right type of carpet. You got to have the rubber back so that it doesn't sit in the back of the carpet. So you got to do all of these things because I don't want to lose my carpet. Because carpet's 10 times better. The room is warm. It feels good already. You don't need nothing else. But people don't understand all this. So it's learning all of these pieces of the puzzle. Now, it does take twice as long to close your place down. You know, other places they cleaning, they trying to mop the floor and this and that. But people are stupid and cheap. You got to change your mop heads every week, even on the floors. You there or you get 30 mop water, just throw it away. They cost $2.50. It's just like people give bad sodas for great drinks. Why am I not going to use simply lemonade to go along with the doucet or whatever else you want to put in there? You got a great lemonade drink you want to drink. You like simply lemonade? I do. You love it. If I put that at your table, you going to pour that liquor twice as quick. Simply lemonade only costs you $3. That bottle costs you 350, 400. In Miami, it costs you 750.

[Interviewer]

When you said that you was relying on artists, how'd you fix that?

[Mark Barnes]

I said, I'm going to spend more money in customer service. I don't want no more artists. I'm not doing no artists for no reason. If they come in here, it's because someone else paid for it. I'm not doing no artists. I want the event, the building, the customer service. I want people to love the people at park Makes sense. So at the at its peak, before dream turns to love, now, is it black Friday? How much are we bringing? Is it college night? Yeah. Thursday or Friday? On Thursday. Yeah. Okay. I got this international guy. They were doing college stuff. Blah, blah, blah. They killing it. We doing 50 at the bar and 75 at the door. Friday night, a good Friday. Average Friday night is 150. A good Friday night is 350. But I got artists, and I got extra security and I got extra police, and I got a drunk tank that's full with people. Customer care center. Okay. Literally 50 people lined up. We had a triage. We signed every single person in to the triage. We had a book. Every single thing for every. And we ran that from the day we opened to the day. Allah. Why you leave? It was too much. I got caught up in the. In 2000, 2007, eight had too many properties. I owned drink. I had too many. I needed to get out of that financial crisis. Yeah. And. And. And the numbers had dropped down to 2500, 3000. Unless I had the right artists. And then this life is not conducive to any type of relationship. It Just ain't. It's just not. It's not conducive to any type of relationship. You know what I'm saying? Like, your job is to be friends with every beautiful woman in the place. You know what I'm saying?

[Interviewer]

It's like St. Patrick. Gene. What's his name?

[Mark Barnes]

James.

[Interviewer]

James St. Patrick. You like the real life James St. Patrick?

[Mark Barnes]

Oh, I'm sorry. You know. You know you ain't watched Power.

[Interviewer]

Power 50 Cent Show.

[Mark Barnes]

It just is not conducive. Well, I'm not the real life because I ain't got nothing to do with. That's all alleged. What? I liked it. Yeah.

[Interviewer]

But the whole thing is auto service.

[Mark Barnes]

That wasn't what the FBI and DEA thought. My bank, I took. It was a Fourth of July weekend. We had 700,000 cash we took to the bank.

[Interviewer]

What year was that?

[Mark Barnes]

That was 22. I mean, 2002. 2002.

[Interviewer]

That's after 9 11.

[Mark Barnes]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

So you took $700,000 to the bank.

[Mark Barnes]

To the bank. $700,000 cash.

[Interviewer]

And then what happened?

[Mark Barnes]

Yeah, well, because now it was the year after. Because you. 2001 and that.

[Interviewer]

Because that's where they changed the banking

[Mark Barnes]

laws a lot of 9 11. And. And so the guys who Power fuel. Who had given me the money, they knew they were counting all the money. I didn't give a. You know what I'm saying? Like, y' all counting the money. You know, we know us there. And we took the 700,000. They called DEA, FBI, everybody on me. They came in there, they want to go through the bank. They want to see all the videotapes and everything. With the. The one thing that I got, like in here, there's 250 cameras. I'm going to tell you where your purse is, where your wallet is, who pickpocket you, anything. The one thing park is going to do, they're going to have. We had cameras at drink, but we got more here than we had a drink. So we could see everything. We were like, come watch the videos. Come see. You count the people to come in there. They literally sat in there for 12

[Interviewer]

weeks, 13 weeks, and just went through everything.

[Mark Barnes]

They want to go through. Go through it.

