The first time we met Eric Langan, President and CEO of Rick’s Cabaret International, Inc., he treated us as welcome guests and gave us a cordial tour of his New York establishment, from the strippers’ locker room in the basement to the main floor and the handsome restaurant area on the second floor to the VIP rooms on the third where curtains are available for a more discreet patronage for customers. The staff, or non-entertainers, were all elegantly attired, and even the ladies all wore floor-length gowns.

Apart from the finery, we found in Langan a down-to-earth straight-shooter who takes and gives no bull. Even as he proudly mentioned Rick’s was the only gentlemen’s club to be publicly traded on the NASDAQ, his real pride and joy rests in his children who he visits almost every weekend in Texas.

As the executive recounted stories of his past life and enumerated events that shaped his current present, including his firsthand experience with the law, SexHerald found in Langan a man who is devoted to his line of work and desires to raise the bar in a profession that has moralists and mainstream media running for cover.

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SexHerald: So, what were the deciding factors that made you end up in the line of gentleman’s clubs? Do you have an entertainment background?

Eric Langan: Actually, I was dating a dancer when I was in my 20s. I was hanging out at the club every night. I was watching all the money the club was making. We shared an apartment and we had six women living with us who we were taking to work everyday. I thought, ‘We’re taking them to work; why don’t we take them to work in a club that we own?’ Basically, I sold my baseball card collection and leased an old club in Fort Worth, Texas and opened up and did very well.

SH: Were you born and raised in Dallas-Fort Worth?

Langan: I was actually born in Illinois. We moved to Dallas when I was young and lived there until I was 23.

SH: Were you a public-school child?

Langan: Yes. We moved a lot when I was young. I was always having to make new friends so nightclubs: this is all pretty easy for me.

SH: Were you an army brat?

Langan: No, my dad would open a business and sell it or close it, move on and build something else. So, we just moved a lot. He was going to open a restaurant and help me with business but that fell through. My dad owns a lot of restaurants. When I was young and we moved to Texas, he started getting into other businesses.

SH: So what was it like being in your 20s and selling your baseball card collection?

Langan: Well, when you’re 21 you know everything. So, it’s easy, right? I worked about 17 hours a day, six days a week. I did everything from serving drinks to whatever needed to be done. At that point, you’re doing everything. At that time, I was arrested 13 times in the first three or four weeks we were open for operating too close to a residence. We were in violation of ordinances that were considered unconstitutional, but the local Neighbors’ Association decided they were going to have the city enforce the ordinances anyway. We got a lot of publicity on MTV; it just packed the place. It was good advertisement. We took the money there and poured it into a club in Texas. My first club was 1,600 sq. feet. It was 80-ft. long and 20-ft. wide. It was very small. The women come in, put on their G-strings or thongs, play a few songs and dance on stage. The bartender was the DJ with a little microphone.

SH: When did you move from Texas to New York?

Langan: We got here last October. We’ve been staying in hotels. I wanted this building across from the club because when I was in Minnesota, I actually set up an apartment in the basement of the club and stayed in there for three months. Here, I wanted to be able to leave the building. I’m very hands-on and in the open. I want to be there, I want to make sure everything’s right, teach the employees to do things.

SH: Why did you choose New York?

Langan: Well, we were looking at Las Vegas, originally. When Arthur Goldberg was still in charge of the company, we were a shoo-in for the Ritz at Caesar’s Palace. When Arthur died, the Hilton people came back in and basically eighty-sixed the deal. So, the next logical choice was New York. We needed a major market, a flagship location, a place where I can bring financial analysts, brokers and club managers to show them how we would consolidate within the industry and create a national chain. What we really want to do is a cross between Hooters and Hard Rock Café. We want the merchandising of Hard Rock Café and we want the brand name recognition and sex appeal of Hooters.

SH: Imagine yourself in ten years. All the capital investments have come through. How many cities would Rick’s be in?

Langan: Thirty to forty, all in major markets. Some of the markets will obviously take longer to be available.

SH: Have you set your sights on the international level?

Langan: In ten years? Probably. We’ll be looking at major cites. We’ve talked to some folks in South America, like Argentina, Brazil. We’ll probably only deal with partners with other people’s capital. I’m very wary of investing our money in South America right now. I think you really need to have people that are local who know the government and who knows the climate. The climate changes down there.

SH: Any other places?

Langan: We’ve looked at London, at Canada. In fact, I’ve looked at several locations in Canada in the past. At that point, maybe Mexico City.

SH: You mention “we” when talking about a department. Who’s the “we?”

