The Sandbar...Home of the Indoor Hurricane!

Young Pirates at The Sandbar

I thought I posted this a long time ago and just recently realized that I didn't.

Our good friend Curtis- a regular from the 90's as well as a bartender for the night on the biggest money-making night ever- brought his boys in awhile back to check out The Sandbar.

They stopped by on a Sunday during the day, when Dave was getting everything ready for the week. He hooked up the boys with pirate masks, water on the rocks, and all the drinks toys a kid could possibly want.

It's fun to see kids get excited about our toys and fish, since primarily we only see adults!

 

What's Your Favorite Jukebox Song?

I got a lot of response from the last poll I put on here, asking you to vote for your favorite Bahama Mama toys, so I thought I'd do another one. 

We have a lot of music on our jukebox. It hasn't changed a lot over the years, but several years ago we managed to add some more music to it without removing any by condensing multiple CD's into one. And, we frequently get compliments on the music mix that we provide- it's a good rotation of oldies, sing-along-songs, beach music, and some dance tunes thrown in for fun.

Some songs get played more than others. Others don't get played at all. Some get played so many times in one night that Dave threatens to remove them from the jukebox (he wouldn't really). What's the song that you need to hear every time you visit?

I picked a few of the songs that seem to get played more frequently; check out the poll on the right side of the page to cast your vote. If you don't like any of my choices, vote for "Something Else."

If you pick "Something Else," though, please leave a comment and tell us what your favorite jukebox song is!

Door Diaries 1/18/08

Good night. Never saw the fire marshal. Good turnover. Highlight was the end of the night. Female patron has a canniption over $4.00 worth of dirty bananas. She was reimbursed her $4.00 and still demanded more. Random older women said we were a**holes all night. She demanded that we give our names, because she has known Peach for 26 years. She also let her hippie friend smoke in the bar. Oh, and she is going to report us to Phil. Enough said.

--anonymous

(This entry was accompanied by the portion of the tab sheet that contained the aforementioned crazy woman's tab. The first crazy woman, that is.)

Mail Call

Dave got a nice surprise package in yesterday's mail.

A young man (or maybe old, I guess I don't really know) sent a small package with a piece of wooden floorboard, a black sharpie, and a letter.

The letter said that he was looking for David Johanning who played basketball at KU from 1990-92, and apologized if he had reached the wrong person. The sender then went on to explain that he is a collector of autographs and sports memorabilia, and emphasized that he is not a dealer or seller but merely collects these things for his own enjoyment.

He very politely asked if Dave would autograph the piece of floorboard, and then send it back in the self-addressed stamped envelope that the sender had also provided.

Of course, Dave will oblige. Several years ago he had a similar request to sign a quilt square, for a KU quilt full of former players' autographs that was being auctioned for charity.

Back when I first met Dave, he was more frequently recognized around town and elsewhere from his playing days. Now, it's more likely that people know him from The Sandbar instead. It's kind of neat when the basketball days are remembered, too.

More Sandbar Shirts Around the World

A few days ago I mentioned some new pictures a fan emailed us for the Sandbar shirt wall of fame.

Well, awhile back I noticed that a few folks had brought pictures to the bar and added them to the corkboard. Instead of taking them off the wall and bringing them home to scan, and risking the possibility that they would get lost in my house and never make it back to the wall, I chose to just take a picture of the pictures. (You can call me lazy if you want to.)

An unidentified couple posed in Sandbar shirts at Stonehenge:

 

And a foursome of regular Sandbar customers gathered under a grass umbrella on a beach somewhere:

And not too long ago, long-time Friday Sandbar-tender Heather and her new fiance Ken headed off to Mexico for some sun, fun, and relaxation. It wouldn't be a trip to Mexico without a Sandbar shirt! They posed for their obligatory Sandbar picture and added it to the wall.

You, too, can be famous in The Sandbar. Just email your favorite pictures to sandbar{at}thesandbar{dot}com and we'll add them to the wall!

You are Invited to our 20th Birthday Party!

We've talked about it for months, and now it's less than a month away- our 20th birthday bash!

The party is Saturday, August 1.  The city commission granted our request to close 8th Street in front of The Sandbar- between Massachusetts and New Hampshire streets- beginning at 5 pm. The show starts at 8 pm.