[Interviewer]

That was hell or dream.

[Mark Barnes]

Dream.

[Interviewer]

So you. So. All right, so. So you exit dream. You get hit the financial crisis.

[Mark Barnes]

You.

[Interviewer]

You recalibrate.

[Mark Barnes]

I did a bankruptcy.

[Interviewer]

And then you come back to Park. Yes, that's the. That's the second wave of it.

[Mark Barnes]

But at that point, I'm like, I'm never doing an artist again. I'M done with artists. Artists kill me. They want the money. I. I can't do that. Even though at the beginning, after 2010, I think it was. We never did artists. At the beginning, we were doing. We did everybody here, too.

[Interviewer]

So you just. It's just straight. Straight parties. Yep.

[Mark Barnes]

And I do have a couple of groups who've come up now. But you do the brunch thing, too, so. But before, I didn't do Brian, so brunch saved me.

[Interviewer]

But before. Let's slow it down. Let's talk about this bottle service era. When did the bottle service era hit? Because we saw it hit in New York. We saw it hit Miami. When did it hit D.C. and how did that drastically change?

[Mark Barnes]

It hit. It hit dream. It hit Dream, but I didn't know what was going on. There was door money, there was parking money, and there was co check. Right. I wasn't even think, girl. Y' all go ahead, tell me at the end of the night what y' all did and bottle service. Da, da, da. I wasn't even really interested in it. And the thing was, if you was the girl in charge of the Bible service, you was a God. Well, first of all, anybody who worked at Dream was a God.

[Interviewer]

I mean, because they could open the doors to get people in.

[Mark Barnes]

You were in the most powerful place in. In the country at the time. Diageo's meetings were about, how are these motherfuckers selling so much and how can we get other people to do it?

[Interviewer]

How much liquor was you selling?

[Mark Barnes]

100k. We would take 100, 100 case drops, pallets. They would just take. They. I was selling so much absolute. They flew me down private plane, gave me a house, and sent me to the masters. When they called me and said, we got tickets for you to the Masters, I was like, what the fuck is that? I didn't know. I don't know nothing about golf. And they were like, it's the super bowl of golf. And I was like, I don't want them. They were like, you want these fucking tickets? And so they said, can you call just one person that plays golf and ask him? So I called my boy, his boy, Jack Murray, white boy. I was like, what's this master shit? He was like, oh, my God. What the fuck do you mean? I was like, these motherfuckers want to give me tickets to the master. And they say, I want to go. Do I want to go? He was like, yeah, I want to go. I said, you want to go with me? He was like, you damn right. I want to go. And he was in charge of radio at Radio 1, of selling all the radio. So, you know, I took my boy and everything. You know, we went down there, I still didn't get. Fuck. You know, it just wasn't my thing. You know what I'm saying? I got on an early plane coming back. Okay. I'm standing there with VJ Singh and all that golf.

[Interviewer]

Just run my thing, shout out to V. So. All right. So Boba, when the bottle service hit, you didn't fully understand it. So Nino, it's like Nino Brown. Like he didn't fully understand what the crack was until he f. You had at some point you knew.

[Mark Barnes]

No, no. Eventually. No, no, no. That's why Gilbert's party was a million dollar party. Cuz we sold 400,000 in bottle service tables.

[Interviewer]

Let's just get to that party. Because you keep talking about, was it a million or 2 million?

[Mark Barnes]

It was a million.

[Interviewer]

Talk about, talk about the party.

[Mark Barnes]

It was a million dollars.

[Interviewer]

Explain to.

[Mark Barnes]

So Gilbert comes to me. It was marking task back then.

[Interviewer]

This is when he was.

[Mark Barnes]

He was with the ratchet before the

[Interviewer]

ratchet, after the ratchet.

