Where to Have Your Company Christmas Party in Kansas City

The hotel ballroom is available. It’s always available. Here’s the case for booking somewhere your team actually remembers — and why whoever’s planning it should start now, not in November.

Someone at your company has been handed the Christmas party. Possibly you.

The default options announce themselves immediately. A hotel ballroom with a carpet pattern designed to hide spills. A chain restaurant’s back room with a $70-per-head prix fixe and a server who interrupts the toast. A conference room with catering trays and the overhead lights on.

All three are bookable right now. None of them are why anyone tells a story about the Christmas party in March.

Here’s a different shape for it — and two ways to do it, depending on your group and the weather.

You don’t have to rent anything

Most venue pages give you one option: book it or don’t come. We do it two ways.

Reserved tables in the taproom. For most groups this is the answer. We hold tables inside for your party on the night you want — no rental fee, no contract, no paperwork. You arrive and your seats are waiting instead of hoping something’s free on a December Friday. The taproom stays open around you, which honestly suits a lot of company parties better than an empty room does.

This is the option most people don’t realize exists, and it’s the one we’d point you to first.

The Backyard, privately. Our beer garden can be booked as a private space, weather permitting, starting at $150/hour. We’ve got heaters out there to make it workable when the temperature cooperates — more on that below, because December in Kansas City is December in Kansas City.

Not sure which fits? Tell us your date and headcount and we’ll tell you honestly which makes more sense.

Bar packages, built around your budget

This is the part most people want sorted first, so let’s start here.

Hosted bar. You set the number, we build to it. Open bar for the first two hours then switching to cash. A drink-ticket system so everyone gets two on the company. Specific taps included all night and everything else on their own tab. Whatever shape fits what you want to spend — the point is you tell us the budget rather than us handing you a package and hoping.

Cash bar. Everyone buys their own. No commitment beyond the space, no risk of overshooting, and the $5 Value Menu runs open to close, seven days a week — so even a cash-bar party stays affordable for the people attending. That last part matters more than it sounds. Nobody feels awkward about a second round at five dollars.

Somewhere in between. Drink tickets, a bar tab with a ceiling, or hosted beer and wine with cocktails on their own. Most companies land here.

Every option runs the full menu: seven flagship beers, hard ciders, hard seltzers, and cocktails and mocktails so whoever’s driving still gets handed something worth holding.

Food: bring anyone, or let us connect you

We don’t have a kitchen. That’s the feature.

Because we don’t cook, we can’t lock you into a menu, a per-head minimum, or a caterer taking a cut. Two ways to handle it:

Use our catering partners. We work with people across barbecue, pizza, tacos and full-service catering, and we’ll put you in touch directly. They know the space, they know the load-in, and they’ve done December here before.

Or bring whoever you want. Kansas City barbecue, which is the correct answer and everyone knows it. A taco truck out front. Pizza delivered to the tables. A full-service caterer for something formal. Or an honest spread from a grocery deli, if the budget’s tight and nobody’s pretending otherwise.

No cake-cutting fee, no dessert minimum, no corkage games. Bring the cookies somebody’s mother made.

Dietary restrictions become your call rather than a negotiation — worth something when you’ve got a vegan, a celiac and someone who doesn’t eat pork on the same invite list.

The space, honestly

Inside: the taproom. Brick walls, the brewhouse fermenters visible behind the bar, and a room that already looks like somewhere. That matters more than people account for — a ballroom needs decorating before it stops feeling like a ballroom. This doesn’t. Your tables are held for you and the bar is right there.

Outside: The Backyard. Our beer garden is genuinely one of the best patios in the Crossroads, and it can be yours privately — weather permitting. We keep heaters and a fire table out there to make it comfortable when the temperature cooperates, and on a mild December evening it’s the best part of the night.

We’ll be straight with you though: this is Kansas City in December, and some nights it’s just cold. The heaters help, they don’t work miracles. If your date lands mild, the patio is a genuine event space. If it doesn’t, it’s still somewhere people drift out to with a beer for ten minutes, which is more than a ballroom offers.

