LOS ANGELES — On a recent Thursday night in Hollywood, NBA player James Harden was holding court, but there wasn’t a basketball in sight.
The second-string guard for the Oklahoma City Thunder was partying at Roxbury, celebrating his 22nd birthday with several hundred of his closest friends.
Jammed into a circular corner booth with about 40 others, Harden took swigs from a bottle of Patron as hip-hop music blasted and leggy ladies in short dresses filled the dance floor. The $13,000 moment came when a parade of runway-ready “bottle servers” sashayed toward his table carrying his order of 22 bottles of Moet & Chandon.
The economy may be troubled, but decadence is still in style.
Big spenders like Harden spring for bottle service — the VIP way to party. A cryptic and lucrative micro-economy within the Los Angeles club scene, bottle service has propped up nightspots during the hard times. Clubgoers routinely pay $500, $3,000, up to $10,000 to avoid waiting in line and to get a private server, a choice of liquor and a premier table.
But it’s the gold-plated packages paid for by the soccer stars, socialites, sheiks and heirs to the world’s fortunes that is one reason club life has been vibrant during the downturn.
Known in the industry (as they are in Vegas casinos) as “whales,” this elite class of partiers pays from $20,000 to $100,000 a night to satisfy their every whim. That might mean bodyguards, protection from unwanted media attention or a steady stream of beautiful people ushered to their tables. One client enjoyed a whitegold encrusted jeroboam of Dom Perignon, according to one club manager.
“We have athletes that are supposed to be sick and at home, and they want to go out and party without anyone knowing,” said Princeton Afeez, founder of eVita Parties, a night-life concierge that caters to out-of-towners. “They go in the back entrance, have fun and no one finds out they were there.”
Promoters and club owners are highly protective of the identities of these high rollers. But certain names come up repeatedly in interviews with people on the scene and in the know, chief among them Dana White, president of Ultimate Fighting Championship, who is said to be a fan of Beacher’s Madhouse at the Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles. Petra Ecclestone, the model and heiress to the F-1 racing fortune who recently bought the Spelling mansion in Holmby Hills for $85 million, also was named, along with her husband, James Hunt.
“There’s probably 10 whales ... in LA,” said Supperclub coowner Abdi Manavi. “All the clubs are vying for [their business]. One of these guys could go nuts and spend [$20,000]. And that makes a huge difference for the club.”
Yet the bread and butter for clubs are the regulars who splurge for special occasions, to entertain business guests, or who team to split the bottleservice tab.
An Pham Jr., a 31-year-old banker, recently laid down about $7,000 at the Beverly Nightclub for a roomy booth by the DJ, champagne and a lot of Grey Goose vodka. The industrial-chic club, with its exposed pipes and hanging Fellini-esque light bulbs, was characteristically full that night. And loud.
“I don’t wait in line here!” Pham screamed over the music. He was entertaining a dozen or so friends and business clients, including the 6-foot-5, 260-pound Dutch mixed-martial arts fighter Alistair Overeem. Overeem, aka “Demolition Man,” sat two booths away as a pretty blonde refilled his drink. Pham, a New Jersey native who now lives in Marina Del Rey, depends on the Beverly for this kind of Alist service, especially when he has clients in town.
“Any time I party, I don’t pay for drinks — I pay for real estate at the club,” Pham said. “It takes half an hour to buy drinks at the bar.”
Real estate and access is what bottle service is all about, and prices vary depending on how close the table is to a star DJ or the dance floor and the amount of alcohol consumed.
“DJ Deadmau5 performs, and the wealthier clientele follow him,” said Bo Burroughs, marketing and promotions manager at the Vegas-style Drai’s in the W Hotel in Hollywood. He said the minimum for a table by the dance floor is $5,000 to $10,000. “They want the real estate to be near the talent,” he said. “To sit next to Paris Hilton, that’s a once-ina-lifetime experience.”
Burroughs, who has worked in clubs around the country for more than 20 years, said bottle service originated in the South of France and popped up in the U.S. first in Miami’s South Beach, then New York, in the early ’90s.
Were bottle service to fizzle out, Drai’s Burroughs said, the whole club landscape would move down-market.
“Take a product, mark it up 1,200 percent. That’s a lot of revenue,” he said.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 10/23/2011