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The RCI Story

Highlights

  • Founded in 1983, we pioneered elegant gentlemen’s clubs based on powerful brands, quality environments, beautiful entertainers, and excellent restaurants
  • Since our IPO in 1995, we have used our expertise to build RCI into a portfolio of well-managed, high cash-flowing nightclubs and sports-bar restaurants
  • Today, the company’s portfolio includes subsidiaries that own and operate more than 60 nightclubs and sports-bar restaurants
  • Larger units are in major cities, such as New York, Chicago, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston, Miami, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Denver, St. Louis, Charlotte, and Pittsburgh
  • Smaller locations are spread through the South and Southwest
  • RCI also owns ED Publications, Inc., the leading media company serving the multi-billion dollar adult club business with industry websites, magazines, and trade shows
  • Investors are attracted to our strong cash flow, operating margins, and local laws that create high barriers to entry in the gentlemen’s club business

Key Strategies

  • Nightclubs: There is a universe of approximately 2,000 clubs from which RCI would consider acquiring through its subsidiaries on a selected basis. Many owners plan to retire in the years ahead. With access to financing, RCI is focused on acquiring through its subsidiaries proven, cash-flowing clubs.
  • Sports-Bar Restaurants: Leveraging its expertise, RCI, through its subsidiaries, has developed and is expanding the rapidly growing Bombshells chain of military themed sports-bar restaurants, which attracts a wide demographic of men, women, and families.
  • Expertise: RCI subsidiaries have extensive experience in nightclub and sports-bar restaurant development, marketing, management, point of sale and information technology, and security.
  • Cash Flow: RCI is focused on growing its free cash flow per share (net cash from operating activities less maintenance capital expenditures divided by shares outstanding).
  • Capital Allocation Strategy: Our capital allocation strategy provides disciplined guidelines on when and how we should use our free cash flow to expand our portfolio of nightclubs and sports-bar restaurants, repurchase shares, or accelerate payments on our debt; provided, however, that we may deviate from this strategy if the opportunities warrant.

Major Brands

  • Rick’s Cabaret: Elegant gentlemen’s clubs with restaurants
  • Tootsie’s Cabaret: World’s largest adult nightclub with 76,000 square feet
  • Scarlett’s Cabaret: High-end, high-energy “party” style adult nightclubs
  • Vivid Cabaret: High-end, high-energy “party” style adult nightclub
  • Club Onyx: High energy clubs playing top hip hop music
  • Jaguars Club: Lively BYOB clubs for blue collar patrons and the college crowd
  • XTC Cabaret: Lively BYOB clubs for blue collar patrons and the college crowd
  • Diamond Cabaret: Elegant gentlemen clubs with restaurant and cigar lounge
  • PT’s Showclub: High-energy “party” style adult nightclubs
  • Baby Dolls: All-American Rock/Country themed adult clubs
  • Chicas Locas: Vibrant Latin Fusion themed adult clubs
  • Bombshells: Military themed, sports-bar restaurants for a great time and great food

Timeline

  • 1983: Robert Watters founds the company in Houston with the innovative Rick’s Cabaret gentlemen’s club concept
  • 1995: Rick’s Cabaret International becomes a publicly traded company through an IPO on Nasdaq
  • 1998: Rick’s Cabaret International merges with the XTC Cabaret chain, which is controlled by Eric Langan, who eventually becomes RCI’s president and CEO. Focusing on service, Rick’s Cabaret International, through acquisition and internal growth, builds a portfolio of clubs that are friendly to both customers and entertainers, and targeted at different demographics
  • 2005: Rick’s Cabaret International brings its concept to Manhattan, acquiring through its subsidiaries and remodeling an existing club and renaming it Rick’s Cabaret New York. “Critics thought it would never work,” says CEO Langan. “But we knew it would. We did it again in 2014 with Vivid Cabaret New York aimed at younger professionals, and in 2016 with Hoops Cabaret and Sports Bar targeting sports fans. Today, all three are considered top clubs in the city.”
  • 2007: Rick’s Cabaret International acquires through its subsidiaries Tootsie’s Cabaret in North Miami, the country’s largest adult nightclub, with 76,000 square feet
  • 2013: Rick’s Cabaret International opens its first Bombshells Restaurant & Bar utilizing property a company subsidiary already owned
  • 2014: Rick’s Cabaret International changes its name to RCI Hospitality Holdings, Inc., reflecting the company’s larger business
  • 2015: RCI Hospitality Holdings launches its focus on free cash flow and its capital allocation strategy
  • 2021: RCI Hospitality Holdings announces the acquisition of a group of 11 clubs in six states and related real estate for $88.0 million, the largest in the company’s history
  • 2023: RCI Hospitality Holdings announces the acquisition of a group of five clubs and related real estate for $66.5 million, the second largest in the company’s history

Eric Langan, President & CEO

  • Eric Langan joined the company in 1998, leading it since 1999.
  • He acquired his first club in Texas at age 21 with $40,000 from the sale of his baseball card collection. “I was married and divorced at a very young age at 19,” Langan told Barstool Finance in an interview. “My friends started taking me to a strip club in Fort Worth, Texas, to cheer me up. I started dating an entertainer there. By the time I was 21, I had decided that I didn’t like the way the clubs treated her and her friends and wanted to open our own club. I didn’t have a lot of funds. But I had a baseball card collection. I took it to a convention. They gave me $44,000 in cash for it. The rest is history.”
  • Later, he acquired a controlling interest in RCI and became CEO, following its merger with his own publicly traded Taurus, Inc., which owned the XTC Cabaret chain.
  • Under Mr. Langan’s direction, RCI has become the leading consolidator in the adult nightclub industry, as well as expanding the company into related businesses, such as sports-bars restaurants.
  • Mr. Langan is a member of the Board of Directors of Adult Club Executives (ACE), the major trade organization for the gentlemen’s club industry, and is considered an expert in the business.
  • He grew up in Peoria, IL, where his father was a police officer. Later, the family moved to the Dallas area, where Eric began his entrepreneurial career. By age 16, he had developed his own advertising media company, distributing promotional flyers for local businesses.
  • Mr. Langan’s strategies include finding self-motivated, entrepreneurial managers; implementing strict management and cost controls; focusing on increasing cash flow; and creating shareholder value.

Did You Know?

  • Fortune named RCI to its 100 Fastest Growing Companies List.
  • IR Magazine Awards named RCI a finalist in two categories — “Best Retail IR Strategy” and “Best Use of Technology & Social Media for IR” — for the company’s Twitter strategy.
  • Leading entertainment sites Gothamist, Thrillist, Time Out, Trip Savvy and Yelp have named Rick’s Cabaret and other RCI clubs to their Best Strip Club lists.
  • Zagat’s New York Nightlife and Time Out New York TONY 100 list of fine Manhattan dining establishments have featured Rick’s Cabaret steakhouse restaurant.
  • The company has been profiled in The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, MarketWatch, USA Today, New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune and other publications.
  • Restaurant Business magazine named Bombshells Restaurant & Bar to its “The Future 50” list of fastest-growing concepts.
  • BuzzFeed News called Club Onyx “Houston’s Most Famous Strip Club.”