BUSINESS Toward the end of this year’s fi rst quarter, things are looking up. Nazarian cites Colony Capital’s recent purchase of a minority stake in his company for $35 million as a serious vote of confi - dence. In January, Colony founder Thomas Barrack Jr. stated, “Sam has harnessed his vision and uncanny instincts to create the most relevant emerging hospitality management company in the industry today.” Check into SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills, and Nazarian wants to be the full-service provider for all of your entertainment needs— even if you don’t realize it. “We are not just rooms; we are an experience,” he says, voicing the mantra for his company. “We have the keys to the city, and the people who visit us get those keys.” With cool off -site restaurants and nightclubs that operate in concert with the hotels, guests at SLS or Hollywood’s recently opened Redbury are treated like regulars at SBE-owned operations—whether it’s an omakase dinner at Katsuya or serious clubbing at happening nightspots The Colony or The Abbey. “Right now, that level of cross-property service is what I am obsessed with,” Nazarian says. To make the customer experience even more seamless, Nazarian is fi nancing the creation of back-offi ce technology that will track individual purchases and habits, distill the information and allow guests’ needs and desires to be anticipated. A central computer system will eventually allow the maitre d’ at, say, Hyde to know that you sprang for a suite at the SLS, where you just had a straight-up Belvedere martini. Since you’re a high-spending hotel customer, he might just get you a good table and surprise you with a martini on the house. “[The] technology makes sure that wherever you are in the SBE family, the staff knows about your preferences and treats you like the good customer that you are,” Nazarian says. The existence of an entity like the “SBE family” is rare in the hotel industry—and one that <strong>may</strong> make it easier for Sam to achieve his cross-property service. While most up-to-the-minute HOT PROPERTY The pool at SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills MAY <strong>2011</strong> 38 hotels typically commission celebrity restaurateurs to run their food programs and nightlife superstars to oversee their dancefl oors and bars, Nazarian keeps it all under his own umbrella. For example, when he became enamored with José Andrés’ molecular cuisine, he didn’t strike a deal to put a franchise inside his hotel. Instead, he invested in the company and established a partnership with Andrés. Similarly, when Nazarian wanted to hire designer Philippe Starck, he shelled out enough money to make Starck a partner, who is now working exclusively for SBE in North America for 15 years. This year, Starck will oversee the design of Hyde Las Vegas and SLS Hotel at South Beach, with a resort and casino in Las Vegas expected to follow soon after. Sam cites a few good reasons for this unorthodox and, at least initially, expensive approach. “I didn’t want customers to run into invisible walls, which manifest themselves as a lot of people with their own agendas and their own bottom lines and their own business practices,” he says. “What I set out to do was build all the verticals in-house. We all have the same agenda, and we all work together to make sure that the guest can be taken care of at any of our diff erent venues.” Beyond the benefi t for guests, Nazarian sees a practical benefi t for himself and the company. “What if, hypothetically speaking, you have Jeff rey Chodorow as your restaurant person, and he decides that he wants to do something else?” he says. “Or what if his interests no longer align with your own? He is there to run a restaurant and <strong>may</strong> not be so interested in accommodating your best hotel customers when the restaurant is booked.” Being treated like a treasured customer is the kind of fi rstclass coddling that Nazarian himself is accustomed to, wherever his globe-trotting whims <strong>may</strong> take him. And if the forces of technology cooperate, he’ll soon be providing his patrons with similar experiences—whether or not they’re Paris Hilton or a big-spending billionaire. GO MAGAZINE
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