Rande Gerber is the man behind the hotel bar craze that ruled 1990s nightlife.
He is the man behind the hotel bar craze that ruled 1990s nightlife. Since then, Rande Gerber has married a supermodel/tycoon (Cindy Crawford), become best friends with an Academy Award-winning actor (George Clooney) and most recently launched an ultra-premium tequila (Casamigos). The name means "house of friends" – Gerber's partners in this boozy venture are his aforementioned bestie and another pal, property developer Michael Meldman. Here, Gerber shares some secrets to his success, including why not to punch a paparazzo.
Keep it real: Part I
When I was in the restaurant and bar business, I followed a rule, which was that the places that I opened were places that I wanted to go to. I wasn't looking at what other people were doing or what was trendy at the moment. I think some of the mistakes that you see is when people build places that may not be something that turns them on, but they think it will turn other people on. They end up having to hire promoters to fill the places and there just isn't that authenticity. Even when I owned 30 places – Sky Bar, Whiskey, Whiskey Blue – they were all different, but they were all places that I genuinely wanted to spend time in. I was opening mostly in hotels, but still I knew it was important to create a place that would attract the locals as well as the people on business trips. And it's great for those people on business trips because they didn't have to leave the hotel to get the energy of the city. I have since sold all of my restaurants and bars to my brother and am really focused on the tequila business. Now I only have Café Habana in Malibu where I live. I held it because it literally is my local hangout.
Keep it real: Part II
Other brands have come to us and said: "You're growing so fast, Casamigos is everywhere. Will you do the same with our vodka or our whisky?" That is just not going to happen. This isn't a case of a celebrity putting his name on a product. We weren't even intending to start a business. Casamigos came about out of our own selfish desire to create the best, smoothest tequila for our own consumption. I think we went through about 700 bottles of samples over a two-year period. From that first bottle, it was so close, but we had the time and the patience to really make it perfect. As time went on, our friends started drinking it and they loved it, and then people were just asking for it. And now here we are. What I love about our company is that George, Mike and I are involved in every aspect of our business – creating the product, the bottle, the marketing. When there's authenticity, you don't have to come up with a story. Our tagline is "Brought to you by those who drink it." We live our brand – it's our lifestyle, it's all we drink.
Never let 'em see you snap
Attention from the photographers is part of my life and I think the best thing is to learn to deal with it. If we're going for coffee and the paparazzi are following you, we walk in, we get our coffee, we get back into the car and go to somewhere more private. The thing is that there are certain places [in Los Angeles] where there are always photographers, and if you stay away from those places, you're mostly all right. Of course, if you're not in the mood to be photographed, it can be frustrating, but if you let it get to you – that's the shot that they really want. What Cindy used to say to me is, "Just know that we're not going to come visit you in jail." When our kids were younger, photographers would try to get up close and be aggressive and push, and I would sometimes lose it on them. And Cindy would remind me that you can't go punching photographers – you'll go to jail.
Tequila is a team sport
The other day I was looking around the office and realizing nobody was ever in the liquor business before they started here. I like that. When I interview someone, I want to find out about their life, get a sense of their personality, their passion. Maybe I'm hiring for a certain job, but even if your job is marketing, I'm going to ask you for your opinion on other things – taste this, what do you think of this bottle? Once a week we have a meeting where everyone talks about what they're working on and everyone else contributes to the conversation. You play off each other, share thoughts and collaborate. Casa amigos means house of friends and that's how we work. We have lunch together every day; a couple of times a week we have drinks. There are no assigned desks – everyone just moves around. It's very social and creative.
This interview has been condensed and edited by Courtney Shea.