So Who Is Behind All Those Hot Bars And Restaurants In Las Vegas?

One of the most successful suppliers of restaurants, bars and clubs to hotels and casino resorts is Clique Hospitality of San Diego and Las Vegas. Clique is a boutique hospitality and marketing company, founded by entrepreneur Andy Masi. It specializes in creating and providing restaurants, day life and nightlife to casino resorts, hotels and other venues.

Clique generally prefers to stay behind the scenes and push the glory on their customers, the owners and operators of the hotels and casino resorts. Some 1400 people work at Clique’s restaurants, day life and nightlife venues. “We fully operate the venues, the staff works for us,” says Keith Eure, 40, a partner and Vice President at Clique.

Clique says its mission is to make guests feel that a simple night out is more than just a memory, but also an experience.

As John Pettei, Vice President of Nightlife at Clique Hospitality, said about Easy’s speakeasy and entertainment lounge in the Aria, “Today’s customers are eating and drinking with their eyes, nose and ears before it gets to their mouth—it’s all about the experience. It’s gotta be a show.”

Clique and predecessor company Light (which launched the popular Light disco at the Bellagio in 2001) has influenced the hospitality landscape of Las Vegas and San Diego for more than 20 years.

Some of the Las Vegas venues Clique operates include the Proper Eats Food Hall and the Easy’s speakeasy (behind Easy’s Donuts) at Aria, and the Barbershop Cuts & Cocktails and Clique Lounge at the Cosmopolitan. (I got my hair cut there, knocked on a secret door and caught a show at the lounge.)

Then there’s Gatsby’s Cocktail Lounge at Resorts World, the Borracha and Bottiglia restaurants at Green Valley Ranch Resort and the Bel-Aire Lounge, Mijo’s Mexican Restaurant and the Wax Rabbit at the Durango Resort.

The company also operates Lionfish and several other establishments in San Diego, the French brasserie Venteux at the Pendry Hotel in downtown Chicago and SET, a steak and sushi concept at the Newport Beach, CA Pendry.

Eure has worked with Masi and the company that is now Clique for 16 years. I joked with Eure, 40, that it must seem like he’d been working at Clique his entire professional life. I was quickly corrected.

“I was always in restaurants; I started washing dishes at 14 and moved up to prep cook,” says Eure. Working at Della Notte in Baltimore’s Little Italy, a fine dining restaurant with the biggest wine list in Maryland, “I learned a lot about service and detail.”

He moved to Vegas at 23, worked with Wolfgang Puck, and helped opened Yellowtail at the Bellagio.

Still based in Las Vegas, Eure’s latest project has been developing and launching three new Clique establishments , the Bel-Aire Lounge, Mijo’s Mexican Restaurant and the Wax Rabbit at Red Rock Resort’s new off-Strip Durango Resort.

The long-awaited Durango, in southwest Las Vegas poses an interesting challenge for Clique. Five miles from the nearest casino, Durango’s restaurants, lounges and a coming dayclub at the pool have to lure locals to leave their homes for the experience.

“Whenever you’re doing with locals, we put more pressure on ourselves than people put on us,” says Eure. “At the Strip, you have the luxury of transient business, you’re not dependent on people coming back. People on the Strip have to check out your place because they are there. For locals, we ask ourselves, ‘What would get us out of our house? We have to offer next-level service and a memorable experience.”

The Durango’s location does give it certain advantages. “People can just step outside of their house without going to the Strip. There’s no paying for parking and no traffic.”

So far, Eure says, the lounge, restaurant and club are exceeding expectations.

“For Mijo, we went to a place in Mexico to develop the menu and the food. It has terra cotta brick, flora on the walls, an agave room, an all-glass wall to the patio that gives you Tulum vibes.” For tequila and mescal, he says, “We searched, for artisanal producers from all over Mexico.”

Wax Rabbit has something of a speakeasy vibe, as guests enter through a tequila locker. The club is loosely based on a Mexican legend of the “400 drunken Mezcal rabbits.” The “Wax” part is because the lounge “has an all-vinyl DJ booth, Tuesday through Saturday. It’s nice throwback music of the 70’s and 80’s, and its packed.”

The Bel-Aire Lounge at Durango is decorated in muted, warm colors, with accents of brass and golds to create a distinctive finish. The Bel-Aire has a selection of hand-crafted cocktails, matched with small plates from around the world.

The lounge goes back to the Las Vegas past with live music including rock, hip-hop, pop, and indie, as well as DJ nights. A Bel-Aire Backyard around the pool, with what Eure describes as “cabanas, cool activations, and a party brunch” is coming when the weather warms up.

“There’s a lot of beautiful natural light at the property,” Eure says. “You can come during the day and get a coffee. It’s a vibe for locals, to mix and mingle. We want them to come back 3 or 4 days a week.”

Eure attributes the company’s success to Masi’s “vision and relationships. Sometimes the hotel or casino developers come to Andy before it’s even built. They have a space, a location, Andy creates a design, a menu, a presentation.”

“Andy was about creating a “vibe,” whether for a club or dining,” says Eure. “He started doing “bottle service, for example, which a lot of clubs weren’t doing. That vision from night clubs transferred to restaurants. Our people are expected to be professional yet friendly.”

Masi, like Eure, has a background in both restaurants and clubs, Masi, who ran a club on the East Coast, was also a bartender and ran the legendary Foundation Room at Mandalay Bay.

“At Clique everyone is hands on. That defines our company. We understand all the positions, and our commitment is to grow others, taking bussers and servers and elevating them to director level.”

Chef Partner JoJo Ruiz, for example, started as a sushi chef. When he helped develop Lionfish in downtown San Diego, he developed his own network of fisherman and produce growers to ensure that the Lionfish kitchen has the freshest and most seasonal ingredients.

How does Clique choose what kind of venue to create and run for its clients?

“We have great relationships with different casino operators. Each property is different. We take a look at the space and get a sense of what they’re looking for. Often a goal is to bring a new guest to their properties.”

Basic questions creators at Clique might ask themselves might include: Who is the client? What are the demographics of their customers—or the new customers they want to attract? Do they not have a Mexican restaurant? An Italian place? A breakfast concept? (At Proper Eats at Aria, ten fast concept restaurants replaced the buffet.)

What’s next for Clique Hospitality? Caspian’s Caviar and Cocktails at Caesars Palace, coming this spring.)

“We do the research up front to find out what else people want. Live music? Good micheladas!” says Eure. “Our three pillars are really simple: Great food. Great service. Great ambiance. The idea is to create memorable moments, so people will come back and have a once in a lifetime memory every time.”