The Sandbar...Home of the Indoor Hurricane!

Pet World's Haunted Castle

It's no secret that we love to create big and entertaining things- like our annual St. Patrick's Day float, which gets bigger and better every year. Our friends at Pet World are the same way when it comes to Halloween.

The crew at Pet World, along with volunteers from the neighborhood and all around town, have been creating haunted houses for a number of years now. Like our floats, every year their haunted house gets bigger and better, and they spend countless hours and lots of money putting together a labor of love, all for just a few hours' worth of entertainment. And like us, they have as much fun putting everything together.

This year's theme is a haunted castle- and the dragon from our castle float this year makes an appearance!

Dave and I got a sneak peek at this year's haunted castle, and it is truly amazing. They've created a whole maze of rooms in their yard, complete with all the spooky Halloween props, decorations and costumed actors you can dream of. Even in the daylight the castle was creepy, and the amount of time and energy that goes into putting this together is something we can definitely appreciate.

Details for this year's haunted castle:

• Sunday, October 31, from 7-9 p.m.
• 29th Court and Missouri Street in Lawrence, 2 blocks south of 27th & Missouri
• Free line to the north for costumed trick-or-treaters age 12 and under
• For everyone else, the line forms to the south. There's a $1 charge which goes to the Lawrence Humane Society.

The first 300 people will get free, reusable Pet World shopping bags.

If you love fun, interactive, family events- and Halloween- we encourage you to take the family over to the Pet World haunted house. You won't regret it!

Click here for more information.

Rocky Horror Recap

Let there be lips!

Last night the Sandbar hosted its second annual Rocky Horror Picture Show party bus extravaganza, and it was a smashing success.

We had a minor snag at the very start of the night- our bus was scheduled to leave the bar at 7 p.m., but due to all the happenings in downtown Lawrence (Final Fridays, show at Liberty Hall, celebration of Mass Street being named a Top 10 street), our characters had a hard time finding parking places. We got off to a late start and even had to pick a couple people up on random streets far away from downtown. We had a blast watching everyone walk into the bar in costume!

(Note- Michelle made the gold and black costumes in the picture above. No pattern- she just figured it out as she went. Amazing job!)

The bus traveled to Baldwin City and stopped at the Lodge, and then we continued on to Dunn's Landing for a Halloween party. By the way, THAT is an amazing place. Very cool barn. We had chili and warmed up with some Sandbar dancing tunes before continuing on to the Crystal Plaza Theater in Ottawa for the main event.

And what an event!

Several members of our group are RHPS-diehards. Others had only seen the movie once or twice- but it didn't matter. The audience was possibly more entertained by the constant narrations of Movie Dave and Scotty Mack than the movie itself. Peach's movie theater crew did and awesome job dealing with our rowdy group.

After the movie, we hit the road back to Lawrence and the Sandbar. What a fun night! We're looking forward to making this an annual event.

More pictures on our Facebook page and Flickr account.

More JibJab Halloween Greetings from the Sandbar

We're back with more fun JibJab Halloween videos, starring our awesome staff!

First up: chills, spills and thrills with zombie party, featuring Joe, John and Danny.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Next, the Monster Rap, starring Phil, Hayley, Tegan, Coleen and Fyler.

 

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Check out JibJab and make your own fun Halloween video cards! It's almost as fun as getting candy at the door.

Sandbar Monster Mash

We LOVE Halloween and we love JibJab almost as much.

If you're not familiar with JibJab, you need to get with it. It's a site that lets you upload pictures of you and your friends and insert them into hilarious personalized videos and cards. We like it so much we paid for a subscription last year, so we get access to even more videos. It's a great time waster.

So, here's our first Halloween JibJab card this year: the Monster Mash, starring Dave, Heather, Blair, Andrew and me.

 

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

We hope you enjoyed our first Happy Halloween card! More to come, since last year there was a staff uprising when people got left out of the Christmas elf video.

Wedding Party at the Sandbar

A few Fridays ago, we had a couple of unique things happen.

First of all, Peach made a rare appearance at the bar. If you're an old-school regular, you might remember the days and nights when Peach and Ted frequented the bar, staffed the door and even served drinks from time to time. More recent patrons may not even know Peach. She's pretty busy running the Crystal Plaza theater and the Sandbar Sub Shop in Ottawa, along with opening new franchises of the Sub Shop here in town.

The other unique event that Friday was a wedding party! I don't have all the details, but a couple who met at the Sandbar got married and stopped in to the bar that day in full wedding attire.

Peach took a picture on her phone of the bride and her bridesmaids dancing on a bench:

Bride, if you're reading this, we'd LOVE to hear your Sandbar love story! Contact us at [email protected].

We love it when wedding parties stop by!

Sandbar: Bachelorette Party Destination

The Sandbar is a hot spot for bachelorette parties. This is a guest post by Sandbar fan Bailey about a more unusual type of bachelorette party: after work and in the middle of the week.

Two weeks ago I was honored to be in my coworkers wedding. Denise and I started in our jobs within two weeks of each other and, per tradition in our office, during training and worries we weren’t learning fast
enough, we became friends as well. About three weeks before her and Jordan’s wedding, it came up in our office’s staff meeting that she was not going to have a bachelorette party.

*facepalm*

What a horrible bridesmaid I was! Her maid-of-honor lived in Utah and would only be in Lawrence for a few days. Her other bridesmaid lived in North Carolina - I was the only in town to throw it and I had, clearly, dropped the ball. Denise was not one for a crazy night out but a few drinks with the rest of our fabulous coworkers were definitely in order.

