Episode 12: How VCR Group is disrupting hospitality through food, community and culture

Hospitality is no longer just about opening a restaurant. The strongest brands today create experiences, communities, stories, products, memberships, and cultural moments that live far beyond the table.

In this episode of The Disruptors, Josh Capon and David Rodolitz of VCR Group share how they are building a hospitality platform that spans burgers, sushi, members clubs, blockchain, fine dining, live events, and scalable restaurant concepts.

Josh Capon and David Rodolitz are not trying to build a traditional restaurant group.

Through VCR Group, alongside founding partner Gary Vaynerchuk, they are creating a collection of hospitality concepts that move across categories, formats, and guest experiences. The group includes Capon’s Burgers, Bar Ito, Ito omakase, Little Maven, Flyfish Club, and additional concepts in development.

The episode begins at Fontainebleau Las Vegas, where VCR Group operates multiple properties. Capon’s Burgers brings Josh Capon’s burger reputation into a fast-casual format. Bar Ito offers a premium hand roll experience. Behind the wall in the Poodle Room, Ito omakase delivers an intimate 12-seat sushi tasting menu with fish flown from Japan.

That range is part of what makes the group unusual.

Most hospitality companies focus on one lane: quick-service, fine dining, nightlife, sushi, steakhouses, or members clubs. VCR Group is intentionally playing across several lanes, but not randomly. David explains that the team builds around categories where they have passion, credibility, and the ability to execute at a high level.

For Josh, burgers are deeply personal.

He is an eight-time Burger Bash champion and describes Capon’s Burgers as a brand built with heart, soul, and love. The burger is not just a menu item. It is an expression of his identity, credibility, and years of work in the culinary world. Opening at Fontainebleau Las Vegas and seeing his name in lights became one of the most emotional and rewarding chapters of his career.

The conversation also explores Flyfish Club, one of VCR Group’s most ambitious projects.

Flyfish Club began as a blockchain-powered membership concept. During a brunch at David’s home, Gary Vaynerchuk pushed the idea that NFTs and blockchain needed real utility. Instead of focusing on digital images or speculative value, the team focused on access, ownership, hospitality, and community.

The result was a members club that blended elements of Rao’s, Soho House, and digital asset ownership. VCR Group sold memberships on the blockchain and, according to David, generated around $15 million in membership sales in about one minute.

But turning that idea into a real club was far more complicated than the launch moment.

The team had to find real estate, build the space, maintain community engagement while the club was in development, create events before opening, navigate blockchain and non-blockchain memberships, and deal with regulatory complexity around a model that had not really been done before.

Flyfish Club eventually opened in New York as a 12,000-square-foot members-only hospitality space focused on food, programming, music, events, and community.

A major theme of the episode is that hospitality only works when it feels human.

Josh repeatedly comes back to relationships, gratitude, communication, and the emotional side of restaurants. For him, food is the final frontier because people gather around it in every culture. They celebrate around food, mourn around food, connect around food, and build memories around food.

David adds the operator’s lens. Every concept needs to be passionate, but it also needs to work as a business. The team watches what guests order, how they interact with dishes, what they share on social media, how food costs move, how pricing works, and how the menu needs to evolve. Restaurants are living, breathing businesses that need constant attention.

The episode also touches on what comes next.

VCR Group is preparing to scale Capon’s Burgers, with another location planned in New Jersey. The team is also developing Capon’s Chop House, expanding the Flyfish casual seafood concept, growing through the tennis circuit after working with the US Open, and exploring consumer packaged goods and condiment lines tied to Capon’s Burgers.

Across all of it, the central idea is clear: VCR Group is not building restaurants only. It is building hospitality IP.

Why this episode matters

This episode shows how hospitality is becoming bigger than restaurants.

Josh Capon and David Rodolitz are building in a world where food, brand, community, technology, entertainment, and experience all overlap. A burger concept can become a scalable brand. A sushi counter can become a destination. A members club can start on the blockchain and become a physical hospitality community. A restaurant group can become a portfolio of intellectual property.

That is what makes VCR Group interesting.

The episode also highlights the tension every modern hospitality company has to manage. Creativity matters, but so does execution. Passion matters, but so do food costs and operations. Community matters, but it has to be earned. Technology can create access, but the physical experience still has to deliver.

For founders, restaurant operators, investors, chefs, and brand builders, this conversation offers a clear lesson: there may be no true white space left in food, but there is always room for a better interpretation, a stronger culture, and a more thoughtful guest experience.

VCR Group’s approach is built around credibility. Josh has deep authority in burgers and hospitality. David brings brand, operations, membership, and business strategy. Gary Vaynerchuk brings cultural reach and modern brand-building instinct. Together, they are trying to create concepts that people do not just visit once, but want to belong to.

Watch the full episode to understand how VCR Group is building across burgers, sushi, blockchain, members clubs, and hospitality experiences, and why Josh Capon and David Rodolitz believe food is still one of the most powerful ways to create community.