The Sandbar...Home of the Indoor Hurricane!

Schedule of Party Events!

Don't forget to join us for our 20th Birthday Party celebration tomorrow night!

The party will be held in front of the Sandbar. Eighth Street between New Hampshire and Massachusetts will be closed to traffic beginning at 5 p.m.

Here's a schedule of events for the night:

• 7 p.m. Stomper, a band featuring some of our neighbors from Richards Music Company, will start the show off with some tunes to warm up the crowd.

• 8:30ish The Bar Band will perform some crowd favorites, led by our bartender Tyler.

• 9 p.m. Mark Valentine and the Number Ones will take the stage and start playing Sandbar favorites.

• 10 p.m. Old-school Sandbar bartenders Ryan and Garreth will entertain the crowd with a few stories from the early years of the Sandbar.

• 10:30 p.m. The Sandbar Showgirls will perform some favorite Sandbar float dances! Dance along with us in the street. And, a special surprise at the end of this set- something that usually only happens late in the night, behind the bar, when the bartenders get a little silly.

• 11 p.m. The band will resume playing more fun tunes until late in the night.

A few highlights:

• This party is FREE and open to the public!

• It's a family-friendly event, so feel free to bring your kids to dance in the street.

• There will be bottled water, soda, and food available for purchase in the street.

• No alcohol will be allowed in the street. All alcohol must remain inside the bar or the extended beer garden.

• There is a $5 cover charge to enter the bar/beer garden, and you must be 21 to enter these areas. You'll be given a wristband the first time you enter.

We will have brand new Sandbar t-shirts for sale, but unfortunately our medium's didn't show up! We'll only have small, large, and extra large in stock. We will try to get additional sizes soon.

Please be kind to our staff, and we hope to see you tomorrow night!

Limited Edition 20th Birthday Sandbar Shirts!

We know you've all been waiting for these!

We have brand new, limited edition, 20th birthday celebration shirts arriving soon. They will be available beginning on Saturday at our birthday party. 

There are two different designs, although at first glance they might look the same. One shirt has the outside of the building on it, and the other one has a rendition of the interior bar. We got so excited about this artwork and couldn't choose between the two, so we thought we might as well just order both.

The shirt itself is a pale yellow shirt, which we haven't had in many years. They are available in sizes small through double-extra-large, and each shirt is $15. 

This fantastic artwork was created by the folks at Hasty Awards in Ottawa, KS- the home of our second Sandbar location.

We know that many of you won't be able to attend the party this weekend. You can order a shirt by mail order- just send an email to us at [email protected], and let us know what shirt, how many, and what sizes you need. We can accept payment by credit card or Paypal. Shipping and handling is $5 for the first shirt, and $1 extra for each additional shirt. Plus, we'll throw in some fun Sandbar surprises!

Thank You to Our Birthday Party Sponsors!

Our 20th Birthday celebration is this weekend, and there are people we need to thank.

The trailer that will serve as our pirate ship stage is provided by Zarco66.  Scott Zaremba, owner of Zarco66, is also the voice you hear inviting you to our party in the ads currently running on local radio stations. 

Zarco66 has nine locations throughout the area, with Scooter's Coffeehouse located behind the station at 9th and Iowa in Lawrence. We'll have some other exciting news about Zarco66 and the Sandbar in the next few months, so stay tuned.

Richard's Music Company has been our next-door neighbor for several years now. We keep the staff caffeinated. They are graciously setting up the sound system and helping to run electricity for this shindig.

And, some of their employees are going to entertain you! They have a band called Stomper and play Steely Dan type of music, according to Dave. Stomper is going to open up our show at 7 p.m and play for awhile.

Our friend and customer Tony operates professional entertainment company Primetime Entertainment. He is running all of the fancy lights for our show, and he also helped build the stage.

Tony is also setting up the projection screen on our stage that will show our slideshow with pictures from the last 20 years!

