(NOTE: This story appears in the May 2025 issue of ED Magazine.)
Nestled in the cradle of downtown Austin sits The Red Rose Adult Nightclub, a venue known for attracting a predominantly younger crowd, satisfying the insatiable itch the viral youth are known for. Twenty-nine minutes north stands The Yellow Rose Cabaret, where a slightly more seasoned bunch comes in. Owner Jonathan Joseph has played a significant role in shaping Austin’s adult entertainment scene, owning two of the city’s most well-known venues, each with their own personalities while retaining a sense of familiarity.
“I was actually in school to be a cop,” recalls Joseph, with a slight chuckle, when he explains how he was brought into the adult nightclub scene. “I was already in the academy when I took a job at a strip club.”
Joseph started as front door security before stepping into a management position. That is where he met Eric Langan, RCI Hospitality Holding’s President and CEO, who subsequently acquired the club he was working in.
“I would go downtown with Eric, flyering cars and stuff for their business,” says Joseph, as he looks back on his humble beginnings in the industry. “He just kept telling me, ‘Man, you keep this up and you’re gonna do good, Jonathan, you just keep this keep this up.” As he continued in the industry, he created a small database of people to contact to fill clubs. So when he took a job as a manager at Sugars Cabaret he had no problem filling up the floor.
“I broke every nightly record at that location,” exclaims Joseph. However, filling the club is not the only thing he learned from being at the now-closed Sugars Cabaret for two years. “From there I quickly realized that other club owners were kind of old-school and set in their ways.
Overnight, we just increased sales. Now we’re doing almost $8 million in sales a year. We changed the game in Austin.
— Jonathan Joseph, owner of the Red Rose and the Yellow Rose
He wanted to change the gentleman’s club industry into more of a nightclub scene, open to everyone including single girls and married couples, and that is just what he did.
Joseph worked with what he had; by then he had already amassed 7,000 contacts in his database. He claims he could single-handedly bring in $30,000 on a random Tuesday night with a quick ring.
“It blew these club owners away because at the time we didn’t really have a lot of social media like Facebook and all that,” Joseph asserts.
At the time, his current partners, Mike and Jon Persinger, owned The Yellow Rose and offered him a job. Instead of taking the offer, Joseph proposed something else — he wanted to buy into the club and turn it around. A month later he owned a third of The Yellow Rose.
“Overnight, we just increased sales,” he says. “Now we’re doing almost $8 million in sales a year. We changed the game in Austin.”
From there he only built up, hiring the best he could find and creating a healthy work culture, “I take care of everybody and would do anything for my staff, we’re a team,” he says. In 2010, he acquired full ownership of the Yellow Rose. Ten years later he acquired The Red Rose in 2020, formerly known as Exposé. Unfortunately, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, they had a few setbacks.
“We were dead in the water,” states Joseph, recalling the few times he opened only to close back up again. After months of back-and-forth with the city, he finally permanently opened. Once open the club filled up almost instantaneously.
“I took what was 4,000 square feet of the Red Rose and turned it into the highest-grossing, most successful club in Austin, Texas,” Joseph says, noting that a new extension to the club has upped their game even further. “We’ve opened up The Red Rose Garden, in the back of the Red Rose. There’s an open space in the back, we have DJs, cabanas and bartenders, and it’s just such a sexy venue.”
Moreover, The Red Rose Garden will soon introduce a barbecue flare to its menu, shares Joseph, noting, “We’ll be the Red Rose Adult Nightclub and Barbecue which is super cool.”
His success has allowed him to diversify into other business ventures. In addition to owning The Red Rose and The Yellow Rose, Joseph also invested and created a partnership with Las Toxicas Gentlemen’s Club in Las Vegas, co-owned by Alan Chang and Keith Silfstein [Ed note: Chang and Silfstein appear as the cover story in the January issue of ED Magazine.] “We’ve been doing very well with that and we’re just looking to expand even further,” he says.
Joseph notes he has always been adamant about giving back by allowing others to own clubs as someone once did for him.
“I always remembered Eric Langan telling me, ‘It’s all about changing other people’s lives once you do good,’” Joseph recalls. “Now I give people the opportunity to be successful.”
As an owner, he prides himself on his work culture and team building. “You are never too good for your staff because your staff is everything in the club business,” he says. “If you don’t have a staff, then you have nothing.”
For more information, visit www.yellowrose.com or redroseaustin.com.
