It's that time of the year again- time for our annual Rocky Horror Picture Show party bus extravaganza!
This year's event will be held on Friday, Oct. 26. That's the weekend before Hallowee, and it's also Homecoming weekend at KU, so plan accordingly.
Here's all the details:
The bus leaves the Sandbar in Lawrence at 7:30 p.m. sharp. Since it's Final Fridays and Homecoming, downtown will be full, so be sure to leave enough time to find a parking place. And carpool if possible!
The bus travels to Baldwin City where we'll pick up people at the Lodge. We'll then continue on to Dunn's Landing for a chili feed and Halloween party. Then, we'll board the bus again and head to Ottawa's Plaza Grill and Cinema.
There's a bar and menu available at the Plaza Grill. After the movie, the bus will travel the same route back, arriving in Lawrence around midnight. It's Homecoming weekend, so the Sandbar will be extremely busy, so keep in mind that traveling on the party bus doesn't guarantee you'll be able to get in the bar when we get back.
Costumes are highly encouraged!
The cost for the party is $25 per person, which includes the bus trip, chili feed and the movie, and this must be paid at the time you sign up. A sign-up sheet is available at the Sandbar. Don't wait too long, this trip sells out every year!
Here's a Sandbar shirt picture from Grand Cayman, at a place that sounds like somewhere we should go: Rum Point. This picture was submitted by Sandbar friend Nikki, who says she can't wait to get back to Lawrence.
Thanks, Nikki! We'll look for you in the half marathon next year!
You may or may not know that our founder, Peach, also operates the Plaza Grill and Cinema in Ottawa. It's an old, historic movie theater in the downtown district that she has renovated over the past few years, and now in addition to showing movies, it's also a bar and grill. Not unlike the Alamo Drafthouse.
Anyway, the Plaza Grill has a special event coming up: a live comedy show.
You're invited to join us on Friday, October 5 for the show featuring the Fryman and Chris Smith.
The Fryman is a twenty year veteran of the stage, as well as a national recording artist with Laughing Hyena Records. He has appeared on NBC and he is also one of the only white guys to appear on BET's Comicview. He has also done three military comedy tours overseas for our troops and can be heard regularly on Sirius/XM satellite radio. He's also a former marine who originally hails from Keflavik Iceland, but now chills in St Louis. He has performed in over 40 states and more than 250 cities and towns in the United States.
Feature act Chris Smith also hails from St. Louis. With an intelligent delivery and thoughtful material, this comedian is always entertaining and never offensive. Adept at reading a crowd, he always finds the right material for the right situation.
Tickets are just $10. A bar and full menu will be available for the event.
Tickets are available at the Plaza Grill and Cinema in downtown Ottawa, or you can call 785.242.5555 to purchase tickets over the phone.
Our custom-designed pint glasses have been a huge hit since we started offering them several years ago. You can buy a pint glass anytime for $3, but they're especially popular on Tropical Thursdays, when we offer up tropical drinks for just $2.50 when they're in a pint glass.
It works like this: you pay $5 for the first drink, and that gets you the tropical drink of your choice plus a glass that's yours to keep. Then, you can refill the glass anytime on Thursday with the same or a different tropical drink for $2.50. So, you're getting a small discount on the price of the glass, plus the option for discounted drinks.
And, you can bring your pint glass back every Thursday if you don't want to buy a new one!
Except…why wouldn't you want a new one?
Our latest pint glass brainstorm is mustaches. Everyone loves the mustache drink toys, more than we could have ever imagined, and we saw cool mustache glasses on Pinterest (where else), so we decided to make our own.
The first one we offered was the Handlebar, and the latest one debuts today: the Horseshoe.
Better get yours while you can! Once this batch of pints sells out, we'll move on to the next mustache.
Have you heard of the Color Run? It's a crazy-sounding 5k "run" where all the participants wear white and are blasted with color at various stops during the route, so at the end of the run everyone looks like a giant rainbow. It's more about fun than speed, so even non-runners can enjoy the experience.
The Color Run took place in Kansas City last spring, and it seems like all of our Facebook and Twitter friends were there.
Well, now it's coming to Lawrence! Mark your calendar for Saturday, Oct. 6 at 4 p.m. and get ready for the "happiest 5k on the planet," as they say. The run takes place in downtown and east Lawrence.
And, we've got a team you can join. If you sign up before Sept. 15, it's $40, and if you join our team you'll save five bucks! After that date the price goes up.
Choose "Team Registration" if you want to join our team
Sign in or create an account
Under the "Team Information" section, choose "join a team," and in the search box search for "Sandbar Shark Attack."
Finish the rest of your registration
The Color Run is also supporting the Assists Foundation, and you can choose to make a personal donation if you wish.
That's it! What are you waiting for?
We'll have more details soon, but we're tentatively planning on having pre- and post-race gatherings at the bar, and we're also planning to print special white Sandbar T-shirts just for the Color Run! We'll let you know when they're available for purchase.
One of Lawrence's most unusual traditions is this weekend: the annual Busker Festival.
This weekend, street performers of all types will hit downtown Lawrence with fire, swords and more. It's a great place to take the family for some entertainment!
We're excited to be part of the Busker Fest. We'll have a bar set up outside in front of our place so you can enjoy a beer while watching the performance.
It's always fun to see what people do with our toys.
Sometimes they become desktop decor, other times they decorate a bathroom. Toys have been spotted hanging from rearview mirrors in cars, and often they end up in the bottom of a purse, only to be discovered much later.
Many people give them to their kids. Maybe it's their way of feeling better about leaving junior with a babysitter while they go out on the town and have a few drinks.
Here's one use of a drink toy we haven't seen before: a Sandbar tiki transformer, submitted by our friend Curtis:
Our fourth annual birthday block party was last Saturday, and once again we were truly amazed at what a great night it was. So many of you came out and partied with us, and for as many people that came through our doors- or gates- there were virtually no problems.
Local band Blue Orleans (like them on Facebook here) kicked off the party around 7 p.m. on our recycled pirate ship stage. (We spend a lot of time and money building our St. Patrick's Day float, so we're thrilled to be able to use it again!) Blue Orleans has played at street parties in front of our place before, and they're always popular with the crowd. In fact, usually people are asking if they can play longer
Here's a video that Patrick shot of the band:
After Blue Orleans wrapped up, Peach introduced the newest member of the Sandbar family- Dave's baby boy. He's almost eight months old, so give him a couple years and he'll be mopping floors and wreaking havoc at the bar, just like Andrew did when he was little.
While Mark Valentine's headlining band was setting up their equipment on our ship, we played a slideshow of pictures from the past year at the Sandbar. Many of the photos were submitted by our faithful fans, and we appreciate the response we got when we asked for your pictures.
The slideshow is pretty long (though, it's not the longest one EVER as our friends over at the Larryville Chronicles seem to think) and we'll eventually get it posted on YouTube so everyone can see it.
While we're talking about the Larryville Chronicles, click here to check out their recap of our block party. It's pretty funny, and we're impressed that they got their recap posted long before we found time to write our own.
The big news of the night was the debut of a brand new hurricane video! Our current video is five years old, and while we still love it and many of you still laugh at it, it's time for something new. Patrick, Peach's brother, created a new video starring a few folks from the Sandbar. We played it at the block party, and we hope you'll stop by the bar sometime to see it in action.
Mark Valentine and the Knights finished up the night by playing all of our favorite tropical tunes.
Once again, the night was super fun and went by so fast. We can't wait until next year!
This Sandbar shirt picture comes to us from Pete, who has taken lots of great photos of our block parties in the past. This is at the Intrepid Museum in midtown Manhattan, in New York City.