[Mark Barnes]

I don't think Gilbert really was the racket. I mean, he's a man. He was the man, but. But he wasn't the man. And I didn't. So when, when I did at Republic Gardens, it was Mark. It was Mark and Taz. So when I went to dream, it was Mark and Taz. We did these parties together and by. Because again, I'm 62 and I was getting older and I was like, who wants to go party with the. With the dad? You know what I'm saying? So I would always try to bring in the younger crowds and keep relevant. When I got. When we got there, Taz used to play ball. So he knew all the ball players. He knew all. He knew the street and I knew the corny side. So he brings Gilbert in and he said to me, he said, gilbert, want to do his. I said, who's Gilbert? Because I wasn't up on it. I just wasn't. So he comes down there, he talks. So I say, do you want a birthday party or do you want a birthday party that nobody will ever forget? He said, well, what's the difference? I said, birthday party gonna cost you 25,000. One that they never going to forget is going to cost you a quarter million. He said, I want the one they never going to forget. I said, if you want to write the check, baby, I want to take it. He said, I want so then my biggest problem is I can't half ass nothing. I can't. It's got to be right. It's got to be done perfect. So I said, I'm going to spend this whole quarter million to show myself off. To make it the baddest thing, we did this invitation. It was a great Gilbert Arenas. It was the Arenas Express, and it looked just like an American Express card. And it had Gilbert's picture, you know, that. What do you call it? Centurion or whatever. What's the guy that they. American Express got in the middle of their car anyway. But it had his face on was the sickest shit. So then he said, I want to get Puff. He said, I want to get the game. I want to get TI I want to get. Who else was it? Busta Rhymes, I think it was like the 5th of August, and he had everybody there. So now you getting this black card, Arenas Express. It came in this thing just. You know how American Express send you their card? It looked just like American Express niggas was going into stores, dropping them down, you know, and everything, like. But every card had every single person's name on it. Special invite. Special invite. 8,000 cards we made. We bought the machine. We had two machines running day and night, people begging to buy the invitations we like. It's invite only. Blah, blah, blah. This, that and other. Gilbert's giving me 200 names a day. You know what I'm saying? I need these. We dropping them off to him. His girls are running when I tell you. But this is January 5th. We're planning for coat check. We're going to check. 8,000 coats. That's $40,000 I'm going to make in co check. Tell me what the problem was.

[Interviewer]

It was hot.

[Mark Barnes]

It was 65 degrees. And the ice culture was melting. But I was in heaven because we had to open the. We tinted the whole street. And I'll give y' all some pictures of this and stuff like that. We tinted the whole street. It was the most amazing thing. We had crap games, card games, everything. Gilbert then said, I'm flying a plane from L. A. He paying for all these artists. We do $400,000 in bottle service tables before we open. The first two hours was open bar, and the food was amazing. You got 8,000 people coming. I didn't have a table for ti so I had to give him the fourth floor bar with the bartenders because it was a big bar. I said, you just back here. This your bottle service tape, like it was. And every single floor Was ridiculous. Now we were going supposed to do the artists inside. We built a stage outside. My man shout out to my man Glenn. He paid 20,000 for a table and because he wanted to be right next to the art, I mean the stage while they was performing and he wasn't up and they never came inside. He, he don't let me, he don't let me forget that to this day. He said, you know, you're only 20,000 to this day. But we sold everything. The whole place was the most ridiculous thing that you'd ever seen. But it was really the perfect part. 50,000 in parking. Gilbert drove his Lamborghini into the party because we tinted the whole street. And he drove right into the middle of the party. Agent 0. Yes. It was phenomenal. When I tell you they were talking about Kenny Smith was like, do you see this? He's on SportsCenter. Do you see this? You see this invitation? I mean it was the most amazing thing ever. And everybody then knew Dream Worldwide. I mean it was a three page spread in the Washington Post, you know what I'm saying? Like, oh my God, this party, pictures of him. It was just nothing like it. Now I didn't know Gilbert had a different agenda. He was trying to get his clout out with Adidas and everybody and get his votes for all star and everything. It worked. But when I tell you it worked, he was hitting three pointer game winning shots. I mean, when I tell you it was the perfect storm for that party. It was nothing ever like him. Nothing.

[Interviewer]

And you made 400,000 in bottle service.

