If you know a certain side of Minneapolis, you might have known Peter Hafiz. He purveyed a certain brand of fun downtown, owned real estate, and invested in hospitality businesses. He passed away November 25 at age 65 after a series of health setbacks, and downtown might never quite be the same.

Hafiz’s properties included everything from strip club Déjà Vu to the Gay 90’s and North Loop tavern The Office. He also was a substantial shareholder in Smack Shack restaurant, also in the North Loop.

“He was one of the good guys,” says former downtown city councilperson Lisa Goodman, now director of strategic initiatives for the city of Minneapolis. “People assumed things because of the kind of businesses he ran. But he was a mensch.”

Hafiz came to the edgier side of nightlife through his father James, who, according to dated media reports, owned the Faust adult theater on University Avenue in St. Paul until the city zoned out sin businesses and purchased the Faust via eminent domain for $1.8 million in 1989. The funds gave James the resources to relocate to Minneapolis and open Déjà Vu in 1990 in what is now the North Loop.

Peter Hafiz went on to open sports bar Sneaky Pete’s and Dream Girls in the former Jukebox Saturday Night on Fifth Street in 2007 and purchase the Gay 90’s on Hennepin in 2008. When locals today decry the high-profile location of these businesses, they are missing the history, says Goodman.

“The city forced them there,” she says. “They were redlined out of everywhere else.” In an effort to move sin businesses out of residential neighborhoods, Minneapolis forced them to relocate to what are now parts of the North Loop and Warehouse District. “They were more industrial then, but the areas changed.”

When the Star Tribune suggested to Hafiz the Gay 90’s could be upscaled, he told reporter Tom Horgen, “There is a need for what the 90’s [provides]. We want to keep it what it is.”

Hafiz was a regular presence downtown, says Smack Shack founder Josh Thoma. “You could expect to see him in one of his businesses at 2 a.m. counting money.”

Hafiz had a knack for hospitality that extended beyond seedy places for men having a night they’d one day sooner forget. When Thoma needed funds to finish the construction of Smack Shack in 2012, Hafiz became his partner. “We were in the neighborhood. You could see he was a shrewd manager and a good negotiator with a keen eye for controlling costs. He helped us leverage national accounts, had beneficial contacts at Coca-Cola and Red Bull.”

Hafiz believed in downtown, and he and his family accumulated extensive real estate holdings there.

“He was not about the business only,” says Goodman, “but about the real estate. He was interested in city-building. Each of these businesses employed hundreds of people, and he was very good to them. He was a man who cared about his family and his employees. He was really the model archetype for a sin business owner.”

Despite what you might have expected, “He was so respectful to women,” recalls friend and North Loop businessman Jay Ettinger. “He didn’t tolerate abuse despite the industry he was in. He was the kind of owner who knew the dishwashers’ names. He treated his lowest employee the same as the highest.”

Twin Cities comedian Fancy Ray McCloney met Hafiz in the mid-’90s, and they became fast friends. The two connected at Dream Girls, where Hafiz had been working “behind the scenes” before becoming owner years later. “All his places were ‘known,’” says McCloney, “and he wanted people to come down and make great memories in the heart of the city.”

After McCloney shared news of Hafiz’s passing on his Facebook page, comments flooded in about Hafiz’s generosity—from funding needy high school football players’ equipment to offering job opportunities to applicants with no experience. Hafiz’s journey through life, in McCloney’s words, was “larger than life.”

Services were held on December 2. Immediate family were not available for comment at press time, but insiders expect his businesses to remain within the extended Hafiz family.

“The city will miss him, and we will keep showing up to party,” McCloney adds. “We’re going in Peter’s name.”