In his prime, Richie Akiva could be found most nights holding court at one of his nightclubs — 1OAK or Butter or Up & Down, all Page Six fixtures in their heyday — and surrounded by the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Jay-Z, Rihanna and Paris Hilton.
He wasn’t just the club owner. He was the fun-loving guy throwing the party. He knew how to make it all super exclusive and keep celebrities happy and feeling protected. He was one of Leo’s best pals. He was even romantically linked to Heidi Klum at one point.
“At the end of the day there’s not many people in hospitality that can pick up the phone and call Rhianna or Jay Z — everyone will pick up his call,” one nightlife insider who knows Akiva well told Page Six.
Which made it all the more shocking last week when Akiva, 49, was arrested in connection with the alleged beating of a longtime friend, entertainment exec Michael Morriatti, with a metal pipe.
“He’s down bad right now,” the nightlife insider said of Akiva.
As Page Six’s Carlos Greer previously reported, Akiva and alleged henchman Justin Brown — said to have been a security guard at Up & Down — are believed to have entered a Soho home on January 7. While Morriatti slept in bed, he was allegedly hit over the head with a pipe and, according to insiders, was left with a broken nose and injuries to his shoulder and leg.
It was also reported that Akiva and Brown were accused of threatening Morriatti and making him transfer money via an app — allegedly over a dispute involving a painting.
Akiva, who pleaded not guilty to burglary and assault charges and was released on $50,000 bail, denied the allegations to Page Six.
“Richie fully welcomes and supports a thorough investigation into this matter and is confident that the full truth will prevail,” his representative said.
Indeed, people in club land find it hard to believe.
“All the years I’ve known him, I’ve never heard of incidents like this,” another industry source told Page Six. “This doesn’t sound like him. He’s a good person. I’m as shocked and horrified and just freaked out as much as anyone else.”
But the nightlife insider said Akiva is struggling with other issues, like how to stay relevant as he faces an evolving scene — and turning 50.
“I genuinely believe that Richie has a huge heart and is a good person,” the nightlife insider said. “I think he’s just a little lost at the moment. He’s made a couple of bad choices.”
In the aughts, few did it better than Akiva and his partners.
Akiva grew up in Tribeca and attended the private Dwight School on the Upper West Side, befriending the kids of A-listers — Liv Tyler, Raphael De Niro — and hitting the club-kid scene before he got into party promotion.
Sources say he’s always had a knack for making celebs feel comfortable — while never forgetting that they were stars.
“He’s very charming. He’s the best networking promoter in the world. He knows how to reach those A-List people — celebrities, models — and he’s good at keeping a relationship with them,” the industry insider said.
That came in handy in 2002, when he and business partner Scott Sartiano opened Butter, a Soho restaurant that felt like a nightclub and provided a backdrop for the show “Gossip Girl.”
In 2007, Akiva and Sartiano opened 1OAK (clever shorthand for one of a kind), which came to define the bottle-service era and looked like the pages of US Weekly come to life: Drake, Jay-Z, Pharrell Williams, Justin Bieber, Lenny Kravitz, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan could all be found on the ostrich-leather banquettes. Yankees Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter celebrated their 2009 World Series victory at 1OAK. Matt Harvey infamously partied there the night before he failed to show up for a Mets game in 2017.
Then came Up & Down, The Darby, G-Spa.
“He’s a very confident person. He doesn’t have any fears. He’s got that secret sauce,” the industry insider said of Akiva.
At its height, Akiva and Sartiano’s Butter Group was reportedly raking in $50 million a year, with hotspots in NYC, London, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Tokyo and Dubai.
But nightlife is a fickle industry and no one can stay hot forever. And over the past several years, Akiva has had an astonishing number of setbacks.
In 2018, four years after he had sold his shares in the Butter Group, Sartiano sued Akiva for $15 million, alleging Akiva had lied to him — claiming 1OAK and Up & Down were money pits and convincing Sartiano to let Akiva buy him out with a series of low-ball payments between 2015 to 2017, according to a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Akvia then sold what had been Sartiano’s shares to Canadian entertainment mogul Daryl Katz for $60 million, the lawsuit alleged.
Akiva hid his eight-figure transaction at the time because it “was inconsistent with what [he] was reporting to investors — that some of the clubs, including 1OAK NYC and Up & Down, were struggling financially and losing money,’’ the suit said.
The suit was dismissed last January.
Without the right business partner, the nightlife insider said, Akiva struggled.
“He’s not necessarily a businessman. He wants to show up with celebrities, he wants to party, he wants to curate the room — he wants to do the fun stuff. He doesn’t want to be in the office, handle paperwork, deal with lawyers,” the insider alleged. “That’s not his expertise.
“It’s OK that some people don’t want to do that. Just hire the people to do that for you.”
Also in 2018, Akiva and celebrated chef Marc Forgione announced plans to open the restaurant Davide, an 11,000-square-foot “clubstaurant” in the Meatpacking District. But the project was delayed and eventually fell through during the pandemic.
A year later, he ventured into fitness with the luxe gym BIA Force in NoHo, but that was short-lived.
His 1OAK, was evicted from its home in the Meatpacking District in 2022 — with Akiva’s 17th Street Entertainment LLC getting hit with a bill for $1.8 million in unpaid rent from pandemic lockdowns. (“It was resolved and the funds were ultimately recouped,” a rep for Akiva told Page Six. The court case was dropped in Feb., 2019.)
Akiva vowed 1OAK “come back in full force,” but it never happened.
Once buzzy Up & Down, a Rihanna late-night favorite, was another casualty of the pandemic, shuttering in 2021.
Private club The Ned, which Akiva launched in 2022 with investor Ron Burkle and Soho House founder Nick Jones, lost its liquor license — and its luster with celebs like Emily Ratajkowski and DiCaprio — a year later. In February 2024, Page Six reported that Akiva, who had been the brand and creative director was out over a financial dispute.
“He does an amazing job when he does his crowd — hip-hop, a Leo. It’s not geared towards what The Ned did,” said the industry source.
“For the past years, Richie has been bound by a restrictive non-compete following the sale of his half of his company two years before Covid, which prevented him operating in traditional hospitality in any meaningful way or using the 1OAK name,” Akiva’s representative said.
The nightlife source blamed some problems on Akiva’s tendency to be unresponsive.
“He doesn’t respond to phone calls, he doesn’t respond to emails, he doesn’t respond to texts. You have to chase chase chase — people who work with him get really tired of that. It feels really disrespectful, even though he doesn’t mean for it to be disrespectful,” the nightlife insider said. “That’s where Ron Burkle and these business guys have a tough time with him.”
Page Six reached out to Burkle for comment.
Insiders say Akiva was hoping he would have a big comeback opening a club in the old Canal Room space in Tribeca, but a deal never came to fruition.
In 2023, Page Six reported Akiva had “bad blood” with former Butter Group business partner Darren Dzienciol, leading to the two throwing competing parties at the Cannes Film Festival.
Sources also said that Akiva’s old bread-and-butter just feels stale at this point. Gen Z doesn’t drink as much as older generations and tend to turn their noses up at bottle-service swagger.
They say Akiva is trying to figure out where he fits into the NYC nightclub landscape now and how to bounce back.
“Richie’s reputation as one of the most connected figures in nightlife, fashion and culture is well earned, and it’s matched by how personally invested he is in the people around him,” a rep for Akiva told Page Six.
And sources say Akiva shouldn’t be counted out just yet.
“He’s down bad right now … but he’ll bounce back,” the nightlife insider said of Akiva. “He’s a ferocious guy.”
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