Sam Nazarian - Inside the Mind of One of the World's Leading Hospitality Revolutionaries

Who is Sam Nazarian? — Sam Nazarian is a visionary entrepreneur and global hospitality and real estate leader who founded sbe in 2002, building an influential portfolio of luxury hospitality, restaurant, nightlife, and lifestyle brands such as SLS, Hyde, Delano, Katsuya, Casa Dani, Cleo, The Bazaar by Jose Andres, Doheny Room and Mondrian, to name a few. In 2020, after a major hotel acquisition deal with global hotel group Accor Hotels, Nazarian shifted his focus to culinary innovation, retaining full ownership of sbe’s Disruptive Restaurant Group and launching C3 (Creating Culinary Communities), a technology-driven food platform transforming food halls, ghost kitchens, and delivery.

In 2024, Nazarian launched Project HQ Hotels & Residences with Wyndham Hotels & Resorts and The Estate, a luxury longevity platform developed with Tony Robbins and other global partners. Combining hospitality, technology, wellness, and innovation, his ventures aim to redefine how people live, dine, travel, and thrive. His accolades include Fortune 40 Under 40, Man of the Year from the Diabetes Foundation, and two-time Hotelier of the Year, among many other honors.

Elevated Magazines sat down with cover star Sam Nazarian for an inside conversation on his current project roster, his background, his evolution, and what contributes to his daily success.

Elevated Magazines: Why did you start sbe? And what is the future of sbe?

Sam Nazarian: I started sbe because I saw hospitality being treated as separate businesses when it should have been one language. A hotel, a restaurant, a bar, a residence: to me those were never different disciplines. They were different rooms in the same house. I’d spent time investing in boutique properties around Los Angeles before sbe existed, and what became clear was that nobody was building the connective tissue between them. So, in 2002, I built it myself.

The future of sbe is a return to that same instinct with a sharper point of view. We built our first chapter on energy and access – pioneering the lifestyle category. This chapter is about pioneering again – in luxury and lifestyle. 

With our smart lifestyle HQ brand – we give owners a fast, capital-efficient path to a brand with real culinary and cultural weight behind it, built primarily through conversions with select ground-up developments where the opportunity calls for it. Alongside that, The Estate is where we’re building for the long arc. Luxury longevity hospitality is the category where the entire ethos and experience is created through the lens of longevity. Our culinary experience is an integral part of both HQ and The Estate. Our vision and DNA hasn’t changed. We’re still building spaces people organize their lives around.

Elevated: Tell us about Katsuya, the brand, how it began, and the fact you are celebrating 20 years of this staple, world renowned restaurant concept.

Nazarian: Katsuya began in 2006 as a partnership between Chef Katsuya Uechi and Philippe Starck, and it changed what Japanese food meant to an American audience. Katsu-San took dishes people thought they understood, like crispy rice and spicy tuna, and turned them into something the entire industry would spend the next two decades imitating. Philippe gave that food a stage worthy of it. Together they built something that didn’t exist before them.

Twenty years later, we’re marking that milestone under different circumstances than any of us expected. We lost Katsu-San this past June. That changes how I talk about this anniversary. This isn’t just a celebration of a concept that’s lasted two decades. It’s a commitment to carrying forward the standard he set, in every kitchen that carries his name, for as long as we’re fortunate enough to run them. That’s the responsibility that comes with an anniversary like this one.

Twenty years in, his standard is the one we still build to, and it will be the one we build to for the next twenty.

Elevated: What openings are on the horizon for you? Real estate ventures can be discussed here as well.

Nazarian: We have a full pipeline moving right now under HQ Hotels, and it’s a genuine mix of both conversion and greenfield. Hodges Bay in Antigua and The Monarch in New Orleans are conversions, taking properties with real bones and layering our brand, culinary program, and Wyndham distribution over them. Cas en Bas in St. Lucia is the other side of that coin: a ground-up flagship on Cap Estate with freehold residences, and it’s become our clearest example of what we can build when we start from the ground up. In Miami, Thesis Hotel is live today with two F&B concepts open and operating under our team. 