[Mark Barnes]

Now he had already given me 250. I made 400,000 in bottle service. Probably made another 150 at the bar. I don't know how much made trying to sell the invitations, you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, mike, Mike, I need two more these names on it, you know, everybody wanted their name. When you said you didn't understand the bottle service, was it the idea of people just buying a bottle or the, the idea that they would pay this much for a bottle? The problem was I couldn't pay attention to inside. Yeah. Because there were 8,000 people trying to get in outside. So I didn't even, I'm like, I don't care, I got to figure this out. And then the problem with those shoots of the money is that you got to have somebody counting the money when it goes in and then somebody at the other end or like in those bank movies that you see, the money can just go missing. And nobody knew it. It wasn't sent up. The stealing's going on. Stealing. I'm telling you, the stealing's at all time high, everybody and you know it. But I'm. It's like you just going into. If you started doing the oil business business tomorrow and somebody just gave it to you, you don't know where they stealing from you. It's just too big. It's too much. It's too much money coming through, you know. And the banks we switching up where we dropping off the bank because you don't want to get robbed, you know, because the bankers that's making 25 or $15 an hour back then, they pillow talking. God damn. I had to count 300,000 today. I had to count 150,000, you know what I'm saying? So you got. We had the police following us to the bank on the big weekends. The police would just sit there all night. I'd have a rotate. Just so we wouldn't get robbed. Exactly.

[Interviewer]

She was getting robbed internally.

[Mark Barnes]

Absolutely.

[Interviewer]

How much you think he was getting robbed for?

[Mark Barnes]

I think they were taking 10% of everything. And that's a lot of money. That's 30,000 a week, you know, 40, 50,000 a week. Everybody was winning and everybody was happy. How do you change that? Do you decide to pay them more or is this something? Oh, they're going to pay. It don't matter how. It don't matter how much you give them. They still going to take. They're going to take. It's cash. It's going some way. But that's changed now. Oh, yeah, right. We 2% cash now. Yeah, talk about that game. The credit card companies are stealing their 4% from you. You know what I'm saying? So if you make 400,000, they taking 16,000 every week. 16, 30.

[Interviewer]

Mine's always taking 16.

[Mark Barnes]

4% or 10%. I'm gonna take the 4%. So what? Then I'll give it to your employees. Oh, yeah, I don't know about that. But you know, and then even when the problem was if it was a rough weekend, you still gotta pay it. Everybody's like, fuck you, pay me. They want you to win. You've been winning. And it's just so many other distractions.

[Interviewer]

Well, talk about this too. You said nobody spends money like black people on nightlife. What about brunch?

[Mark Barnes]

Oh my God, brunch.

[Interviewer]

I seen the firsthand. Your brunch is Howard Homecoming. That was crazy.

[Mark Barnes]

That was Howard Homecoming. What are you talking about? Every week. Super Bowl. Hold on. This was Super Bowl. People are Doing what on Super Bowl? They going to their friends houses and everything. The super bowl party wasn't amazing, but the brunch was 780 people. Brunches.

[Interviewer]

What's the size for the brunch? You got a few.

[Mark Barnes]

I didn't learn. I didn't learn anything.

[Interviewer]

Yo, Lou, you about to get escorted out of here.

[Mark Barnes]

Okay, well, the secret. I didn't learn anything. What I could tell them I can give them a, B, C, D. You think Houston's restaurant hides anything that they do? You can see everything they do, right? Every single thing they do. You can see it. How come no one can duplicate it? Why is it no one has a hipsters?

[Interviewer]

I mean, it's the same thing with Michael Jordan. You know, his workout. You see? You can see his workout, but you're still not gonna be Michael Jordan, right?

[Mark Barnes]

You're not gonna be Michael Jordan. So I can tell you.

[Interviewer]

So what's the. What's the size with the price? Because we've been told, like, it's to have a few items like.

[Mark Barnes]

No, no, no. Mm. Mm. The key to everything is the service. Unreasonable hospitality. That's it. So by the food, gotta be good food cost.

[Interviewer]

You don't have to.

[Mark Barnes]

I don't give a fuck about food cost.

[Interviewer]

You don't care about food cost.

[Mark Barnes]

I don't care about food because you're weak. It's all you can eat. It's all you. You'll never eat more than you wait. Exactly. Okay. And if you do, I'm happy to feed you. Yeah. Okay. You give good mimosas. You don't buy the worst cheap liquor. You buy good champagne. You give them something. Or prosecco, whatever it is. You give them something that tastes amazing. If they want. I'm using blueberry lemonade to make mimosas. They're loving it. Everybody don't want orange juice. I'm using good orange juice. Like, people don't get. Give them. Great. They'll come back. I need you. To do what? Go tell your wife we got to go to brunch. So that's true.

[Interviewer]

That's it.

