ROADHOUSE WORLD FLAIR 1999 – TILL PRESENT “A not so brief history”

Updated: June 1, 2005

By Tug and Andy Collinson

The year is 1999. The location is Roadhouse, a very successful nightclub in Covent Garden, heart of London’s West End. Roadhouse bartenders sitting around the nightclub decided to get on stage to compete against each other for the hell of it and to entertain some of the guests in the building at time.

One of the managers on duty saw what was going on tried to put a bit of organisation into all of this and a couple of months later it was official – London’s first non – TGI Friday’s challenge competition. 4 Bartenders to be exact with only a table, a bus tub full of ice and some glasses and obviously Smirnoff and Bacardi bottles and some eager local bartenders coming to witness the spectacle. Up and till now there were no competitions. The couple that happened in years previous were secretive events with only a handful attending. Scruples in Wales were notorious, J.W Johnson’s in Manchester hosted a couple of flair competitions and then obviously your Friday’s Challenge with very strict rules and million’s of recipes books that had to be studied in order to compete (which I’m not taking the piss out of but you know what I mean).

This was a very exciting time indeed with a lot of new talent in the area wanting to show off and prove their worth not just to themselves but to other bartenders and employers very much like what happens in Vegas today.

The Prize money was just under £200 but that didn’t matter and it didn’t (and for some it still doesn’t) for a couple of years because it was an excuse for the boys to hang out and have a good time whilst chucking bottles about. I remember the buzz after that first competition, everybody talking about it, the hangovers and the excitement of wanting to compete again.

It took the then organisers legendary motor-mouth Heddi Cundle (which some of you old skool guys out there will surely remember and others will try not too) and Brett Seychell, the main man, whose brilliant idea it was to organise in the first place to put a plan together to host it on a regular basis.

It took a couple of months but they did and The Roadhouse Flair Championship was born and soon changed the name to a much better sounding Roadhouse Flair Challenge with competitions being held on a monthly basis. This all happened around late ’99 with the monthlies starting around early 2000.

Steve “Nitro” Smith who walked away with £5,000 in cash won the first Roadhouse Flair Championship final in 2000. Nicolas St. Jean came a very close second with the Italian and a very young Francesco Leoni coming in third. The standard was set and 2001 promised to be a good year with the competition going global and introducing challenges for competitors from all over the world to qualify to participate in the end of year Grand Final.

February would be for the Europeans, April for the Americans, June for the Australasias and October a last chance for everybody to come try and get their place in the Final, which is held in November.

Word of mouth most definitely spread with competitions in Australia, Dubai and the USA and bartenders meeting up and discussing what was going on in their neck of the woods, hanging out, partying and looking forward to the next time they will see each other and once again……, yeah you guessed it right, party some more! This is definitely one of the core reasons behind it all, and of course the prize money and the lovely network of ours in the form of FBA. Flair Bartenders unite across the world but we are still a while away from that in this story.

2001 proved to be very good year for us at Roadhouse with bartenders starting to travel across the big pond for our competition. Legends like Ken Hall, Alan Mays, Christian Delpech, (who actually entered in 2000 whilst working in Ibiza), Mig, Christian Oldan I believed entered and that is just too name but a few. Monsieur Delpech became the 2nd Flair Challenge champion and walking away with the £5,000 big cheque in 2001 in front of a packed Roadhouse crowd, which is one of the main reasons this competition is what it is. Through the years the crowd has become extremely knowledgeable which is a great thing if you’re semi-good but could suck bad if you’re a beginner, but hey with enough practice you wouldn’t be a beginner for too long! Keep on practising dudes!

2002 and still rocketing! My God! Surely this is not just a passing fad. We had so many competitors in the 2002/2003 season that we had to introduce a mid- month competition to try and accommodate all the competitors the big qualifiers. That is 16 competitions a year and all of them had between 15 and 40 bartenders in competing. More and more UK boys also started travelling to comps in the USA, Australia and Korea thus meeting up with fellow bartenders and spreading the gospel of Flair and inviting them to come and party and compete on home turf. This is very much thanks to our local boys such as the Neils (which all of you should know or had the pleasure of partying with) and in case you don’t it’s Neil Garner and Neil Lowrey, Tom Dyer always flying the UK flag high and the rest of the our boys past and present representing. 2002 final went to our very own Nicolas St. Jean, which as we all know is from France, but us English mofo’s like to think of him as one of ours. £5,000 went to French style guru with a very close second going to Mr. Gradeckas a.k.a Mig and third place to Christian Delpech. This was probably one of the most electrifying shows from beginning to end we have had the pleasure of experiencing in ages and thought it would be hard to top!

2003 and the usual suspects was once again out and about that year with some great new additions as we teamed up with Ken Hall and the original Nations. Qualifiers were held in Las Vegas and the Top four bartenders from Nations got to fly all expenses paid to London and participate in our Final. This was truly great as it was the first time we had the legendary Mr. Tim “flippy” Morris over, young Rodrigo Delpech, Christian “da bitch” Oldan, Graham Warner, Mig, Simone Bodini, The Neil’s, Tom Dyer, St.Jean and the list goes on. This was truly the gathering of some Flair heavyweights and they would not disappoint. Packed out venue, psyched up bartenders and lots of booze mixed with a bit of Flair and I don’t think anybody could have been in the least disappointed. Fan-bloody-tastic. Watching the dvd now still gives you tinkles down your spine! Sad but true! Clash of the titans it was once again with Mr. Delpech walking away with £10,000 (that’s about $18 000 US), Nic St. Jean sliding into second and Rodrigo Delpech claiming 3rd with his first time at the Roadhouse. Not bad for a junior.

2004 and were almost there, so bare with us. Yet another year, more competitors, more travelling being done to us and us going to other exotic locations. Competitions in Seoul, South Korea, the return of Quest, as always a electric Legends, competitions in just about every European country imaginable. 2004 was truly a busy year for Flair and no slowing down whatsoever. Our 2004 final crept upon us with the speed of light and before we knew it we had 20 of the world’s best in our backyard once again. Not only did we have loads of new faces in the final but also we had loads of new faces amongst the crowd to which is always a great sign. Christian Delpech returned to defend his title and try and reclaim it for a 3rd time, Flippy, Vache Manoukin, Benham Gerami, Nicolas Antivero, Adriano Marcellino and then obviously the local crew consisting of the Neils, St. Jean, newcomer Jay Du Toit and once again the list goes on so watch the dvd which is on sale here and if you buy now you also get…..just kidding! Most of you have probably seen the dvd so needless to say that top dog once again was the Mr. Won it All Delpech (and yet another £10,000) with Nic St. Jean coming in a very close second and Delpech Junior a.ka Rodrigo walking away with a very respectable 3rd.

That brings us to the present day. With Legends behind us, Nations about to happen as well as Quest, SCSA 3 in Austria just gone and about five Roadhouses done and dusted things are looking better than ever!

Who would have thought that in five year’s time we would have 40 times the amount of Bartenders from all over the world competing for thousands in cash! Wow. How times have changed and Flair has grown! WHOOO HOOO for Flair and all the competitors that have put in the time, money and effort to come and support us in our competition and to our local dudes present past and beyond, judges getting shit for trying their best, friendly faces, makers of Flair bottles, you know who you are, (one of the main reasons that Flair is what it is) and the list goes on and on. If we had to put names down the list will cover a good 20+ pages and therefore we don’t have time and neither have you. So I hope we didn’t bore you too much with our story (or half of it at least) Hope to see you all soon either at Roadhouse or somewhere in the world.