On any given sunny day at one of the 12 Nikki Beach clubs around the world, there are rows of day beds overflowing with models and a steady stream of rosé, and lots of chic resort wear, which is not coincidentally for sale at the gift shop. Oh, and dancing on tables is not only encouraged, the management endorses it.

“You go to Nikki's and you go there at two o'clock for lunch,” says Lucia Penrod, the cofounder, owner and CEO of Nikki Beach Hospitality Group. “You might stay till seven, eight o'clock. You drink. You dance on the tables. But then you go home and you have enough time to rest, recover and be ready the next day.”

Penrod’s recipe for success at Nikki Beach has changed little in the past three decades: Serve up overpriced food and drinks—with an emphasis on bottle service—and a sprinkle of celebrity in glamorous destinations along the global party belt, stretching from Ibiza to St. Barth. Penrod has run the $150 million (estimated annual revenue) beach club business for the past 8 years, after founding it with her late husband, Jack, in 1998. The Penrods built the original Café Nikki on South Beach as a tribute to his 18-year-old daughter, Nicole, who was killed by a drunk driver in 1997. They wanted the garden spot to inspire customers to “celebrate life every day because we don't know when we're not going to be here.”

The following year, the expanded the café to the beach, renamed it, and the first Nikki Beach was born.

“You never know when you're going to be called. Nobody comes out of this life alive,” says Penrod. “With all that pain, we decided that instead of mourning Nicole's life, we were going to celebrate her life. It wasn't born in a boardroom.”

Forbes estimates that Nikki Beach Hospitality Group pulls in net profits that are more than double most fine dining restaurants—nearly 25% compared to 5% to 10%. Penrod currently owns two Nikki Beach clubs outright—Saint-Tropez and Saint Barth. The rest are management agreements with local partners, but they all follow the general rule: the longer a guest stays, the more they are likely to spend.

Penrod owns 100% of the business, and Forbes values it at around $400 million. Beach club businesses don’t trade often, but in 2023 the hospitality group behind club-staurants such as Tao had a leveraged buyout for $550 million for 66 percent of the company, with an implied valuation of $820 million.

“I don't have investors. I don't have anybody tapping my shoulders saying, where is my check? Where are my profits?” says Penrod. “I make all the decisions.”

One decision that is out her hands, for now, is the future of the original Nikki Beach club in South Beach. That location could be closing soon amid a nasty dispute with the city and Carbone’s owner, Major Food Group, which is vying to take over the Nikki Beach space.

Penrod and her husband sued the city in 2023, alleging that there was an “unfair backdoor deal” to oust them from the lease they had for 30 years. Penrod continues to fight for it, against one of the world’s biggest luxury hospitality brands, Major Food Group, with more than 50 locations including the recently opened Carbone Riviera in Las Vegas.

“I couldn't stay quiet and I couldn't just let it go,” Penrod tells Forbes. “We did a lot for South Beach. Miami Beach made Nikki Beach and Nikki Beach in turn made Miami Beach. I'm fighting for our legacy.”

Penrod and her husband Jack, who died last year at age 85, had tried to block the new deal on the grounds that constructing multiple venues and a new underground parking lot would be an entirely new lease agreement that would require locals to vote. Penrod also questions whether the operators will actually be able to deliver the profits that the city has been promised (6.5% of Nikki Beach’s Miami profits have gone to the city as tax revenue since its start). She says she still hopes the city will decide to restart the request-for-proposal process and give her one last shot at One Ocean Drive’s next lease.

Even if Penrod loses when the civil case comes up for trial in June, she says Nikki Beach will never leave Miami and has been keeping her eye on potential new locations. At the same time, she is also reinventing herself. Alongside the Nikki Beach hospitality empire, she has four hotels and one residential development in the UAE, as well as a new dayclub brand remade in her image—Lucia by Nikki Beach.

The Nicaraguan-born Penrod moved to Miami in 1979 amid the overthrow of Nicaragua’s dictator, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, whose family controlled the country for more than 40 years. She met her future husband, who grew up on food stamps and wore clothing from the Salvation Army, when she came to work for him at the Jockey Club in Miami in 1984.

“It was not secure. Lots of drugs. Lots of crime. We helped build it up,” she recalls. “We went there when actually no bank wanted to give you any loans for anything. It was that bad. Nobody wanted to touch Miami Beach.”

The city of Miami Beach then approached Jack to help build up the area, and after a couple of years of negotiations, which Penrod was a part of as project manager, the city of Miami Beach granted a 40-year lease to build a $4 million club at One Ocean Drive. Once the club opened as Penrod’s Beach Club, she became its marketing and communications director.

Along the way, they started dating and were married in 1995. Three years later, the Nikki Beach concept took off, attracting surfers and other locals—and then models and celebrities, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Madonna, and Harrison Ford.

By 2002, the Penrods were in expansion mode, and opened their next two beach clubs in Saint Tropez and Saint Barth. Most of the beach clubs the Penrods were competing with at the time were independent, family-run small businesses. They were able to limit their spending and avoid taking on investors by picking a spot on Saint-Tropez’ Pampelonne Beach that was actually set back at the back edge of the sand, not too far from the sea. In 2008, Penrod became chief marketing officer, which she held for a decade until in 2018 she took over as CEO from her husband, who became chairman.

Not every club has worked out. There was a brief outpost in Coconut Grove in Miami, and agreements have ended with partners, including in Barbados and Montenegro. But Penrod says shutting down locations can be just as important as opening new ones: “My brand is strong enough that it's not going to be a big failure because I leave. No, I'd rather leave because they were ruining my brand,” says Penrod.

Penrod fearlessness is an asset as she charts future growth amid a highly competitive landscape in which successful restaurants look to extend their brands to more profitable parts of the hospitality industry, such as hotels and clubs. Nobu, for instance, has more than 50 restaurants around the world as well as more than 40 hotels—with more set to open in Bangkok, Madrid and the Maldives—as well as 20 residences worldwide. And Costas Spiliadis’ Estiatorio Milos burgeoning hospitality group operates 12 restaurants in addition to a hotel and a Milos at Sea yacht in Greece. Major Food Group, meanwhile, has Carbone Miami and operates the members-only club ZZ’s Club in the Miami Design District where sushi is flown in daily from Tokyo and first-year dues start at $30,000.

Win or lose in Miami, Penrod is securing her future by building something on its own. Her eponymous new brand Lucia by Nikki Beach is preparing to expand beyond its first location in Cannes, which Penrod owns entirely, and she will open a beach club in Marbella, Spain this summer. More destinations are in the pipeline, as Penrod sees the Lucia brand as a way to capture year-round partiers and more urban travelers with locations not necessarily tied to a beach. Instead of Nikki Beach’s barefoot “less is more” aesthetic, Lucia has a maximalist vibe. But expect the same jet-set destinations, DJ-driven vibe and plenty of celebrity guests.

And Nikki Beach, Penrod adds, is still expanding. Penrod has several locations in the pipeline, including a resort and residences in Baku, Azerbaijan where there’s already a beach club, as well as a resort, residences and beach club in Antigua. A resort and residences in Ras Al Khaimah in the UAE as well as a resort, residences and beach club in Muscat, Oman are also set to open soon. Penrod says she receives requests every month to bring Nikki Beach to new locations.

“Always be conscious of whatever you do in life,” says Penrod. “Do it with honesty. Do it with fun and the desire to live life to the fullest, because when we go, we don't take anything.”

© Forbes