Standard Beverage is one of our local beer and liquor distributors. They keep the customers happy by selling us alcohol. They also employ our "man on the street" and former bartender Patrick. 

Our Standard rep Trent provided wristbands for us to use at the door, as well as all of the fancy banners that you'll see at our party this weekend.

Their brands Corona and Red Stripe will also be featured at the party.

A big thanks to all of our sponsors for helping us with party duties! And to all of our fans, please thank these companies as well!

Get Sandbar Birthday Party Updates in Real-Time!

Check out this page for real-time updates about the Sandbar's 20th Birthday Party on August 1, as they're shared on Twitter! See posts from The Sandbar, with all kinds of fun sneak peeks into what's happening, along with things other people are saying about the party.

If you're on Twitter, be sure to follow The Sandbar. Anytime you tweet about our birthday party, use the #sbar hashtag so your post will show up on our Tweetgrid!  And if you're not on Twitter, you can still see the updates by checking this page.

We hope to have lots of our followers talking about the party in the week leading up to it as well as during the party. And, we'll have prizes! After the party (or maybe during the party, if I can make it work), several tweets featuring the #sbar hashtag will be chosen at random. Winners will get a special Sandbar prize! 

Your Favorite Jukebox Song Is...

A little over a week ago, I posted a new random question over on the right side of the page. This time I wanted to know what your favorite jukebox song is.

There could have easily been a hundred options to pick from, but for lack of space and time, I picked a few songs that seem to be played over and over, every night. 

I also gave you the choice of "something else." I have to admit, I'm pleasantly surprised that this option didn't have more than half of the votes! That tells me I did a decent job of picking the popular songs.

Now, for the votes:

• "Something Else" won, with 44.7% of the votes
• Sweet Caroline had 23.7% of the votes
• Car Wash, 15.8%
• Don't Stop Believin', 10.5%
• Sweet Home Alabama and Jessie's Girl both had 2.6% of the votes

I was glad that so many of you left comments (on here, Facebook, and Twitter) about your other favorite songs!

• Son of a Preacher Man
• ABBA
• Disney songs
• Like a Prayer
• Brown Eyed Girl

And my all-time favorite sing-along song, David Allan Coe's "You Never Even Called Me By My Name."

Any suggestions for the next poll question? Leave a comment with your idea.

Sandbar Shirt in Berlin

Our fans have really responded to our recent request for pictures of Sandbar shirts in exotic locations!

Last week, Sandbar fan Joe (not the Factor) emailed us this picture of him and his Sandbar shirt in Berlin:

Want to be featured here next? Email us your best Sandbar shirt picture! We'll post it here and on our wall inside the bar.

Sandbar Bell-Ringers

Here's a story from our Man on the Street, who has now been given the esteemed title of "featured contributor." I don't know if he wants it or not, but he's got it.

I went to Hy-Vee this morning, and the Salvation Army is collection money for a Christmas in July. They were playing Buffett music, wearing leis, coconut bras, grass skirts, etc. 

I said to the bell-ringers, "It looks like you're headed to The Sandbar!"

"We haven't been home yet... we were there last night," one of the girls replied.

I'm pretty sure she was kidding....

Who knows, maybe not! The Sandbar-beach-Buffett theme is a pretty good one if you're trying to attract attention. We did it several years ago at our water station for the Lawrence Half Marathon, and we won a prize for having the most spirit.

Another Shirt for the Wall

Last weekend I noticed yet another new addition to our "Sandbar Shirts Around the World" wall. This one is really cool- we admired the creative technique he used to make the blue Sandbar shirt stand out against the background!

I'm not really sure where this was taken, there wasn't a note or anything, and I sadly don't recognize the buildings. Somewhere in Europe, I assume, but correct me if you know better.

We love getting these pictures! If you have a picture of you or friends or family wearing a Sandbar shirt somewhere fun, send us a copy and we'll add it to the wall and feature it here!

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!