The Sandbar...Home of the Indoor Hurricane!

New Year's Eve Fun

New year's eve fun @ the sandbar!!

Happy New Year from The Sandbar!

Goodbye to 2007 and welcome 2008!

Well, Dave and I are off to sunny Miami and the Orange Bowl tomorrow; after a big night tonight. The Sandbar will be well represented as doorguy Andrew is traveling with us, and bartender Tegan is traveling with the athletic department. And of course many of our friends and customers will be there as well.

Lucky for you, I've figured out some nifty new ways to post updates here from my Christmas-present iPhone. I just tested it out and sent a nearly life-sized photo of Joe to the blog (it's now been deleted, so as not to scare you all off, but I confirmed that it worked).

So even though we'll be on vacation...I hope to still provide some updates here for the loyal fans. Maybe even a shot of Sandbar shirts on the beach?

Remember to party responsibly tonight!

New Year's Resolutions

Do you make New Year's resolutions? If you make them, do you ever keep them?

We have a few resolutions at The Sandbar.

Of course we always hope that each year is better than the last in every way. We want the customers to be more satisfied; we want more people to experience The Sandbar; we want a windier hurricane.

One goal that we have for the {hopefully near} future is a full redesign of our official website. We've had the same design for quite awhile now and have been thinking of some new ideas for it. Maybe we'll share some of the ideas here and see what you think.

Dave says that the bathrooms might be remodeled this year. The men's room needs to be painted among other things. Perhaps he'll add self-flushing toilets or automatic hand dryers or something fancy like that.

We'd like to expand our "where have you been in a Sandbar shirt" wall. Actually, the wall has barely gotten started. Dave and I were at Cottin's Hardware Store the other day, and they have a couple bulletin boards with pictures of people all over the world holding a Cottin's pen. We aspire to do the same, only with people wearing Sandbar shirts. Thanks to those of you who have contributed pictures already.

We'd like to know what your resolutions are for the new year. Share them with us in the comments. Or let us know what you think The Sandbar should do in 2008.

See you tomorrow night at the New Year's Eve party. Don't forget your crazy hat!

Update: New Year's Eve Party

More exciting updates for you about our upcoming New Year's Eve celebration.

• Cover Charge = $10 per person.

This includes the midnight champagne toast, snack food (most likely including the infamous cheese dip, cheese balls, and other assorted cheese-related items), party favors like noisemakers and hats, and all the fun you can possibly have.

• Silly hat contest!

Wear your best silly hat- top hats, tiaras, Dr. Seuss, fedora, whatever. We'll have prizes for the best hats. Of course, you know how the prize thing goes- we'll probably have to be reminded to give them out.

• World Premiere of the new Hurricane Video!

As a special treat for our New Year's Eve party pals, the brand new 2008 hurricane video will be shown for the first time (to the public anyway). We'll still have the grand premiere party sometime next week or later for those of you who can't make it on New Year's Eve.

And, you're encouraged to pull out the fancy party dresses and tuxedos and arrive dressed in your best! How many times during the year do you get an excuse to dress up?

And as usual, get here early. We tend to have a rush of people wanting to come in right around midnight, both before and after. Remember, our capacity is only 49 people!

Planning for New Year's Eve

Continuing our extended run of holiday-themed posts...

Well, Christmas is barely over and already one of our favorite holidays (next to St. Patrick's Day) is almost upon us.

For the last several years, we've used New Year's Eve as another excuse to raid the Halloween costume boxes in the basement and throw a theme party- we've had an 80's party, a night at the Oscars, and even Prom Night.

Last year, however, we overdosed heavily on the theme idea and now we're stepping back, taking a break, and going back to the traditional New Year's Eve theme of getting dressed up in fancy attire that hangs out in the back of the closet and never gets worn. Besides that, we're just too tired to plan for a theme.

No details yet on the evening's events, but expect a higher-than-normal cover charge (to make up for the lost alcohol sales on the one night of the year when all the non-drinkers camp out for eight hours and take up our very limited space) and the requisite champagne toast. We'll probably have some sort of party favor, too.

Check out our past parties here. And on a side note, as I glanced through last year's pictures, I'm amazed at how much things have changed in such short time- staff members who have disappeared off the face of the earth, more than one couple no longer together.

Should be interesting to see what 2008 brings us.

People Really Go to Bars on Christmas

The Sandbar is pretty much never closed. The only day of the entire year that the bar is closed is Christmas Eve day, mostly because nobody wants to work.

