Cathi Hatch: It was a Happening at the new Barrier Motors Mercedes Store

Thursday, October 27, 2011

It was a Happening at the new Barrier Motors Mercedes Store

Michael Vena, Chloe & Lance Mueller, Jimmy Barrier

Last night Ken and I attended the grand opening celebration of the new Barrier Motors Mercedes store in Bellevue. It was a huge turnout of over 400 people who were there to see brand-new Mercedes automobiles, to see and be seen, and to sip wine and savor the delicious Daniel's Broiler passed hors d'oeuvres. The automobiles sparkled and so did the many VIP guests in attendance.

Jimmy Barrier, Ken Hatch

The new dealership building is a spectacular space with very high ceilings and an immense showroom floor along with major service bay areas, office spaces and customer waiting areas. The architecture was handled by friend, Lance Mueller who was attending the celebration along with his wife, Chloe.

Patty Barrier, Anthony Bay, Cathi

As we arrived, we immediately ran into many other friends including Peggy & Michael Swistak, Sue & Chuck Andonian, Jerome Brown, SaSa & Ken Kirkpatrick, Gail Cottle & Ren Brown, Lillian & Anthony Bay, plus many others. The party hosts included our dear friends, Patty & Jimmy Barrier, Kjell Schei, and Michael Vena.

We also saw several friends who own wineries there pouring their wines including Anne-Marie & Tom Hedges of Hedges Family Estate, Bijal Shah of Woodhouse Wine Estates and Jay Soloff of DeLille Cellars. Jay was so pleased that their new Doyenne 2008 Syrah had just received a 94 point rating. I tasted it and thought it was lovely.

To add to the celebratory and high-energy ambiance and conversation among friends, there was a band playing and a line-up of at least 20 valets on duty busy parking and retrieving all the guests' cars. It was a "happening" place to be.