Mark Valentine and the Number Ones will perform a live concert featuring our favorite jukebox and parade float songs. We'll also have dancing showgirls, mystery guests, and the KU Bar Band, which started at The Sandbar.  And, our favorite pirate will host the entire event!

We are working on a photo slide show of memories from the past 20 years. If you have pictures to contribute, please email them to us at sandbar(at)thesandbar(dot)com.  The slideshow will be played inside the bar and also projected onto a giant screen outside for everyone to see.

This event is free and open to the public. It's a family friendly event- we know many of our friends, staff, and customers have kids and you're welcome to bring them! No alcohol will be allowed in the street, but we will extend our patio area with a special beer garden just for the evening.  Bottled water, soda, and food will be available for purchase.

You're encouraged to dress up as a Parrothead, your favorite sea creature, or in your favorite costume from one of our parade floats.

Please also support our neighbors, who were all excited and supportive of this event:
Eighth Street Tap Room
Richard's Music Company
Henry's on Eighth
Sunflower Outdoor and Bike
Central National Bank
Teller's
Static Hair Salon
The Mirth
Magic Carpet Traveler

We are excited about this celebration and hope you can join us!

If you're on Facebook, you can RSVP to the event. Pass it on to your friends!

Where Have Your Sandbar Shirts Been?

Next time you're in The Sandbar filling up a dish of popcorn, look up. There's a corkboard on the wall with a lot of empty space.

Our goal with this little corkboard is to show off pictures of our friends wearing Sandbar shirts around the world. We've collected quite a few- shirts spotted in Key West, the Bahamas, at a Royals game, and horseback riding.

Today I got an email from Sandbar fan Megan with a bunch of pictures. She and her husband recently returned from a two week trip, and of course they took their Sandbar shirts along.

Her pictures will be added to our Wall of Fame. She also sent some favorite Sandbar pictures over the years that will be included in our 20 year anniversary slide show.

Got some pictures of you or your friends wearing Sandbar shirts in cool (or not-so-cool places, we aren't picky!)? Or other Sandbar pictures you want to share for our slideshow? Email them to us at sandbar{at}thesandbar{dot}com and you could be famous!

Cornstock 2009

One of the things I like to do with this blog is keep the readers updated on what former Sandbar staffers are up to these days. Of course, that requires the former staffers to actually keep in touch and tell me what they're doing...

Maynard has been featured here numerous times. (Probably because there are so many funny stories about him and he's willing to share them.) He met his lovely wife at The Sandbar, sort of; mementos from their wedding adorn our walls; and he parlayed his Sandbar doorman skills into a job as mayor of Garnett.

Maynard is also chairperson of the annual Anderson County corn festival, also known as Cornstock. This festival celebrates agriculture, and more specifically, corn, while promoting a fun family atmosphere.

Check out all the details:

Tickets can be purchased online. Don't wait, the price goes up to $20 each tomorrow- although that's still a bargain.

Maybe Maynard will let us all camp out in his yard? Leave a comment if you're interested in tagging along to Cornstock this year.

Even Kids Like The Sandbar

One of my best friends from college worked at The Sandbar back when we were young and silly college girls; I think she worked on Wednesdays from 5-9. She has a ten year old daughter now who looks just like her.

They live in another state now, but whenever they visit, her daughter always wants to go to The Sandbar during the day to see the fish and the jukebox and all the other fun stuff. And, of course, to have Dave make her fruity kid versions of our drinks with all kinds of toys.

My friend naturally has several Sandbar shirts, and apparently one had shrunk enough in the laundry that her daughter has now claimed it as her own and wears it at least once a week.

Last week, when she had day camp, she bounced down the stairs at home wearing "her" Sandbar shirt. My friend ordered her back upstairs to change out of a bar t-shirt, since her school/camp is a little bit sensitive to children wearing things they consider inappropriate, like a shirt from a bar.

Daughter's response? "But why mom? It's my bar, and I don't even drink alcohol. That would be dumb!"

We're amused that she always refers to The Sandbar as "my bar." My friend was more interested in filing away the "alcohol is dumb" comment to use during the dreaded teenage years.

