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meet the judge: abe taylor
MEET THE JUDGE
Abe Taylor of the DHG Group Downtown Hospitality Group (DHG) is a team of multi-disciplinary hospitality experts with deep restaurant, bar, lounge, and nightclub experience. Our concepts originate in the downtowns of major metropolitan areas. One of the founding partners, Abe Taylor, serves as a judge for the PR%F Awards and recently shared the story of DHG and its successes in the food and beverage industry.
We were able to agree to a deal with the original ownership group to take an equity stake in the business. From there, DHG took off. Today DHG has 18bin in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Sky Lounge connected to Amway in Orlando, with more being added to our portfolio. As our operations have expanded, we added two other partners, Daniel Mihai, our Creative Director; Daniel Guerrero, our operating partner; Doug Rotondi, our Director of Restaurants; and Rose Aharonian, Director of Sales.
HOW DID DHG BEGIN? The story of Downtown Hospitality Group began in 2020. There are three founding partners, Michael Perry, Greg Costello, and myself. In August 2020, shortly after the pandemic started, we found 18bin. Since March, it had been closed, and we knew we wanted to open it back up.
YOUR GROUP REOPENED 18BIN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PANDEMIC, AND YOU STILL KEPT IT OPEN. LET’S TALK ABOUT IT. We reopened 18bin in September 2020. The venue saw some business flow but was still slow