[Mark Barnes]

Talk about the food, the service, the ambiance. Because one of the things we talked about when we were here was the excellence and the level of excellence. And even when we went outside, people waiting. It's just a level of maturity, professionalism that you see. And that's why. Talk about that. And unfortunately, that is why. You have to kind of like, if you look at TikTok right now, there's a whole bunch of stuff on there. Mark, don't play. I'm not going to play. You're still in a dinner, a restaurant. I want you to dance. I want you to sing heavy songs. I don't want that. We're not twerking on the tables, right? I don't. I don't. I don't want the twerking. I don't want the craziness. I want the true brunch experience where everybody in the room is singing. But to me, DJs are stupid, because they should own the crowd. Viz owned the crowd. That's why these DJs, they don't practice, they don't go home. And the biggest challenge here is I got all the Allen Iversons. You know what? They the greatest players in the world. But guess what? They don't want to go to practice. That's my man. Yeah, but when you know it all,

[Interviewer]

they say what they think. They know it all.

[Mark Barnes]

They know it all. Yeah, they know it all. Three of the greatest people that I ever had work for me. I had to let go because I'm not. They think it's for me. It's not for me.

[Interviewer]

So you're doing a brunch from what time to what?

[Mark Barnes]

From 11 to 5.

[Interviewer]

From 11 to 5. Then the club opens up.

[Mark Barnes]

Then you go to dinner here? Yeah.

[Interviewer]

From what time?

[Mark Barnes]

From 5 to 10.

[Interviewer]

From 5 to 10?

[Mark Barnes]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

And then the club opens up from 10 to 3. So.

[Mark Barnes]

But the real money makers, you gotta remember, ain't them.

[Interviewer]

What's the real moneymaking?

[Mark Barnes]

The real moneymakers, or when the corporate people want to come in here and they look at your venue and they're like, wow, this is clean. This is beautiful. And then you give them the best party that they've ever had. If you think I'm good, if I can give our people the greatest service. Oh, my God. What I can do for those corporate people. I feel like we came one day and it was like Delaware rented out the space. I was like, what? They were like, yeah, all the representatives, they took over the whole space. No, no.

[Interviewer]

What's the revenue look like for the corporate.

[Mark Barnes]

So I. I got three this month coming up. Each one I'm paying anywhere from 120 to 190,000.

[Interviewer]

For a night.

[Mark Barnes]

For a night. And those are the easiest thing in the world. Three, four hours. All the food, all the drink, no problems at all. How are the margins sold? Because they. Somebody with those margins. Yeah. Are crazy on a typical.

[Interviewer]

Because it's not a lot of people.

[Mark Barnes]

There are a lot of people towards the Crazy margins because you don't have no security, you don't have no problems. They don't tear the place up. It's corporate. Typical night margins are dinner because that restaurant spaces, I mean those. Sometimes on a Thursday night, yeah, if I make 20,000, I'm. I'm breaking even. Even maybe losing. Friday night I'm doing 75 to 100. After 60, I'm making money. Okay? Saturday I'm trying to do 140 to 175. I'm not worried about no food costs. Honestly, I tell my people my crab soup, people get tired of eating the crab in my crab soup. So much crabs, there's so much crabs. I want it to be just like that. I want you to go tell people you gotta have this fucking crab soup. There used to be a place here, it was down in southwest, they had the best she crab soup I've ever had in my life. You couldn't eat it but two days, maybe once a week because it was too rich, it was too good. You know what I'm saying? When you talk. Oh, I did forget. I tried to go back and I forgot again. The key to everything is my food. Other places aren't starting until what clubs don't have. You won't get the club until there's somebody in there, right? 11, 12, 1 New York. You know what I'm saying? So you're missing out. I'm catching you at five o' clock

[Interviewer]

because they come in to eat.

[Mark Barnes]

They come in to eat and they don't leave. And then my brunch is about to become. My dinner is about to come the same thing as my brunch. That's what I walk into. Is it a timetable on the brunch? Like you can't be here. Hour and a half, hour and a half, that's what you get. Two hours was too much. They would twist it.

[Interviewer]

So a lot, a lot of, A lot of restaurateurs say that I will

[Mark Barnes]

let you stay for two hours sometimes if your tables. But when we sold out and we doing eight, nine hundred, a thousand, you gotta keep people. I gotta, I gotta keep. And it's hard. It's. The hardest thing is to get. They'll say we'll pay double, we'll buy bottles and I'll be like, you lit, Aubrey. I'm just overserving you now.

