Nightclub impresario Victor Drai has transformed Sin City entertainment, and savvy son Dustin honors his father’s dynasty, while steering it toward a bright new future.
Drai: Kings of Las Vegas
While thinking about his 25-plus years in the Las Vegas nightclub industry, Victor Drai can’t help but smile.
“It has been a dream, and it’s been a lot of fun,” he says.
After a multi-decade career in fashion and entertainment — and producing films like cult classics Weekend at Bernie’s and The Woman in Red — he opened Drai’s Restaurant in the early ’90s in Beverly Hills. In 1997, on the cusp of his 50th birthday, he brought that magic to Las Vegas and ushered in an entirely new chapter of the city’s history in the most unlikely place — a former McDonald’s in the Barbary Coast.
“I was approached about opening a restaurant in Las Vegas. I came in for a fight, and I went to check out the space,” Victor recalls. “When I’m walking through the casino, I can smell the French fries, and then I had to take an escalator down to a McDonald’s.”
Unfazed by the current tenant, he saw incredible potential.
“Everybody thought I was totally crazy. Barbary Coast was the worst hotel on the Strip. We replaced a McDonald’s with a very high-end restaurant, and people thought I had totally lost my mind,” he says. “It was one of the most successful McDonald’s in the world, but they wanted to change the image of the hotel. They paid them a half-million dollars to leave. The rest is history.”
In 1999, Drai’s evolved into Drai’s After Hours. It changed the game — and not only as one of the first nightclubs in a casino. The revolutionary venue brought house music and bottle service, and for legions of discerning Vegas visitors, it has also delivered incredible memories. While continuing to operate his own successful establishment, Victor then opened Tryst and XS at Wynn Las Vegas as co-owner.
Throughout these years, Victor’s son, Dustin, has always been by his side.
“We are very close. I separated from his mom when he was very young, so he spent half of his time with me,” Victor says.
Growing up the son of Victor Drai was as glamorous as it sounds but also kind of normal.
“In my mind, he was a regular dad, but he was over the top. I grew up in L.A., but from the age of five years old — when my dad first opened Drai’s in Vegas — I was coming out all the time,” Dustin says. “We would go to the Orleans and see movies, and I remember the pirate show at Treasure Island. It never really kind of had that, ‘Oh wow, this is Vegas’ effect. It was just like, ‘Oh, that’s where dad works.’ I would go to Drai’s restaurant, and I’d sit there with the hostess, pick up the phone and take reservations. My dad never looked at me as a kid. He was always bringing me along and looking to me for input. And he was so proud to have me as a son. Even if he had a day full of meetings from 10 in the morning until 10 at night, I was there with him. He made sure that when I was around, I was his main focus.”
Dustin moved to Dallas to attend Southern Methodist University (SMU) in 2012 — the same year Victor signed the deal to operate a new club atop The Cromwell, which was taking the place of Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon — the Barbary Coast’s replacement. On breaks from college, Dustin kept up with its progress.
With the opening of The Cromwell, Drai’s went from the basement to the crown jewel with the 70,000-square-foot Drai’s Beachclub Nightclub, which is 11 stories above the Las Vegas Strip.
Discussing his May 2016 graduation from SMU, Dustin explains, “My dad left school when he was in eighth grade, so graduating college was a big thing in my family. I was the first one to graduate college — and within two days, I was out in Vegas.”
When Dustin arrived for his first day of work at Drai’s Beachclub Nightclub, he began his crash course training. That summer, he worked every job possible at the business.
“I was learning the ins and outs of everything, how to open and how to close the venue, how to do the reports, how to run the point of sale system, all of that,” he says.
While Dustin was getting his feet wet, Victor took notice of a bigger paradigm shift within the industry. He always believed the club should be the star of the night, but the tremendous new space was becoming difficult to fill on looks alone. Drai’s competitors up and down the boulevard were spending top dollar on DJs — something Victor was reluctant to do.
“You have to evaluate, and you have to move with the times and with what’s going on. In my career, I’ve moved from fashion to movies to nightclubs. I was used to paying my DJ $500 and they stay in the back of the room, and I tell him what to play,” Victor says. “This all changed.”
It was then that the king of “After Hours” house turned to hip-hop. For a businessman who says he doesn’t like to look forward or backward, Victor has done a pretty good job of predicting the trends.
