Hakkasan Group’s name recognition and status as one of the largest restaurant and nightlife operators in the world alone would have allowed Nick McCabe to maintain the status quo when he was promoted from president to CEO last year. But “the underlying drive behind my entire career has been a love of exciting experiences,” he says. That started in 2000 when he founded
CoolJunkie.com, which “quickly became the nightlife authority in Miami,” before expanding to New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, he says. After the company’s acquisition in 2005, he joined Track Entertainment as partner and chief creative officer where he created Bacardi’s B-Live global concert series, a venture that inspired the formation of his own music marketing company, the Big Idea, in 2007. “I’ve always been inspired by the excitement music creates,” he says. “In my teenage years, making music was where my spare time was spent, and design was where my passion existed in school.”
He joined Las Vegas-based entertainment and nightlife company Angel Management Group in 2007, which was purchased by Hakkasan Group in 2013. Now, as CEO, he continues to lead Hakkasan’s global expansion—due to a few recent acquisitions and partnerships, the company boasts some 60 venues, from LA and London to Mumbai and Houston—focused on the same experience-driven ethos that has driven McCabe his entire career. “No matter the location, we strive to ensure that from the moment our guests step into one of our venues, they can experience the signature level of perfection that is equated with the Hakkasan brand,” he explains.
Take the breathtaking Omnia Dayclub that recently opened at the Alila in Uluwatu, Bali. Perched atop a plateau that overlooks the Indian Ocean, the clifftop retreat from New York firm Rockwell Group and Singapore-based WOHA was one of the only in the world where “we could build a dayclub worthy of the Omnia brand,” he says. Meanwhile, at Vidanta Los Cabos in Mexico, an Omnia debuted alongside three other Hakkasan venues, including the fifth location of Herringbone restaurant, the second outpost of craft cocktail bar SHOREbar, and new culinary concept Casa Calavera, thanks to another Rockwell Group collaboration.
McCabe hints that soon he will use his nightlife background to take on the hotel world. “We’re an experience company at our core,” he says, “whether those experiences are dining, nightlife, or hotel-oriented, we want to be the best in everything we do. Every day we edge a little closer.”
