A tale of two rival holiday parties
Jardine’s nightclub and restaurant reopened last night for a private party — KC Confidential blogger Hearne Christopher’s annual Christmas bash — but rhinestone-bedecked Beena Raja, Jardine’s owner, told me that the party marked the official opening of Jardine’s with a brand-new staff. A couple of planned concerts scheduled for this week (including Julia Othmer’s weekend gig) have been canceled, but Raja says she’s moving forward, despite the flurry of negative publicity last week after she fired 15 employees.
And where were those 15 employees last night? Most of them were attending a holiday benefit — that’s how it was billed — for the ex-Jardine’s staff (now best known as the Jardine’s 15) at the Point. The benefit was much more crowded than the KC Confidential bash — although I’ll admit that I left Jardine’s after staying only an hour — and a lot livelier. Several local musicians were performing for the benefit, but few wanted to go on the record as being there, because they might want to work at Jardine’s again. “That is, if it stays open,” says one musician.
A reporter and cameraman from KSHB Channel 41 was interviewing benefit organizer Carrie Brockman (a former Jardine’s general manager who quit several years ago) when I arrived. Brockman was showing off one of the benefit’s commemorative T-shirts, illustrated with a cartoon figure of Raja holding both a tiny dog and a spray can.
“It’s pepper spray,” Brockman says. “She’s spraying on the word jazz.”