The idea came up to book full-length concerts from hip-hop stars with the production value to match. “Make a real show,” Victor says.
Dustin shares, “The first live residency was The Weeknd back in 2015. We built a venue that is great for concerts without knowing it. You’re able to watch your favorite artists in this intimate nightclub setting, while still getting the full production of a concert. It just got better, and it evolved over, you know, eight years into what we do today.”
Drai’s Beachclub Nightclub transformed into a live concert destination for today’s biggest hip-hop and R&B stars. At a pivotal time in 2019, Dustin took on the role of vice president of marketing and entertainment for Drai’s Group, learning the entire universe of how to book and liaise with artists, as well handle as contracts, negotiations and deals.
Throughout this summer, Drai’s will host Meek Mill, Wiz Khalifa, Rick Ross, Big Sean, Lil Baby, Ne-Yo, 2 Chainz and more as resident artists.
Dustin, along with Brian Affronti and Philip Loomis, work as a team to run all Drai’s Group venues.
Victor created the places where we all want to party, but he also created an industry. He has worked with many of the same people for years, and they, too, have become family. Affronti has been part of the Drai’s team for more than 15 years, dating back to Tryst at Wynn, and has known Dustin for more than half his life.
“Brian has watched me grow up, and now we are partners, running this business,” says Dustin, who adds Victor isn’t retiring anytime soon!
“The relationship between him and I as father and son is really strong. But now, he and I, as business partners, have blossomed into a symbiotic relationship where he trusts me enough to run the day-to-day operations,” Dustin says.
“He was telling someone the other day, ‘I get bored, I show up to the office and Dustin’s taken over my office, and he has all these meetings, and I’m just kind of sitting there like, “OK, well, things are running smoothly.” And there’s not really much for me to do.’”
“He’s involved in every major decision and all the big picture things, and we talk every single day. But when it comes to all the minute details of running the actual business and the day-to-day operations, he tells people, ‘I’m no longer Victor Drai. I’m Dustin’s dad.’ Where we’re at now, I feel like is the most that he’ll ever retire. He’s able to enjoy his life the way he wants to enjoy it and not have to really stress, but still he enjoys working.”
Victor says, “Dustin knows me so well, better than anybody in the world. Better than myself almost. He knows when I am mad; he knows when I am good. He knows what my reaction will be. So that helped in a huge way to work together because he knows how I will react. Maybe I’m not going to be happy with it, or I’m not going to agree with him. He’ll approach me in a different way than anybody else. Many times he’s right, and I’m wrong.”
When the decisions get tough, Victor imparts some simple advice: “I say go for it, and see what happens. All my life, I’ve only worked on my instinct and my belief. If you do something from your heart and you fail, you’re OK with it. It’s not a big deal. You learn from it, and you move on.”
Dustin says, “It means that I have to work harder than everybody else. And I have to put in more time and more effort. And the biggest thing that I always told myself is that I don’t want anybody to think: That’s Victor’s son. I want people to think: That’s Dustin Drai. He works hard.”
“The best business advice my dad has given me is never be content, always continue to try and to continue to improve. So if something’s successful, how can you make it better? What changes need to be made? And don’t be afraid to make them. My dad has lived many lives. He was always reinventing himself over and over and was never afraid to take risks within his life to improve.”
What’s next for Drai’s? After almost a decade, the father and son are entertaining the idea of expanding into other markets.
“I think for us, everything needs to be right — the deal, the city, the partnership, the venue, the timing,” Dustin says. “In Vegas, we still have to run three venues. I’m super eager to expand — almost to the point where I’ll take a bad deal just because I want to expand. That’s kind of where the relationship between my dad and I is really helpful. He says, ‘No, that is a shitty deal. Don’t take that deal. We’ll find another one.’
“The right deal will come eventually. The brand is our name. I think there’s a bright future for it outside of Vegas. We’re continuing to improve in our city, and we’re so confident in the brand that we know it could be successful globally. We are excited to see what the future holds for the Drai’s name.”
Given the header image chosen, we thought it might be fun to close with this shot looking from the other direction. Granted, this image was taken at night, but many of us might say that Vegas does not really become Vegas until you experience it at night. So there’s that. If you want to visit yourself, we encourage you, or if you happen to manage a killer up and coming artist you think might be perfect for the venue, give Dustin a call. Tell him we sent you. Then tell him we want tickets.