[Interviewer]

So would you make that known when they come in? Like, look, you can only stay 99, it's a contract. When a lot of restaurateurs that I know don't like Nightlife, they shy away from that. They like, look, it's only problems, trouble. People get stabbed, shot. They don't. Because a lot of restaurants go to nightlife when their restaurant starts struggling. But a lot of restaurants told us that they were like, I just want to keep it clean. It's over at midnight, 11 o'. Clock. I don't want to go into nightlife.

[Mark Barnes]

You do both.

[Interviewer]

You do restaurant and nightlife.

[Mark Barnes]

I do. And events. So and right.

[Interviewer]

So what's your thoughts on that philosophy that nightlife is too much trouble?

[Mark Barnes]

I think it's all going to end once we get the facial recognition for everybody else.

[Interviewer]

They have that. London. Yeah, because in London we went to the. You know, you got to turn your hat around to go into the. Or turn it around. Taking it off is understandable because, like, you don't want hats in your establishment. But it's like, why would you wake up? Why wear it to the back. Then they realized that they had the facial record so they could scan your face.

[Mark Barnes]

So we want to go to membership.

[Interviewer]

But right now you're not at membership. So you've been in 30 years, you've seen everything. Is it. How have you been able to.

[Mark Barnes]

That I would have made it without brunch. There's nothing like brunch. Nothing. The formula that I've gotten for brunch is everything to me. And the key to that is service.

[Interviewer]

But how are you able not to have major problems at night shooting, stabbings? Like, that's a lot.

[Mark Barnes]

Let's knock on woods because it can happen anywhere.

[Interviewer]

Demographic. Are you. Is it dress code? Is the music? Because somebody. Somebody.

[Mark Barnes]

It's everywhere.

[Interviewer]

We interview. We interview. You know Jimmy from the Bronx. Jimmy Cafe. Yeah. So we. He said something that was interesting. He said. I said, how do you control type of energy that's in the club? It used to be a dress code. It's not old dress codes anymore. He said it's the music. He said you play a certain music, you're going to attract a certain demographic. If you purposely play a different type of music or even if you see some level of friction, you tell a DJ switch the music. His thing was the music dictates the energy.

[Mark Barnes]

I think it does, but I think you have to go for a clientele. And I think in the next year. Well, I know in the next six months, I'm going to membership for this, for everything. What does that look like? What does the membership model look like? For part. Okay, so right now we do. Let's say we do 5,000 people a week? Yeah. 5% of those people are A's. Are what? A's.

[Interviewer]

A's like highest quality.

[Mark Barnes]

Okay. That means you spend a client.

[Interviewer]

A client.

[Mark Barnes]

An a client. Okay. 20% of Bs, 60% of Cs. 14% of these and 1% is F. F you don't one F can just

[Interviewer]

screw up the whole building just enough.

[Mark Barnes]

He just another, he got a problem, he fuck it up. If I just take the A's and the B's every week, that's 25%. 25% of 5000 is 1250 people. If I went and offered those people. Now tell me this. Where's your favorite place to go to?

[Interviewer]

My favorite place, restaurant, club, anywhere in America.

[Mark Barnes]

Yeah, the park. Okay, but if you lived here, like what's convenient?

[Interviewer]

Soho House is convenient. Something like that.

[Mark Barnes]

Listen to this. If they said you don't go to Soho House because you also get a bill from them every month. You got to spend so much or you do this, that or that. But if you said you could get a. A membership for a hundred dollars a month and you could get up to three drinks every day for free with that hundred dollar a month membership, how quick would you buy that membership?

[Interviewer]

That was going to include three Anytime you come, anytime you come. And you get three trains.

[Mark Barnes]

So if I get.

[Interviewer]

Is that even? Is that even profitable?

[Mark Barnes]

Let me tell you how profitable it is. If you say you can get three drinks. And these are all members. Now remember, you want to be here worse now because it's what all A's and B's. High clientele, high incline. Okay? So if I go 20 weeks at 1250 people a week, all A's and B's, that's 25,000 people. That means at the beginning of a month, if they all pay me a hundred dollars a month, I take in 2.5 million. That's $6 million. I mean 600,000 a week before I sell any bottle service or food.

