Charles Khabouth

Bechara "Charles" Khabouth is a Lebanese Canadian nightclub owner, restaurateur, music promoter, and hotelier. Controlling several Toronto-based hospitality properties and venues, he's been dubbed the "King of Clubs" due to his influence on the city's nightlife. In addition to Toronto, he also has venues in Niagara Falls, Montreal, and Miami Beach.

Khabouth manages his properties through INK Entertainment, a company he founded while opening nightclubs in the mid-1980s, his first ventures in the hospitality business. He initially made his name via Stilife, a ritzy nightclub for the posh crowd at the corner of Richmond Street West and Duncan Street in Toronto that ran from 1987 until 1995 triggering what eventually developed into the city's Entertainment District. Still, Khabouth is best known and widely lauded for his association with The Guvernment, a large 60,000-square foot nightclub complex he launched in 1996 and molded into a famous spot that successfully channeled the energy of the local rave scene during mid to late 1990s and later continued as the focal point of Toronto's electronic dance music scene.

Parallel to nightlife, almost immediately after establishing himself with clubs in the late 1980s, Khabouth also began launching upscale restaurants in Toronto, most of them as business partnerships either with local celebrity chefs or various Toronto restaurateur.

By early 2010s, Khabouth decided to enter the hotel aspect of the hospitality industry by announcing construction of Bisha Hotel & Residence, an upcoming 100-room boutique hotel on Blue Jays Way in downtown Toronto's Entertainment District set to open in spring 2016.

Early life Khabouth was born in Beirut during early 1960s to father Antoine Khabouth who worked in hospitality and mother Margaret who took care of the household that in addition to young Charles consisted of his older brother and sister. to William Nader, a successful Beirut accountant and close family friend. However, realizing it would take years to build a name in fashion, he zeroed in on the nightclub business as his next area of interest. However, the venue quickly became a hotspot for the burgeoning rave culture in Toronto due to its vast space, rather than attracting its initially intended high-end crowd.

Restaurants Immediately after his Stilife nightclub made a splash in the late 1980s, Khabouth began opening high-end restaurants in Toronto, seeking to transfer some of the upscale vibe from Stilife into the dining setting. However, especially when compared to his involvement with nightclubs, he's struggled for decades for similar recognition in the dining arena. Most of the criticism centers on the notion that his restaurants feel too much like nightclubs and are excessively flashy with too little substance i.e. exceptional food. Also, the fact that his late 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s eateries, some of them launched to major fanfare, only lasted a few years before either him pulling out of the venture or the venue altogether folding only further fueled the criticism.

Despite significant investment and high profile launches, it wouldn't be until his partnership with Hanif Harji, a collaboration that began in early 2010s yielding 9 active restaurants as of late 2015, that Khabouth's dining venues such as Patria and Byblos have gotten very enthusiastic reviews for their food primarily.

Personal In 1998, Khabouth married Libby Eber whom he first met during early 1990s while she worked as a hostess in Acrobat, a restaurant he co-owned with Franco Prevedello. They had two kids, son Charlie and daughter Maya, before divorcing in mid 2000s.