Tropical Thursday Trivia is a Success

Well, we finished up the second week of our new Thursday Buzztime trivia contest between Lawrence and Ottawa, and so far we're having a lot of fun with it!

Our original plan was to crown the high scorer at 8 pm as the winner. We quickly found out in the first week that it wouldn't be quite that easy.

If you're not familiar with Buzztime trivia, it's a nationwide trivia game that runs through a channel on our TV's. We don't program anything or pick the games, and everyone across the country is playing the same game at the same time.

Between 6 and 8 pm on Thursdays- the time Peach picked for our contest- there are six trivia games. Four of them have ten questions each; two of them have 15 questions. However, there isn't any way to keep track of each players score for all six games unless you write them all down yourself- and the scores flash on the screen so fast that's nearly impossible.

Let's just say that week one was definitely a learning experience.

But now we have two weeks under our belt, and a new plan that we think will work just fine.

We'll have two winners each night. The highest scorer on one of the ten question games, and the highest scorer on either of the two 15 question games, will each win a Sandbar shirt.

So far, we've had a great group of 7-8 players come in both nights, and other random patrons have shown interest. Congratulations to James and Ron, the big winners so far. This week, the Lawrence group placed 16th nationwide on two different games! We were excited, and since we never saw Ottawa show up on the national rankings, we decided that we won the battle this week, too.

Come in next Thursday and join the fun!

Door Diaries 3/21/02

Some nights at The Sandbar are reeeally exciting.  No wonder they didn't sign their name to it.

Refused ID, suspended license.        

The mystery of the missing mermaid is solved due to the broken tiki mug.

Duke lost.

--anonymous

Just Another Wednesday Night

Last night at The Sandbar was fun! Lots of things going on for a Wednesday night.

First up, the Lawrence Tweetup. Local Twitter users started arriving around 6:30 to enjoy food, drinks, and conversation. We ordered some snacks from our across-the-street neighbor Mirth's new catering menu, and Lisa from the Jade Garden dropped off a huge tray of egg rolls and crab rangoons.

The night started to look a little ominous when the party got started, but it ended up just raining for awhile. The only real storm was a special hurricane that rolled through the bar, and Caroline, Briana, and Kim were gracious enough to be the mermaids. Dave, as usual, led the crowd in the Sandbar dance, followed by the Car Wash.

Of course there were prizes- and we had a fun new way to hold a prize drawing. All the party goers signed their name to a toy shark, and we dropped them all into a plastic aquarium that Dave found upstairs. One by one I drew sharks and we gave away Sandbar shirts and hats, t-shirts provided by Joe College down the street, and some amazing KU Final Four prints by local artist Leo Hayden.  The locally-owned Anthony's Beehive handed out free lip balm and honey sticks from their farm.

I think there were at least 30-40 Twitter folk who passed through at some point in the night. We served this group a special shot in honor of what brought them together- the "Fail Whale," a sweet, tasty blue shot named after the cartoon provided by Twitter when their servers are over capacity.

(If you're on Facebook, check out the photos from last night's Tweetup.)

But that's not all that was going on at The Sandbar last night!

Former bartender and longtime friend Sheela was celebrating another 25th birthday with us. Rheva, Ashley, Coleen, and a few other lovely lady friends were there to help her out. Dave managed to get her up on the bar dancing with him before they left for the night.

Amazingly enough, there were two other birthday parties at the bar last night, too.

It was quite a night for the middle of the week!

Join The Sandbar for the Lawrence Tweetup!

The Sandbar is excited to host a Lawrence Tweetup tomorrow, Wednesday June 24, starting at 6:30. We'll have free snacks, drink specials, and even some prizes to give away!

What's a "tweetup" you ask? Well, here's how the Lawrence Tweetup website describes it:

Tweetups are a gathering of local Twitter/social media users. We drink, eat, meet, and have great conversations and fun. The atmosphere is always casual and open to new social media users and friends. Join us and get to know your Twitter followers and the ones you follow. We try to organize the meetings monthly.

It's a great way for people who interact with each other online to meet in real life.

If you already have a Twitter account, you can learn more about Lawrence Tweetup events by following @ltwup. If you don't have one, what are you waiting for? Sign up at www.twitter.com and start looking for other Twitter users who talk about things you like.