Talk to us about your date and we’ll tell you what’s realistic rather than selling you an outdoor party in a Kansas City winter.

You barely have to decorate

Small thing, but it saves whoever’s organizing a Saturday of their life.

The string lights are already up, year-round. The mural wall is already there. The brick already looks like brick. Most of what a company spends making a rented room feel festive is spent making it feel like anything at all, and that work is done here before you arrive.

Booking The Backyard? Bring a tree if you want one. Bring the banner, the inflatable thing from the office, the terrible sweater. The walls hold tape and lights without complaint — we just ask it all comes down at the end of the night.

Book in September, not November

December dates go early, and the good ones go first.

The first two weekends of December are peak — after Thanksgiving clears, before people scatter. If your team wants a Friday or Saturday in that window, have the conversation now.

The flip side is good news if you’re reading this late. December weeknights are wide open, and they’re cheaper. A Tuesday or Wednesday runs $150/hour instead of $250 if you’re booking the patio, tables are easier to hold either way, and the honest truth is a weeknight party often runs better — people come straight from work, nobody surrenders a Saturday, and it ends at an hour that doesn’t wreck the next day.

If your team would rather not give up a December weekend evening, a Wednesday isn’t the compromise. It’s the better plan.

What it costs

Reserved tables: no rental fee. Reach out with your date and headcount and we’ll hold them.

The Backyard, privately: $150/hour weekdays, $250/hour weekends, four-hour minimum. A Saturday evening runs $1,000; a Wednesday runs $600. Holds up to 80 people, seated and standing combined.

For a team of thirty booking the patio on a weeknight, that’s $20 a head for the space before food and drink. Hotel packages routinely quote $75–$100 per person all-in. The difference funds a hosted bar with room left over.

And if reserved tables cover what you need, the space costs you nothing at all.

The awards bit, handled

Every company party has the moment: the year in review, the slideshow, the award for whoever did the thing back in March.

There’s a projector screen for it, plus a sound system and a microphone for toasts. Wi-Fi reaches the whole space if someone’s presenting or dialing in a remote colleague.

Why the Crossroads works for a work party

Nobody has to drive home. Walking distance from most downtown hotels, the Main Street streetcar stops nearby, rideshare drops at the door. For a company party where alcohol is involved this isn’t a minor point — it’s arguably the whole thing.

The night can continue. When the party ends, the neighborhood doesn’t. Restaurants, bars and galleries are within a few blocks, so whoever wants to keep going can, and whoever wants to leave can do it without it being A Thing.

Free street parking for anyone who does drive, with paid lots within a block.

The photos won’t look like a Marriott. The mural wall outside is one of the most-photographed backdrops in the district, and it’s twenty feet from the door.

Not just office parties

The same setup handles most of December:

• Client and customer appreciation nights — lower key than a party, higher value than a card
• Friendsgiving and holiday get-togethers for groups too big for anyone’s apartment
• Team dinners for companies wanting something between a meeting and a party
• Non-profit and board year-end gatherings
• Family holiday parties — kids are welcome, and there’s a mocktail list

How to book

Send four things: your date, a rough headcount, what you’re celebrating, and a start and end time. That’s enough for us to tell you whether reserved tables will do it or whether you want The Backyard, and what it’ll cost.

We come back within a business day with availability and a quote.

Walk the space if the group’s over fifty. Twenty minutes now beats improvising on the night.

A deposit holds the date for private patio bookings. Final headcount and bar package settle about two weeks out.

Then you show up and somebody else runs the bar. The full mechanics are in our private events guide.

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Get your December date

See the space and send your date →

Call 816-469-5287 — you’ll be talking to Eric, not an events coordinator.

Visit the taproom — 512 E 18th Street, Kansas City, MO 64108, at 18th & Locust.

Related reading

• How to Book a Private Event at Border Brewing — The full process, start to finish.
• The Backyard — Our beer garden, and what it’s like the rest of the year.
• The $5 Value Menu — Three rotating pours, five bucks each, open to close.
• Our Craft Beers — What’ll be pouring at your party.
• Breweries in Kansas City: A Local’s Guide — Where Border fits in the KC beer scene.