[Interviewer]

But that's right, that's saying that they're different people. It might be the same people every week though too.

[Mark Barnes]

That's 25,000 people that I'm going to give a membership to. That can also, for a price, bring a friend along with them. But they're going to have to get a membership or a different tier membership. I want them to get a membership and they are going to be different tier membership. But again, the average restaurant isn't taking in $2.4 million a month. Neither am I. Right now I'm taking in 1.5 to 1.8amonth, 20 million a year. Okay, so if I can now go to 2.5, $600,000, and that's with all the brunch and all the bottle service tables right now. But if I knew I had that money coming in at the beginning of the month, I can hire even more customer service people. And it's what only what I want. And it's all facial recognition. Then you put the Netflix model in on it, and you say, I'm going to go buy up four little spots so you're not stuck just coming to park. And for $25 more a month. So I'm now getting $200 a month. You can go to all four of these spots. So now I'm taking in 5 million, $60 million a year before I sell one drink, a piece of food or brunch or a Bible service table. No, that's the model. And I can tell everybody about it, and they won't do it, because everybody shows people what they do, and people just can't do it. That is a fact. People can't do it. You can tell people exactly what you're doing. They can't do what you do. Sure,

[Interviewer]

100%.

[Mark Barnes]

Now, there'll be somebody who come close to it, and it may be somebody who does do it better. But I've told hundreds of people this model, and nobody does it. Nobody does what I do. The key is, though, you can't be greedy either. It's like destroying a country when the top. If I have all the money and I'm up here and all my people

[Interviewer]

down there,

[Mark Barnes]

it ain't right. I'm bringing all my people along with me. Let's go, y'. All.

[Interviewer]

Have you seen a decrease in revenue from people not drinking alcohol as much?

[Mark Barnes]

Not used to be, you know, grew 13%.

[Interviewer]

Because you know about that stat.

[Mark Barnes]

I do. And the $22 billion worth of liquor that's sitting in reserve.

[Interviewer]

But it's not affecting you.

[Mark Barnes]

I grew 13.

[Interviewer]

You have an older audience, though, too.

[Mark Barnes]

No, I don't.

[Interviewer]

You don't have an old audience.

[Mark Barnes]

Can I tell you what the real problem is out here? What? Don Julio Repo, they are selling the hell out of that shit. You know, I go through 60 to 100 cases a week. Tequila, tequila, Tequila. I ain't never seen nothing like Don Julio repo, though. I saw the Rock days, the Great Goose days, the Hennessy days. I done seen everything. They all want shots. There's nothing. Yeah, like Don Julio Repo, there is one thing that affects it Affects everybody. He talked about it before we started weather. Most people don't think about that. Can I tell you, this is the first year in the last five years I've worried or I had weather really affect me. I try to tell people, people say, oh, I want to own my own. See, the biggest challenge that people have is I want to own my own. Before you say, you want to own your own, come in here and learn everything I do. Learn what the insurance is, learn what the challenges are of thing. Learn about every. Do everything at a job. I wish that's the only thing I jumped in it. And I didn't know the finance side, I didn't know everything about the money. Never got a line of credit, never. But the whole thing is, is that you gotta hire good people and you gotta now, no matter how you try, but I try to tell people, you got to live the way you want your people to be. At dream, we had 300 employees and okay, so now we got the guy. I got boots, y'. All, I got TVs, I got, you know, 300 employees. Everybody got something. I'm not letting you sell nothing stolen. I'm not buying nothing stolen. I'm not taking nothing. When the liquor people come and they say, you know, I got one of these that fell off the truck. I said, you want me to call them and tell them it fell off your truck? Because next week you trying to steal my liquor. Walk the cases in and accidentally walk a case out. Oh, I thought I over gave it to you. You know, this, that and other. But I. I don't think people understand what it takes to make it work. I can't duplicate myself. I really wish I could because then I'd have five of these and be sitting on the beach. There are challenges, you know, keeping yourself relevant no matter what is hard. No matter. No matter what. You're doing podcasts today, in a minute. If you don't have the right guests, the right people, the right thing. You got to keep what's exciting, what makes it good, who's really given the right information. That's what it's about. What makes this work. It's like what makes this country work. I think where everybody else thinks the AI is going to take these jobs, it's going to take these jobs, but it's going to teach these kids. In a minute. When I tell you, you're going to be able to have an iPad that figures out just like you talk to Grok or you talk to one of these other things, they got different voices they gonna find a voice that you want to talk to, something that you want to hear, just like they understand your algorithms. And, you know, the kids that want to watch fights, they send them fights. What is that? World Star. Right? The kids. Everything that comes up on my algorithm is AI Everything. Every AI commercial, everything I want. Because that's what I'm watching. I'm believing that it's listening to me. It knows what I want. I don't even. I've never seen. Except on other people's phones. This Wolf Star stuff, I'm not watching that. Before we.