Tomorrow night, we'll have our usual specials- $2 well drinks and $2 cans that we can't seem to get rid of. But we'll also have a new shot that Dave created especially for the Lawrence Tweetup called the "Fail Whale" - which is what might happen if you have too many of them. The shot will also be on special for $2 all day Wednesday.

You can RSVP for the event and check out who's planning to be there on the Tweetup Facebook event page.

You don't have to be a Twitter user to join us tomorrow- just come in for some cool drinks and Sandbar fun!

(Fully expecting this post to get some comments from our long-lost peanut gallery of Brother Pants and the man on the street. Where have you guys been?!?)

Coleen's Adventure with the Stop Sign

Bartender Coleen was looking through some of her pictures from last year, and came across these funny pictures involving an adventure she had while bartending last year. Somehow, I never heard this story until now...

One rainy Thursday last September I was working my shift when all of a sudden there was a very loud crash outside.  I went out to see what it was, thinking maybe there was a car wreck, but nope- the stop sign on the corner of 8th and New Hampshire had fallen down onto the sidewalk.

Luckily no passerby was injured but it was quite a funny sight to see. I called the police non-emergency number and they sent an officer over right away. When he got there, he asked if I could keep the stop sign inside the bar until the city maintenance crew could get there to repair it- he thought someone might try to steal the sign since it was now an easy target.

The police officer sat in his car with flashing lights to warn drivers at the intersection, and the maintenance guy showed up about 30 minutes later. I carried the stop sign back outside, and they promptly re-affixed it to it's location.

You just never know what new jobs we can find in and near the Sandbar! I guess I can add sign-guarding to my resume.

Here is a picture of Coleen with the stop sign outside The Sandbar. She took a couple of the sign while it was inside the bar, but they turned out really dark, and this was a much better picture.

If you've had any funny adventures while at The Sandbar- either working or playing- let us know and you could be featured here too!

Sharks on the Ceiling

Our ceiling has been a point of interest lately, with a new Jayhawk windchime gift a few weeks ago, and now a new creation by Dave.

We sell a lot of Shark Attack drinks, and every drink comes with it's own little toy shark. Lots of people take these home for their collection (or their kids), but lots of others leave them at the bar. While most of them probably end up in the trashcans, a fair amount of the little guys are rescued and thrown into a bin behind the bar- mostly because Dave can't bear to throw things away that might still have some kind of use.

Let me assure you that we do not reuse the sharks in new drinks. But Dave has brainstormed for awhile about what exactly he could do with recycled sharks, and he finally hit on an idea.

He washed them up, bought a needle and some fishing line, and started stringing them up like popcorn for the Christmas tree. They looked pretty cool all bunched up on the string. He hooked the string up to the ceiling at The Sandbar, and now we have sharks hanging over everybody.

We also noticed that people have started autographing the sharks and tossing them in the nets overhead. The dollar bills on the walls seem to have lost people's interest- not to mention, we're sort of running out of wall space- so this might be a new, unique-to-the-Sandbar way of leaving your mark.

Next time you're in, ask for a marker and sign your shark. Toss it up in the net, or ask the bartender to throw it in the bin behind the bar, and we'll string it up on the next strand.

Tropical Thursdays and Trivia

Tropical Thursdays at The Sandbar is about to get a little more fun for the trivia buffs out there!

We've had Buzztime play-along trivia for awhile now, and there's a steady group of players on Thursday nights. Now, in addition to playing others around the world, we're turning it into a competition between the Lawrence and Ottawa Sandbars!

Every Thursday night, starting this week, from 6 to 8 pm, come in and grab a playmaker. At 8 pm, the player with the highest score at each location wins a free Sandbar t-shirt.

But wait, there's more!

Even if you aren't the player with the highest score, you can still win a prize. The players at the Sandbar with the higher score at 8 pm- as long as the location is also in the Top 50 nationwide- will also win a round of drinks, courtesy of the Sandbar staff!  (Note: you have to be playing trivia in order to be included.)

It might sound lofty to place in the Top 50 nationwide, but it's not really that hard. Ottawa is frequently in the Top 10, so it sounds like Lawrence has some catching up to do.

So, bring your friends and come play some trivia with us on Thursdays!