Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Carrying Clubs

WEEKEND EDITION

April 17 - 18, 2004

Andrew Sasson began work as doorman in 1991 at a Miami nightclub.

Nearly 15 years later the entrepreneur has established himself as a leading authority on high-end ultralounges, with several hotspots in New York, Miami and Las Vegas.

His first Las Vegas club at the Bellagio, Light, set a new standard for local nightclubs, with a premium on personal service, and quickly became a celebrity magnet.

His other clubs, Caramel and Mist, were created in the same mold.

The 33-year-old England native is also helping further define the emerging hipster lifestyle in Las Vegas with a new restaurant and bar, FIX, which opens in June at Bellagio. Also under development is Panorama, two 30-story towers of residential condominiums west of the Strip near the Bellagio, featuring a gourmet grocery and deli, a bakery, wine cellar and large-screen theater.

Groundbreaking on the $160 million "urban luxury living" project is June 1, with an estimated 14-month construction phase. Sasson said one tower's condos are sold out, with the other tower expected to sell out quickly when its condos go on sale in June.

Other than his clubs and real-estate investments, Sasson is also widely known for his relationship with Lizzie Grubman, the public relations flack who hit and injured 16 patrons with her SUV outside a trendy Southampton, New York, nightclub. Sasson testified against Grubman at her trial. Grubman later plead guilty and served jail time.

Sasson, though, said the pair remain friends, talking frequently, and are focused on the future rather than "one bad year of a situation that kind of affected both of our lives."

The Las Vegas Sun recently talked to Sasson about his nightclubs, handling celebrities, and his helping to create a hip new Las Vegas:

Las Vegas Sun: What attracted you to Las Vegas?

Andrew Sasson: Vegas is the best. I came here five years ago and a guy ... who was a gaming analyst I met at my bar, said Vegas is the place for you. He takes me here. I hang out in Vegas and within five minutes I knew I had to be here. Vegas is like no other city in the world -- nothing is ever going to come close to it. It's amazing.

Sun: You've said you were looking to bring a different nightclub experience to Las Vegas. What was that experience?

AS: All the hotels keep opening clubs that they think people want because they don't really take the time to understand what the people really do want. There's an element here that didn't just want to be thrown in with a thousand other people in a big, black room. They want service, they want some detailed treatment. A whole bunch of things.

There's a five-star restaurant and there's a McDonald's. There's no five-star nightclub, but there are tons of McDonald's nightclubs. Not one's better or worse. It's just that some people like to have a different experience and that's what we did.

Sun: Celebrities flocked to Light from the beginning. Was getting them to come to the club difficult?

AS: We've bonded and branded something now. It's all kind of celebrity-driven. People know it's a good place. They know they're protected and that they're not taken advantage of and that's a big thing. And I'm close to a lot of them, so they come and they like to hang. And they know I'm not there to take advantage of them or overexpose them.

Sun: But you don't treat celebrities differently than the average patron. For example, when Shaquille O'Neal showed up to Light last summer you wouldn't allow the Lakers' star into the club because he didn't meet the dress code.

AS: (Celebrities) follow the same rules as everyone else. As long as they show respect, they get respect back. That's how it works. Some celebrities, although they know they're different, they don't ask to be treated differently. They just want people to be nice and to give them good service like anybody else. Some people think they're bigger than they are and think they can walk around anywhere and do anything they like and break all the rules because "It doesn't apply to me."

Sun: You're also about to branch out of the club business into the restaurant business with FIX.

AS: There's loads of great places to eat in Las Vegas, the best food you can find in the world, but there are not that many places you can go and have a fun time, like a fun dining experience.

The only restaurant like that in town is N9NE at the Palms. It's incredible. We thought there's room in town for more of those places. It's not like we were going to compete. It's just there weren't any other choices. We woke up every day and that's where we were all hanging. So we said, "We should open a restaurant like this so we will have more choice."

Sun: So what was the idea behind Panorama?

AS: I looked around and I couldn't find a place to live. I met a buddy at my yacht club and we started talking and he couldn't find a place to live either. We looked around. We didn't want to live in Strip housing where, if you didn't have the numbers on the wall, you wouldn't know where you lived. That's what it's like in Vegas. We wanted something a little more defined, a little bit different. Something that had great access and location and view, but where you didn't have to sit in traffic the whole time. And that's how we came up with the idea.

Sun: I think it's fair to say you're defining a younger, hipper Las Vegas.

AS: There are a lot of people out there doing stuff, besides me, who have great ideas and stuff that needs to happen.

Vegas is going to be a huge city, a huge metropolitan city. It's going to be bigger than Los Angeles. It's going to be somewhere incredible where you're going to have a lifestyle and an experience you can't beat anywhere else. The weather, the entertainment, the restaurants, everything -- it's just here. Now we have to progress past being known as the casino-gambling entertainment capital of the world to more of a city. And a city needs certain different types of lifestyles and certain different types of experiences. And that's where it's going right now.

The Baby Boomers are disappearing. So now it's the younger market that are going to define it and take Vegas into the next generation.

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