[Interviewer]

Before you talk about working with your. Your son works with you, right?

[Mark Barnes]

He does none of my. My daughter was on bar rescue. My son works with me.

[Interviewer]

How's that?

[Mark Barnes]

It's challenging. I want him to do more, but you got to remember, Growing up in a house, and the thing is, is that at one point you're Mark's son, then at one point it became your chase. Is that. But he's taking a back seat. He wanted to go, I guess, you know, make his own path and everything. And he's doing what he does, work with me. Still helps out. I wish it was more, but, you know, you go through that, you know, parents and kids and everything. None of my daughters. My daughters both work in the same business. One works in Chicago and one works in New York. And my other daughter is marketing, and she's out of Toronto, so. But, you know, it's. It's challenging. You know, I'm. I'm not easy to work with anyone as anime, as animated as I am here. And my biggest problem is I want to joke and play, but I want to work. And I'm these nuts. I got cards that say these nuts, literally. And we play a game. Everybody gets a card at the beginning of the night. And if I make you say who, then you got to give me your car. The person that ends up with the most cars. Just to try to break the ice on some of the things we do, you know, and park is a staple, so we do try to attract everything. So it's hard. I think it's going to grow even bigger. I think AI is going to change the world like people can't believe. And I think people don't understand. We agree.

[Interviewer]

Well, appreciate your time, my brother. Tell the people where to follow and. Yeah, when you're gonna roll out the. Are you gonna roll out the membership this year?

[Mark Barnes]

Membership? First we got the park games coming. Yeah, when's that? In the next two or three weeks.

[Interviewer]

What is that?

[Mark Barnes]

What is that so, you know. You've heard of Beast Games?

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Mark Barnes]

And we want to put competitions out there. We think it's going to be a big thing for the. The. Right now we're doing a 70,000, 20,000 for second place, 50,000 for first. We have to invite you in there, and then you got to be invited. The app guy that I got that's making this up, this guy's amazing. He also made the membership app. But then, you know, we want to move these prizes up to, like, Beast Games 100, 200, you know, and we. We want to make it a competition like nothing anybody's ever seen. The guy who did Beast Games is I. I'm sleep one night, and I just roll over and I'm watching, and somehow it ends up on my tv, and I'm like, what the hell is this stuff? You know? But have you seen that first. The first two episodes of season one?

[Interviewer]

I just seen clips on Instagram.

[Mark Barnes]

Oh, man, you got to watch it. Yeah, there's nothing like that. It's just amazing to watch those first two episodes. I'm telling you, you should watch it. And I know that's pushing somebody else up, but that it is. It's competition. He was smart with it, but he lost 20 million, I think, on the first one. But now he's on the third one, and again, like Coachella, I think they were losing 10, 15, 20 million when they first started out. I hope they're making money now. I don't know what the real numbers are, but I would imagine that they are.

[Interviewer]

It's like Fnatic Fest also.

[Mark Barnes]

That's it. But I don't know much about Fnatic Fest. It didn't make any money.

[Interviewer]

No, it was losing. Losing.

[Mark Barnes]

Admittedly, he said he lost 17 million last year. Oh, okay. But, I mean, tell them to call me. I got a way for them to make money. When I tell you the key to everything is that penny equation. When people leave your thing, what you do? They got to go tell two people. And it moves so quick like that. When we get off camera, I got another one for y'. All. Amen.

[Interviewer]

Hi, my brother. Well, it's been a pleasure, man. Thank you for the hospitality, man.

[Mark Barnes]

Thank you.

[Interviewer]

Greatly appreciate it.

[Mark Barnes]

My brother blessing himself. Thank you.

[Interviewer]

All right, y', all. It's a wrap.

[Mark Barnes]

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