Langan: I always say “we.” There’s no “I” in “team.” I’m from the School of Hard Knocks. My business education was very, very expensive. My law degree [lawyer] cost me about $275 an hour on average and thousands and thousands of dollars on top of that. My accounting is probably about $185 an hour. So, I kind of have Henry Ford’s philosophy: I need to know enough so I don’t get myself in trouble, but I don’t have to be the expert, because I can hire the expert. And we always try to hire good people.

SH: So, is there a “we” in “team?” Is there a significant other in your world?

Langan: No. I was married and recently divorced about five years ago.

SH: Any kids?

Langan: Yes. Two young boys: a five-year-old and a nine-year-old down in Houston. I moved to Houston when I was 23. Houston will probably be my main home. All my family’s down there.

SH: How often do you see your children?

Langan: On the weekends pretty much, except only once in August and one time in September. Then we’ll get back on our routine.

SH: How long have you been a single man?

Langan: A little over four years.

SH: The question that’s probably formed among the readers’ minds right now is: What’s it like to be a single man in his prime working in an environment where you’re surrounded by many young good-looking ladies?

Langan: There’s never a dull moment. The reality of it is once I took on this New York project, it was very hard. I’m so work-intent. I have a girlfriend in Houston where we were on/off during the last four years. When I’m not so work-intense, we would get together for three or four months then we’d break up for three or four months. She’s attending school right now, so her workload is intense as well. I’m single half a year and I consider myself taken half a year. But, I’m married to my work. I want to consolidate this industry. I look at this industry as lagging behind. We have about a 15-year lag compared to casinos. It was very fragmented, it was very Ma-and-Pa-ish, corporate America started coming in, couple of companies went public like Rick’s, we’re starting to see bigger chains suck up all the valuable locations, just like casinos did. I think you’re going to start seeing more of them go public; you’re gonna start seeing consolidation of those public companies; and, over the next ten years, you’re gonna get to the point where there’s probably less than ten operators or around ten operators of the major locations – all trying to brand and market a national chain, like Harrah’s and MGM.

SH: Looking back, what are some of the funniest moments you had in your strip clubs, gentlemen’s clubs or whatever you want to call them?

Langan: Everyone calls them something. I call it a strip club sometimes. In New York, it’s a strip club. In Houston, it’s a gentlemen’s club. In Charlotte, it’s something else. Everyone calls it something different. I just call it work.

I guess one of the funny things is in the old days women weren’t allowed in strip clubs. And the reason they didn’t allow women in strip clubs is because they would come in and drag their husbands out by their hair. The only reason women went to strip clubs was to look for their husbands and drag them out. I think some of those experiences are the funny ones, when a woman would sneak past security, and a guy is getting a dance and all of a sudden, he’s being dragged out. Nowadays, it’s the guy sitting in a chair and the wife’s getting a dance. So, times have changed.

SH: Why’s the wife getting the dance?

Langan: Because MTV rocks. You know, MTV has taught an entire generation of women that bisexuality is okay. And actually, they’ve taken it further than that. MTV made bisexuality cool.

SH: So, what are some traumas your business has endured in the past decade or so?

Langan: We had two fires in 1998. It was arson. They burned about 14 clubs in Houston in ’ 97-’ 98. They tried to blame me. Yeah, like I’d burn down my most profitable location that was under-insured. We learned a very valuable lesson, though. When the second fire happened, then they were REALLY looking at me. Because after the first fire, I looked at all the mistakes I made and, of course, I corrected them. So, when the second fire happened, we were fully insured. But, that location was making money. It was making over $ 30,000 a month. Why would I burn down a location that was making $ 30,000 a month? It makes no sense. And we could never reopen once it burned. Because we had a parking exemption, then they passed all the laws and changed the parking. In May of 1998, after Cinco de Mayo, at about 6: 30 or so in the morning, they set fire to the club. Seeing the employees all crying because all of a sudden they’re without a job; the dancers having lost all of their clothes that were in the lockers; that was probably one of the worst moments for me. There were other moments. We had a club in New Orleans that opened in early ’ 97. This was before I merged with Rick’s. I merged with Rick’s in 1998. It was open for about four weeks then we closed it. We just realized we were in the buffer zone. Seven-hundred block of buffer zone. Straight people don’t go past 700 and gays don’t go below 800. So, if you’re in-between 700 and 800, guess what?

SH: You’re in no man’s land.

Langan: Exactly. Half a million people stop at the corner; you can’t get them to walk 41 feet. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.

SH: Is there anything that can drag you away from this place that seems to have chains on you 24/7?

Langan: Just my kids. Those boys can drag me along. If they call, you know, ‘I gotta go.’ My kids are my hobbies. We go fishing, we go to Six Flags a lot, we go jet skiing. If I’m not at work, I’m usually with them.