What’s coming next at that address is Katsuya and a new Mediterranean concept from Chef Fabio Trabocchi, called Salina. I won’t get ahead of the calendar on when those open, but they’re both in motion, and that pairing, my next Miami move and Fabio’s return to the market, is going to be a story on its own. Katsuya and Salina aren’t isolated to Miami either. You’ll see both concepts layered into other properties across the portfolio as we grow, including V Capri in Palm Springs. 

The Estate pipeline is global, robust and also includes both conversions and new build projects. We’ll be announcing several deals this year spanning from Florida to the Caribbean, Europe and the Middle East. Both of these brands are ramping up fast and I’m incredibly proud of our team and what we’re building in the marketplace today. 

Elevated: Tell us about your journey from sbe since inception for readers that may not be familiar with Sam Nazarian and your backstory.

Nazarian: I didn’t come up through hospitality school or a hotel management track. I came up through building and selling a telecom distribution business before I was 25, and then real estate with my father. Hospitality found me through those investments. I’d put money into boutique hotels around LA, in Santa Monica and Beverly Hills, and the more time I spent in that world the more I saw an opportunity nobody was building toward: treating hotels, restaurants, and nightlife as one connected ecosystem instead of three separate businesses competing for the same customer’s attention.

I founded sbe in 2002 with that idea. Over the years that followed we built and scaled brands like SLS, Mondrian, Delano, Hyde, and Katsuya into a global footprint. In 2020, I made the decision to sell our hotel management platform while keeping our food and beverage operations, which let me step back and think about what the next version of this company should look like. That thinking became HQ Hotels in 2023: a platform built for this moment in the industry, focused on conversions, culinary partnerships, and a slower, more intentional definition of lifestyle than the one I built my name on twenty years ago. And The Estate, a brand that is changing the way the industry defines luxury hospitality.

Elevated: Who is Sam Nazarian? How would you describe yourself in an elevator pitch?

Nazarian: I’m someone who’s spent over two decades building spaces where hospitality, culinary talent, and design come together as one experience instead of three separate ones. I founded sbe in 2002 and built it into one of the defining names in lifestyle hospitality. This became the blueprint followed by so many of the top hospitality groups you hear of today.

Currently, through HQ Hotels and The Estate, I’m doing it again with a sharper focus on longevity, wellness, culinary excellence and strategic partnerships. Our mission is to continually pioneer new categories in hospitality and always stay ahead of consumer behavior. If you’ve eaten at Katsuya, stayed at an SLS, or walked into a space defined by the intersection of hospitality and culture over the last twenty years, there’s a strong chance my fingerprints are on it somewhere.

Elevated: What are key business mindsets you apply to your daily life? Work ethic, mentality, etc.

Nazarian: A few things I come back to constantly:

Conviction over consensus. Some of the best decisions I’ve made were ones that didn’t have universal agreement in the room at the time. If you wait for everyone to agree, you’ve usually already missed the window.

Build the connective tissue, not just the asset. A hotel by itself is a commodity. A hotel connected to culinary talent, design, and a cultural point of view is a destination. I look for that connection in every deal.

Treat capital discipline and creative ambition as the same job. Early in my career those felt like competing instincts. They’re not. The most durable creative ideas are the ones built on a structure that can actually survive.

Legacy outlasts velocity. I built my first act on energy and speed. This next chapter is built on the belief that the brands worth building are the ones that will genuinely impact peoples’ lives for the better, not just the ones that generate the most noise this quarter.

Elevated: What advice would you give to those wanting follow your path?

Nazarian: Be curious. If you have the right idea and you have the consistency and commitment to be curious to learn as you go, you can get to altitude. The turbulence is what defines you and altitude will give you the satisfaction of success.  The model my businesses have always followed - see an opportunity. Fill a void. Get it to scale. 

Elevated: What is your quote to live by / words that drive you?

Nazarian:  If you have an instinct and an idea, stick with it.

With an uncompromising entrepreneurial instinct, Sam Nazarian is always ahead of the curve in creating and defining consumer trends and global lifestyle hospitality experiences. We are excited to continue to see what is next for the mogul and innovator.

Visit www.sbe.com to explore their properties and current happenings globally.