Bartender's Ball serves up cold drinks, hot girls

Much of Charlotte's young professionals are using today's holiday to recover from one of the biggest parties of the year -- Bartender's Ball 2009.

The annual party, now in its eighth year, was held at The Blake Hotel last night, and despite the economy and steep ticket price, turnout was as high (if not higher) than in past years. Organizer Rich Saner of Rock House Events told me around 8 p.m. that 1,500 wristbands had already been used and organizers were searching for more as partygoers continued to stream in. (A nice touch at the door: Girls handing out bottles of beer as people made their way upstairs to the ballroom.)

This year's party packed some international flavor into the Blake ballroom -- more than 40 area bars decorated their individual booths to look like countries from around the world. My favorites: BlackFinn Saloon's Vietnam booth with camo netting and bartenders dressed as the characters from "Tropic Thunder," and On The Roxx's mini Red Light District with gaudy chandeliers fit for an Amsterdam bordello.


The most creative use of beer cases goes to Brick & Barrel who built a pyramid to go with its Egyptian theme. (Added bonus: shots came straight from King Tut's mouth.)


But this year's best booths had more to do with the creative costuming -- and who could bare more. For Forum's Grecian booth, a scantily clad goddess gyrated alongside a Spartan warrior. Hooters girls bartended dressed as snow bunnies in their Arctic booth. The Stool Pigeons bartenders looked perfectly Parisian. And Alley Cat's bartenders get the award for best makeup -- they were dressed as Harajuku girls for the bar's Japanese-themed booth.

Update -- The official "Best Booths" for the night:

• First place: Tie between BlackFinn (Vietnam) and On the Roxx (Amsterdam).
• Second place: Tie between Brick & Barrel (Egypt) and Cans, who turned their booth into a British pub.
• Third place: 1900 Mexican Grille who made their booth into a mini fiesta.

But the overall theme of the night was the free-flowing, top shelf liquor -- it is called the Bartender's Ball after all. Tight security helped keep the crowd in check despite the copious amounts of alcohol consumed, and as far as I could tell, it was a happy, not rowdy, diverse crowd (average age range: 27-35).

It's a shame that it has to end so early every year. When the music shut off at midnight and the lights came on, people started chanting "One more song!"

We were ready to continue the party into the night.

I'll be posting more pics later in the week, but in the meantime click here for more.