Drum roll, please……
We’ve decided on our theme for the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day Parade!!
But we can’t announce it to the public yet. We’re still working out the details- the costumes, the music, the dances, and the float itself. But I promise you, this will be a good one!! If you’ve ever seen our floats before you know that we spare no time or expense in our neverending quest for a fun time!
We’ll make our big announcement soon so keep reading!
Our employees are silly sometimes.
I’m sure you’ve all seen the movie "The 40 Year Old Virgin." {If you haven’t, you really need to watch it. Soon.} It’s a super hilarious flick about, well, a 40 year old virgin. Many memorable scenes.
You also probably know that Halloween can be somewhat of a competitive holiday at The Sandbar- everyone tries to come up with that one costume that tops everyone else’s, the one that nobody else thought of, the one that is so funny and recognizable that you’re the star of the evening.
Combining these two things can produce very amusing results.
{Note: spoiler ahead! If you haven’t seen the movie- and really, why haven’t you??- stop reading now!}
So Drew decided he was going to be the 40 year old virgin for Halloween. But not only was he going to be the title character- he was going to be the title character in perhaps his most vulnerable (and there were many) and cringe-inducing moment (and there were many of those as well).
Remember the scene where the guys decide that Andy’s chest hair is just too much and must be removed? Our buddy Drew thought he was man enough to handle a wax job. And he was pretty brave, considering he let Morgan do the waxing.
You may not want to know this, but the waxing ceremony took place at the Sandbar, with the guest of honor lying down on the bar. And the best part of all: it was videotaped! Yes, we have the event on camera.
And as a special treat for our blog readers, here it is….Drew in all his (painful) glory. He didn’t scream quite as much as Andy….
Well the last Maynard finally turned 21 yesterday.
Over the last several years we’ve all gotten to know the Maynards. Chris worked at the bar for awhile, and then he moved on to a "real job." Little brother John turned 21 last year and started working the door several nights a week. Youngest sister Brittany hit the milestone yesterday.
We’ve had a number of Maynard gatherings. Chris’ engagement party…dad’s birthday party…now Brittany’s 21st. The big celebration was at The Sandbar last night (along with a couple other birthday parties). Brittany and friends happily hopped on the bar for their own special hurricane.
A big happy birthday goes out to the prettiest of the Maynard kids!
The Sandbar is more than just a bar. It’s a close-knit family; a refuge from the daily grind; a place to meet new people; somewhere to party. Something you may not realize, however, is that The Sandbar is also a very charitable business.
One of our biggest involvements is, of course, the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which is a huge fundraiser for local children’s charities. We always enter a float in the parade, and in most of the years when we’ve won a cash prize, the money has been donated back to the charity. We sponsor a team in the trivia challenge. We also donate items to the St. Patrick’s Day auction, as well as buy things other people have donated.
One of our newer charitable causes is Big Brothers Big Sisters of Douglas County. The organization’s big fundraiser is Bowl For Kids’ Sake, a bowling event that raises thousands of dollars for the agency. The Sandbar has a team signed up to bowl this year, and the team is currently accepting donations. So far, we’ve raised $510 of our goal of $1000. You can help our team reach it’s goal by going to this website and making a donation. Choose one of our team members and you can make a general team donation.
This is a great organization. Jake and John, our Australian travelers, were both involved as Big Brothers when they were still in town. It is the largest provider of one-on-one youth mentoring in the country. Adults are matched with children to serve as mentors, or role models, and be a positive influence on the child.
BBBS is just one of the many groups The Sandbar and it’s friends are proud to support. You can help too- by becoming a volunteer, signing up to bowl, or making a donation. Thanks for your support!
All of our employees have lives outside The Sandbar- they’re either in school, or they have other part-time or even full-time jobs. We’ve had teachers, bankers, and other professional types, as well as staff who worked at other bars or restaurants around town. One of the more unique sidelines of one of our employees is Danny’s gig as a member of the local band Sellout!.