Another co-worker and I started scheming. Sam and I weren’t sure we could get Denise to go if she knew we were planning so it had to be a surprise. Denise was taking a few days off before the wedding and I strategically suggested we go get a drink after her last day of work. I had “errands to run” so I told her I would pick her up at 5:45 and we’d head downtown. (This gave everyone at work time to get downtown and not have to leave early and possibly making Denise suspicious).

Obviously, we had to go to my favorite land-locked island bar. In all the planning (and KNOWING we were heading to the Sandbar) I forgot to ask Denise where she wanted to go or tell her where I thought we should go. I just picked her up, parked and started walking to the bar. And as we rounded the corner to
8th Street, I saw a coworker walk into the bar before us! Dangit! Everyone was supposed to be there already! Fortunately, the bride-to-be didn’t notice.

We walked in and I led Denise straight to the back room. It was full of our wonderful coworkers with snacks and balloons. And the surprise bachelorette party was a success: Denise had no idea!

We talked about boyfriends and husbands and weddings, played our favorite songs on the jukebox and even got Andrew to make a wedding shot. I wish I could tell you what was in it but I don’t even think Andrew remembers how he made it. All we know is that it tasted like wedding cake!

This proves that bachelorette parties don't have to be wild and crazy affairs with party buses and anatomy-inspired props! Though we like those parties too. Thanks Bailey and congratulations to Denise!

Zombies in the Sandbar

Sandbar fan Mark sent us this picture he snapped of zombies in the Sandbar:

You might be wondering why zombies were in the Sandbar, especially since it's not Halloween yet. If you're not familiar with the antics that take place in downtown Lawrence, there's a Zombie Walk every year in October. This was the fourth year for the event and an estimated 350 people participated.

Some of the zombies found their way to the Sandbar, where no doubt they enjoyed bloody Shark Attacks.

Thanks for the picture, Mark!

Read the lawrence.com article for more information and pictures.

Scooter Poker Run at the Sandbar

Scooters are popular among the Sandbar staff and friends, and we've joked about our "scooter gang" before. Last Saturday, we held what might be the first poker run for scooters.

Poker runs are popular among motorcycle groups. They're usually for charity and usually take most of the day, riding from town to town and picking up a new card for your poker hand at each place. We wanted to do something similar with our scooters and Saturday was perfect weather for it.

The gang met at Slow Ride Roadhouse for lunch- a popular biker destination. We took over the front parking area with our little scooters. If you've never had lunch out there, I highly recommend it. Good stuff!

We traveled up the street to Johnny's Tavern, parked our bikes out front and enjoyed a drink on the back patio. Next up was Conroy's Pub, followed by Jet Lag, where we ran into a *real* biker gang. Some of the generous guys in that group paid the fee and drew a poker hand. Thanks guys!

We were having so much fun that we decided to add two more stops on our tour of Lawrence: Louise's West and Rick's Place. Unfortunately, we soon discovered that Rick doesn't open until 4 on Saturdays, but as we were pondering which bar to hit next, he opened the door and invited us in.

Our last stop was the Sandbar. Prizes were awarded for the best hand- our game changed to accommodate seven cards instead of five- and Sara was crowned the winner, with Laura taking second place and Pat taking third. The three winners all received cash prizes, and we were still able to raise $140 to donate to the St. Patrick's Day Parade Committee.

The booby prize for the worst hand went to Justin, and he promptly donated his prize to Sara. We all had a great time riding our scooters around and hanging out on some of the best patios in town!

 

Big thanks to Laura for managing the money and cards, and to Gayle for all the fantastic pictures!

Need a Job? Another Sandbar Subs Coming Soon!

The first Sandbar Sub Shop in Lawrence has been open for several months now, and another one is coming soon! The next shop will open in the Zarco 66 store on 6th Street in Lawrence. The store has been remodeled to accommodate the Sub Shop and a Scooter's Coffeehouse.

That means...help wanted!

Peach is looking for fun people with food service skills to work at the new shop. If you want to be part of a growing business that provides great food and excellent service in a fun environment, please contact Peach. You'll get to wear a Hawaiian shirt, too. How many jobs let you do that?!

E-mail your resume and your availability to [email protected]. She'd love to hear from you!

Tanning on the Beach, Sandbar Style

Last night featured a unique event at the Sandbar: a spray tan party on our fake beach.

Amelia of Premier Mobile Spray Tan brought her supplies and set up shop upstairs. All she needed? A tall, black pop-up tent and a paint-spraying contraption. She offers custom spray tans, which is much better than an automatic machine because she can see missed spots. No Ross or Snooki's here!

The whole process takes barely ten minutes. Disrobe to your comfort level- bathing suit, underwear, tank tops- and stand in the pop up tent while Amelia sprays on the color. It's kind of cold! Turn when she tells you to, close your eyes and breathe out when she sprays your face, and then you're tan.

The hardest part is the aftercare. No water on the skin for at least eight hours. That means no showers- which is difficult because you can feel the spray-on color constantly. It's sugar based and feels kind of sticky, no matter how dry it is, and all you want to do is get in the shower and scrub your skin. And, it's really hard to avoid all water- it also means no sweating and especially no puppy kisses.

But the end result is worth it! After showering the following day the color looks really great. It's smooth and even, not orange at all, and not so dark that it looks ridiculously fake. Just a nice, natural beachy glow.

We'll do more spray tan parties in the future, but in the meantime if you want to try it out, contact Amelia for an appointment!

Update: An endorsement from Michelle, a happy customer

I just wanted to say...I love my tan! This is the first time I've had a spray on tan and I've been getting compliments for two days now. People at work want to know what I've been up to over the weekend to get my tan, or have asked if I went on a vacation somewhere. I'm loving it! My birthmark came out a little darker than the rest of me, as expected, but not as dark as it is with a regular sun tan. The top of my feet never tan, just burn, and they turned out great when I saw them in the morning. I'm super happy with the results!