Thought I would share with you the result of our three hour meeting, I call this a lesson in dealing with the “really” rich; To protect the innocent(and avoid having my limbs removed) I will leave out the names(well, not the Prince, he isn’t from around this country anyways, hehe), seriously, this is not official or public knowledge yet !

We were four; One manager famed with having successfully managed four restaurants and nightclubs into profitability, one of those notably Bizarre Cafe, another fella(the guy who dreamed up this thing) who built Roxie’s in WPB, our “restaurant/nightclub” real estate agent who has a very “Ivy League, Queen’s English” accent, and …drum roll… me.

They were six; The owner of the club we are looking to lease(I thought initially buy but I was wrong), the two co-owners of City Place, one notably Qatari Prince Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad (his name is even longer but heck if I remember), the other a rather impatient gentleman who just flew in for this, a fifth guy whom we’ve met before when scoping the club who is an accountant. The last fella seems like a concierge to the, obviously much richer than the rest of us, guy….

Our crew is waiting outside the City Place Starbucks across from the old Toy Store, then first owner arrives with his concierge(who is in a a very expensive looking Gucci black sports jacket), says he just flew in and wants a coffee, looks in the Starbucks and mentions “no, there is a huge line, I’ll pass”, I look in behind me, there are THREE people on line, his concierge says he will get one, not to worry. We head over to that area in the middle of City Place where you go into the garage, just under the escalator, on the left there are dark, industrial doors with no other marking but a small white plate that reads “Area 51″, I joke about aliens flying out as we open the door, no one thought I was funny, a dead silence ensues as we walk in, the first “Faux Pas” of the day is chalked up by yours truly…

With our teams facing each other, we proceed to explain our plans and the vision for this line of nightclubs, the manager tells them of all the celebrities that frequented his clubs including Ozzy Osborne, and how he hopes to attract more of the same into ours…. I thought their team was going to fall asleep, not one facial expression from them. I finally get my chance so I whip out my laptop and go through my presentation which I had been practicing and by now have become familiar with, and all of a sudden their team got very talky and interested, they really liked the concept and felt I gave a compelling presentation, OK, I balanced out for the corny joke. Things look good, after all we do have the funding, but my understanding is that we “have” to get this commitment from City Place for the 300,000 and ONE YEAR(that is correct) free rent, but it seems they are warming up to our proposal, so far so good right ?? I figured they all had their poker faces on and did not want to seem to enthusiastic although I did see their face light up with the presentation, maybe it was all the gorgeous girls we used in the slides, who knows !!

In the middle of our meeting waltzes the Prince with an entourage, and the nightclub owner, all laughs and giggles and we all wondered why we were not invited to that party ! The entourage leaves, the Prince and the club owner remain… Anyway, he seemed a bit rude and condescending, more so than in NY(only met him briefly for about 30 seconds there) where we met with our other investors(the ones putting up the REAL $$), one of them the best friend of our fella and the CEO of a very well known Investment Firm. The prince proceeds to ask in a rather rude way; “Well we get the technology part and that was exciting, but I want to hear about the club, inside the club, I am only interested in that. What will be unique and what will keep all these people who will be flocking in the first time, coming again?” - Since that was a question for our other two partners the realtor and I did not reply, but astonishingly, neither one of them (the manager of the clubs and the builder) had a good answer, I can only imagine they were totally intimidated by this guy, discreetly the realtor and I looked at each other in a bit of horror as we realized they were both stumbling and neither one of us could throw in a life saver, that was their baby and we knew nothing about that end. The looks in the room got very different and I felt a tinge of embarrassment as I could sense the change of mood in there….

While all this is taking place the fella who flew in had been paging the business plan and stops cold, almost slams the plan closed and half laughing blurts out; “Oh, so you are here to ask for money !!”, and we say, “Well yes, I thought you all knew that !”

Apparently our realtor had sent them our request asking for 300,000 and TWO YEARS free rent for this place and he claimed he never(or so he says, I think he was playing poker with us) read it, he proceeded to stop the meeting by saying this was a “non-starter” and maybe we should go back, decide what we will be that which separates us from the rest(well I thought we just explained this, our software integration WAS the hook), he picked up his Blackberry(oh do I want one of those), started making calls, so at this stage we had our cue and commenced our farewells as we exited having been handed our hats…..

Our main principal felt he had been literally slapped in the face with the business plan and simply took off, and we all headed to the nearest exit….