If you’ve never seen Sellout! perform, you are truly missing a fun experience. The band usually has 6-8 members performing (including former Sandbar employee Bob on the drums!) and they’re all decked out in costume. Gene Simmons (of KISS), Marilyn Monroe, Tina Turner, the construction worker from the Village People, Jim Morrison. We’ve seen a variety of characters perform with Sellout!. The band plays a great variety of danceable hits from every decade. You won’t stay in your seat very long at this show.
Danny plays the saxophone and sings many of the band’s songs. At the first shows we saw, he dressed as a Blues Brother, with a black suit, tie, and dark sunglasses. After his wildly popular stint as Devo for Halloween, however, he’s brought that character onstage with Sellout!. Which makes sense, since one Danny’s most popular songs is Whip It. Apparently the Devo costume also keeps him cooler during the show than the previous suit.
Sellout! usually performs at the Jazzhaus once a month on both Friday and Saturday nights. They’ve played at the Granada before, and when drummer Bob got married last April, Sellout! performed at the reception. According to their website, they play mostly in Kansas and Missouri, but are available for "fun gigs around the world." They’ll be playing again at the Jazzhaus on February 16 and 17.
If you’re looking for a good time with fun people, great music, and dancing, check out Sellout!.
So, we recently got a postcard from Australia at The Sandbar, courtesy of our globetrotting boys Jake and John. Apparently they actually wrote the postcard shortly after they arrived Down Under. They just forgot to mail it until recently.
In true Jake-n-John style the front of the postcard featured a topless beach.
Dear Dave & Sandbar family,
Australia is a blast. We are finally settled in an apartment 5 mins from the beach, enjoying our jobs, and actually joined a gym. I had to get this card b/c I saw my first topless sunbather on the beach today. It was awesome. Hope everyone is doing great back home. We check out the blog anytime we get online. Ken, it’s summer here, so we are expecting a new summer of Ken. Blair, we gave a carbomb to a rugby player and he threw up. Papa Bear, we have a shot waiting for you down here when you’re ready.
Love,
Jake & John
It’s a wide, wide world out there. Imagine, some guys go their whole lives without seeing a topless sunbather. I guess there’s always postcards.
Our favorite holiday is fast approaching, and we need your help.
The Lawrence St. Patrick’s Day Parade is a long-standing tradition downtown, and it’s also become a tradition for The Sandbar. Every year our float gets bigger and better as we compete with ourselves to see what we can do next. It has to be big, it has to be impressive, it has to be challenging for us to build, and it has to be something the crowd will love to see. And of course there has to be a song we can fit to the float theme, because there’s always dancing on the Sandbar float!
What would the world like to see?
We go through this every year. As soon as the parade is over, we all start talking about the next one. Everyone has a million ideas and then, as time goes by, they’re all forgotten because none of us think to write them down. In January, we always find ourselves saying, "well it’s time to start thinking about float ideas," and then bam! it’s time to start building something and we’re running around like crazy people!
Here are some of our favorites from the past.
In 2001, the parade committee still developed a theme for the parade, and float entries were encouraged to follow the theme as closely as possible. I don’t remember what the theme even was, but we had nothing even close. Instead, we built an Egyptian themed float complete with gold glittery pyramids, Cleopatras, and a giant papier-mache Egyptian mask thing, courtesy of Justin and Michelle. We made the float fit the theme by using a banner that said "Everyone’s a little Irish on St. Patrick’s Day!"
2004 brought the Love Boat sailing down Massachusetts Street. It was truly a vision in white. By this time the parade committee had abandoned the idea of a parade theme and floats could be just about anything. The Love Boat was all Peach’s idea, and initially had some resistance, but it turned out to be a fabulous float and loads of fun.
And one more for you…my personal favorite, the hot rod car from Grease that we did in 2005. A giant car tilted up on the trailer…this one took some creativity. But our chief builder Dave and his helpers did an excellent job. A funny note to add on this one…there was a real car driving in the parade that day that our car was an exact replica of- we went to check it out and take pictures, but for some reason the owners didn’t seem as amused as we did.
