A top official from the Bengaluru firm said on Tuesday, August 17, that Playboy Enterprises is re-entering the country with Jay Jay Capital that will invest over Rs 800 crore over the next four years to open Playboy-branded clubs and cafes in all major cities in India.
He further added that the beer gardens will be coming up within the next three quarters.
Earlier in the day, in a joint statement, Ben Kohn, the chief executive of PLBY Group that owns Playboy brands, said the group has entered into an exclusive master franchise deal with Jay Jay Capital.
The statement did not mention anything about the status of its franchise deal with PB Enterprises, though.
Earlier in April 2013, the government in the tourist hotspot of Goa refused permission for promoters to open the country’s first playboy club in a 22,000 square-foot open-air property on upmarket Candolim beach.
The government of Goa barred the club from opening in one of India’s most famous party locations on technical grounds.
The then Chief Minister of Goa Late Manohar Parrikar told the state assembly that licenses to run large beach shacks, that too the ones proposed by the Playboy club, could not be granted to companies, only individuals.
In a franchise deal with PB Lifestyles, Playboy Enterprises opened the first Playboy Club in the tony Lower Parel area of central Mumbai in late 2016. They opened the clubs in New Delhi and Hyderabad together with Playboy Beer Gardens in Pune, New Delhi, and Hyderabad.
Rohit Malhorta, chief executive of Jay Jay Capital, told PTI from New Delhi that their first Playboy Cafe will be ready by late December or early January. He also added that there is going to be a Playboy Beer Garden coming up in a 24000 sq ft area in Bangaluru, which should be ready by February/ March 2022.
He further added that he plans to take the Playboy-branded cafes, beer gardens, and nightclubs to all the major metros and some key tier-two metros like Pune and Chandigarh.
Many nightclubs will come up in New Delhi, followed by Mumbai, Kolkata, and Bengaluru, while the first three beer gardens will come in Bengaluru followed by Pune, Chandigarh, and Gurugram with micro-breweries, within the next three quarters. It is going to be an investment worth over Rs 800 crore, he said.
He said while a beer garden will need an investment of Rs 12-15 crore, the nightclub will need between Rs 10 and 20 crore, depending on the rentals/land cost. Mostly they buy the land and construct the property in their way.