The opposite is true on Christmas Day- there's usually always at least one staff member who volunteers to open up the bar and serve drinks that night. And, though it may be surprising to some people, there is usually a decent crowd of customers on Christmas night.

Blair and Andrew worked Christmas night this year. The usual group of staff and regulars gathered earlier in the night, but by midnight there were about thirty people hanging around. I guess that by the time Christmas Day is nearly over, people are tired of their family and all the food and they just want to get back to something normal, so The Sandbar provides a sort of escape.

We're happy to provide the much-needed service.

Merry Christmas!

Have a wonderful holiday, whatever it may be that you celebrate.

The Sandbar will be closed on Christmas Eve, but we'll be open again on Christmas Day. Which, strangely, often turns out to be a busy night.

Back soon!

Champions of Tippy Cup

After the presents were opened and under-the-table deals were made to exchange various unwanted gifts for other slightly more desirable ones, some folks might have wondered "what do we do now?"

Not us, though. Dave had planned ahead to bring maximum entertainment to his staff, and after throwing many successful parties at our house, which always (thankfully) ended up in the garage instead, we know what the party-goers want and it comes in the form of a long, tall, blue table.

A rousing game of Tippy Cup began and kept going for hours, with players rotating in and out as they either lost, or got bored, or got kicked off their team. The cool thing about this game is that it doesn't absolutely require that you drink alcohol; most people choose beer when they play, but I have been known to play with Kool-Aid in my cup before because I wanted to play that bad but didn't want the hangover.

Sometimes there were just a couple people on each side of the table; other rounds grew to include so many players that it was difficult to know just which side the person was in, they were scrunched around the table that much. Sometimes it was girls against boys.

The girls won the final round:

We hope you enjoyed reading about our annual holiday party. Stay tuned for more fun stuff!

Let the Games Begin

After the prizes were handed out for stylish Christmas wear, we got down to business with the main event- the gift exchange.

Everyone was welcome to participate and the only requirement was to bring a $10 wrapped/bagged gift. It could be new; it could be used; it could be something you found on the side of the road, although we hoped not. 

Dave mixed things up a bit this year. Usually we start with the youngest person, or the one with the least seniority at the bar, which means that Dave always gets that coveted spot of last to pick a gift. (Coveted because all the gifts but one have been opened by this time, and he can steal whatever he wants or take a chance by opening the last remaining gift). This year, he handed out playing cards to each of us and then started with the ace of spades, working down the suit and on to the next one, to determine who picked.

This year, the game didn't get as outrageous and fun as it has in years past. There wasn't much stealing of the gifts, most people chose to unwrap a new one instead. Not fun, people.

Some of the gifts that made an appearance this year:

• a furry black Russian-like hat with ear flaps (perfect for winter scooter riding!)
• the first season of "Dukes of Hazzard" on DVD
• a remote control Tonka truck
• a bag of chips
• a stocking full of promotional adidas wear, including giant shorts that could fit twelve people
• liquor, of course
• a silver replica of our beloved Frank in the Tank
• the infamous KISS mug from a couple years ago
• a boudoir photo of Joe (scary!)

My favorite? The gift Dave contributed, a DVD of "Darren's Dance Grooves" that he proceeded to give to me to be wrapped. Before I wrapped it, I photoshopped Dave's head onto Darren's and retitled the video "Dave's Dance Grooves." He'll think twice next year before asking me to do his wrapping chores.

Since everyone was so polite, or maybe they just wanted to move on to bigger and better games, the gift exchange was over much more quickly than normal.

Tomorrow: Drinking Games!

The Worst is the Best

You all know how much we at The Sandbar love costumes and theme parties. As part of our entertainment for the employee party, everyone was encouraged to wear the most festive attire they could find.

Once we were reasonably sure that most of the invitees were present, we handed out slips of paper and took nominations for the best dressed. We even had prizes ready!

John was the runaway winner, thanks to his mom's Christmas vest (and possibly the mustache). He was awarded a musical penguin that dances to "Ice Ice Baby."

Chris took second place with a sweater he scavenged from his neighbor. His prize was a set of plush reindeer antlers complete with battery-operated lights.

After those two, the votes were wide open- most of the rest of the people there who participated got at least one vote. Too bad Ken- with his dickie and suede jacket- arrived after the contest.

Remember, join us at The Sandbar on Friday night for another round of tacky holiday wear! We'll have prizes at 6:30 and midnight.

Tomorrow: The Presents!