Well, that’s it for a short trip down memory lane. As the big day approaches, we’ll share lots more of our favorite photos, stories, memories and maybe even video, if I have time to figure out how to upload to YouTube.
We have a new Random Question over to the right, be sure to vote on your favorite Sandbar float! And if you have ideas for a new float, send them our way!
What’s your favorite night to go to The Sandbar?
We posed this question to our many thousands of readers, and you overwhelmingy voted for St. Patrick’s Day! No surprise to me, that’s my favorite day and night at the bar, too.
St. Patrick’s Day is busy all day long. The bar usually opens around 11 a.m. to accommodate the pre-parade partiers. It’s non-stop fun as soon as the doors open. Distributors and marketers always have promotional items for us, so we have prizes to give away all day too. By the time the parade is over, there’s a line at the door. In fact, when the popular Sandbar parade float returns with it’s performers, there’s barely room for the stars of the float to go inside!
The bar stays busy into the wee hours of the night. And this year, St. Patrick’s Day is on a Saturday, so we anticipate even larger crowds than normal. Stay tuned for more information on our annual holiday!
The Sandbar has some brainy folks hanging around.
A group of employees, friends, regulars, and other randoms started going to Brainville, a trivia game held at Johnny’s every Thursday night and run by our friend Scotty Mac. The game usually starts around 8 or 8:30, and there are usually 8-10 teams showing off their smarts.
The Sandbar group is sometimes smart, sometimes not. It costs $5 per person to play, and the winning team or two takes the prize money. I think our group has won a couple times and come close several other times.
Ron and Morgan organized an official trivia team to go to the Bottleneck’s trivia game on Sunday nights. They even had fancy matching shirts made up, with designs on the front and their names on the back. They’re so dedicated to answering questions for money that they even skipped out on our Christmas gift exchange.
We’ve thought about trying to incorporate a trivia game at The Sandbar. Maybe on Fridays after work, or another, less-busy evening. We aren’t sure yet. It’s still in the thinking-about-it stages. What do you think? Are Sandbar customers interested in trivia? Let us know!
We don’t like to kick people out of The Sandbar, but occasionally there’s a customer who is just too drunk, bothering other customers, or getting belligerent with the staff. Sometimes, it’s just time to go.
Last week the guys were cursed with a particularly rowdy patron. She’d been drinking all day during the football game, and by the time she came to The Sandbar she should have been finished. She was banging the tip jar on the bar and yelling at the bartenders. She wanted to dance on the bar and was told no, because she was too drunk. After the hurricane, she managed to sneak onto the bar without catching the attention of the bartenders. Once they saw her, they tried to get her down- but it’s difficult to make someone get off the bar if they don’t want to. When she finally decided to disembark our fine dancing platform, she fell on the floor. Which is exactly why they told her not to get up there in the first place.
At this point, the guys decided enough was enough, and escorted her to the door. She yelled and cursed at them during the entire walk to the door, and then even tried to come back in, telling them she was going to call the owners, get the staff fired, etc.
The moral of this story?
Don’t be a bad customer. We like to have fun as much as the next person, but belligerent drunks are not our idea of fun. We like to keep The Sandbar fun for everyone, and if a customer is hindering this goal, then they need to leave.
Don’t get on the bar after you’ve been told not to. If the bartenders think you’re too drunk to get up there, you probably are. They have a lot of experience with this. Your safety is very important to us.
Don’t yell or curse at the bar staff. This is an especially big pet peeve with most of the staff. They can hear you, even if they don’t acknowledge you. They’re busy and they’ll get to you when they can. They’ll probably ignore you until you stop yelling at them.
Don’t use the "I know the owner" line to make threats. This doesn’t work. Real friends don’t make threats like this. If you’re using this line, it pretty much guarantees that you’re not a good friend of the owner(s). Real friends treat their friends’ employees with respect.
Don’t dump beer on other customers. This has happened so many times. It’s not a good move. It’s guaranteed to get you a personal escort to the door.
If you can follow these simple tips, you’ll probably be fine. We want you to come here to have fun. The Sandbar is a happy place.
