Flair Bartending - Competition History

Competition History

In 1986, T.G.I. Friday's management encouraged their bartenders to show their personalities behind the bar and this resulted in several bartenders (a few being John JB Bandy, John Mescall, and Magic Mike) being sent to the corporate T.G.I. Friday's office in Texas to shoot a bartending video. At the end of 1986, T.G.I Friday's hosted the first national flair bartending competition called "Bar Olympics" in Woodland Hills, CA. John JB Bandy was the winner of this competition. In 1987, after interviewing 34 bartenders, John JB Bandy was approached across the bar by Touchstone Productions to assist in training Tom Cruise and Bryan Brown for the 1988 film, Cocktail. Later that year after filming, John JB Bandy produced the very first flair bartending training video called "Olympic Bartending". T.G.I. Friday's is credited for modernizing and popularizing flair bartending in the United States beginning in the mid 1980s because they allowed artistic personality freedom behind the bar. London (Roadhouse) and Orlando (Quest for the Best at Pleasure Island's Manniquins) were the hotbeds of flair bartending in the early and mid 1990s. In 1991, T.G.I. Friday's started its global competition called World Bartender Championship. The global competition has continued to today with divisional champions from across the USA, Latin America and European Divisions come to compete in Carrollton, Texas USA. Recently, Las Vegas has become the flair capital of the world, with London a close second. The countries currently producing the most top competitors right now are Uruguay, Argentina, Ukraine, Italy, the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan.