by Debbi | Oct 26, 2006 | Halloween
The "Random Question" off to the right has been updated with a new one. I figured out how to add pictures to the poll, pretty cool, huh?
Dave manages to come up with a fantastic costume every year. Usually he goes through three or four ideas before settling on one. His streak of crazy costumes started back in 2001, when he wanted to be a pro wrestler. It started because Will had left a brown mullet wig in the upstairs office, and Dave saw it. It was the perfect hairstyle for a pro wrestler. It wasn’t easy putting together this costume- imagine being 6 feet, ten inches tall, and asking athletic stores in town if they have a wrestling leotard (or whatever they’re called) that would fit you. We got a lot of strange looks. In the end, he settled for an old t-shirt with the sleeves ripped out, to fashion a white-trash style tank top, black shorts, and his old roper boots with the fringe removed. Add the sweatbands and a toy hammer around his neck, and "The Hammer" was born. What a long, strange, night Halloween was that year.
In 2003, along came Super Dave. This costume was amazingly accurate in its detail. White sweatpants and white windbreaker, with blue and red stripes of ribbon hot-glued on in just the right places. Plastic goggles, and a white plastic helmet. Gold stars. The television Super Dave would have been proud.
The next year brought the rock star out in Dave. He impersonated Dee Snider, from the rock band Twisted Sister, right down to the blond crimped wig and face makeup. Shouting out their songs while playing air guitar on the bar completed that look.
Last year was my favorite costume. Who would have thought of being Buddy the Elf for Halloween? Only Dave….He found a women’s extra large green fleece jacket at JCPenney’s, on clearance no less, and bought two. He managed to piece them together to create the Elf jacket, and made the belt from black felt. A blond curly wig, green felt glued to a pointy hat, and even black felt pointy pieces glued to some old black shoes added to the costume.
The impressive part of this costume is that Dave actually did all the sewing himself. Where did he learn to sew? I asked him that same question. In high school, he sewed himself a pair of jams. (remember those??!!??) He sewed them up without using a pattern, and apparently did well enough that he actually wore them.
Anyway. It’s too bad Halloween doesn’t happen more than once per year, because there are so many cool ideas that Dave has for costumes.
Stop by on Saturday or Tuesday night to see what he decided on this year!
by Debbi | Oct 25, 2006 | Halloween
Well it’s almost time for The Sandbar’s second favorite holiday of the year- Halloween!!
Every year the hunt for the perfect costume starts the day after Halloween ends. We have managed to stockpile enough pieces of costumes to fill several Rubbermaid tubs, and several of our friends have done the same. There’s a rack in the office at The Sandbar that houses even more costumes, many of them from St. Patrick’s Day. Needless to say, the Sandbar crew loves to dress in costume. We generally don’t even need a reason.
It’s amusing to see the costumes that people come up with every year. We see famous people, like Dr. Phil, pregnant Britney, Richard Nixon, and Billy Idol. The group costumes are always fun, like the Village People or the Gilligan’s Island castaways, or Blair and Ken’s impersonation of Wham! last year. Then there are the costumes that are just plain wierd, like the girl who wrapped herself in bubble wrap. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, something completely outrageous appears. If you’re in the bar anytime soon, just ask Dave about his "Hammer" costume.
This Saturday, The Sandbar will have special promotions and giveaways from Captain Morgan and Bacardi. We’ll also have cash prizes for the best costume. Get there early and stay late!
by Debbi | Oct 23, 2006 | Places
A group of employees from The Sandbar (Lawrence and Ottawa both), The Lodge of Baldwin City, and the new Plaza theatre in Ottawa just returned from a brainstorming retreat in tiny Beaumont, Kansas.
Those in attendance included: Peach and Ted; Dana, the Ottawa Sandbar manager, and his wife Lori, who works part time at the Plaza; Ashley and Dana, Ottawa Sandbar employees; Kate, Carol, Stacy, and Charles from The Lodge; “Movie” Dave from the Plaza theatre; and Dave and I from Lawrence. We also brought along our favorite local entertainer, Marlln, and his lovely wife, Julie.
Peach’s brother Patrick is the manager of the Beaumont Hotel, which is about 40 miles outside of Wichita. The hotel was built in 1879 to shelter pioneers traveling by stagecoach and railroad. It has seven rooms and four suites available on two levels. The unique thing about the Beaumont is that it has a grass landing strip. Pilots from all over the place fly in to Beaumont and stop in for a meal. It’s common for the residents of Beaumont to have airplane traffic jams on Main Street!
We had the place to ourselves Sunday night. The hotel staff was incrediby welcoming and gracious, and we enjoyed some wonderful food. All of us had a great time getting to know the staff from the other businesses and sharing stories and advice. Patrick fixed a bonfire Sunday night, and we sat around the fire drinking and telling jokes, and listening to Marlin’s music. And, just as The Sandbar video says, Patrick fell off his chair.
It was a wonderfully relaxing retreat from daily life. If your family or company is looking for a great place to get away, check out the Beaumont Hotel. You won’t be disappointed.
by Debbi | Oct 19, 2006 | Web/Tech
If you ever visit the Sandbar website, you’ve probably noticed that it hasn’t changed much lately. In fact, it hasn’t changed in nearly six months. The person in charge of the web finally got motivated last night (okay, it’s me) and made some major changes.
The website links to this blog now, which I hope will draw some more readers. You can also find our daily specials, the story of the hurricane, pictures, and merchandise on the website.
Along with this blog, we now have a page on MySpace. When I was thinking about doing a blog, many people suggested that I just set up a MySpace page, which offers a blog. I resisted this, for a couple reasons. Mostly, it’s because if you’re viewing a profile on MySpace, you have to log in to view pictures, blogs, and other things. I didn’t want to force everyone to have a MySpace account just to read our blog or see our pictures. However, it was also pointed out to me that MySpace is one of the top websites for traffic these days, and everybody has a page. So, The Sandbar has joined the rest of the world and joined MySpace. We’re now accepting friends.
The goal is to keep the website updated with new pictures frequently, as well as any big announcements. The website, blog, and MySpace page all link together, so check them out and let us know what you think.
by Debbi | Oct 16, 2006 | People
Our friends from Delaware, Les and Cathy, sent us this picture of their Jimmy Buffett-style snowwoman. If you look closely, you can see that she is wearing a Jayhawk coconut bra from The Sandbar!
by Debbi | Oct 15, 2006 | Web/Tech
One of the cool things about Typepad is that you can add photo albums to your blogs. We take a lot of pictures at The Sandbar, and we love to share them with our friends and customers. We also love to receive pictures from our friends, so if you have taken pictures at The Sandbar, send them to us at thesandbar@sunflower.com. Your pictures may end up featured on this blog or on our main website, which will be undergoing a major redesign (hopefully sooner than later!).
I hope to keep a variety of photo albums available to readers of this blog, so that even if you can’t be at The Sandbar every time something fun happens, you can still look at the pictures and feel like you were there. We’ll have picture albums for all of the big Sandbar events, like St. Patrick’s Day, Halloween, and New Year’s Eve, but also for other fun things that don’t necessarily happen every year. The first album that I am adding will have photos taken at Jake and John’s going away party before they left for Australia.
Speaking of Jake and John….last we heard from them, they were becoming big fans of an Australian boxed wine, and Jake had to load John into a shopping cart and wheel him home one night. Would love to have pictures of that….
Anyway, I hope you enjoy perusing our photo albums as they get posted. Scroll down the page, and the albums will be in the right-hand side menu. And remember, send us your pictures!
by Debbi | Oct 10, 2006 | People
The Sandbar crew is a unique group of people. Of course if you’ve ever been to the bar, you know this.
Peach started the Sandbar back in 1989. One of these days we’ll post some stories from back in the day. Dave has been the manager for long time- maybe 12 years? I can’t even count the years anymore. He loves his job. And he manages to put together a diverse, fun loving group of employees. People come in all the time and ask for jobs. He actually gets quite a lot of resumes from people as well- all about their past bartending experience, which bartending school they graduated from, on and on. A lot of the people he hires, however, have no experience whatsoever behind a bar.
Dave has an incredible knack for reading people. He watches the customers. He gets to know the regulars. And the wheels are always turning, looking for that next great employee. Usually he only hires someone who has become a regular customer. Someone who has fun when they come to the bar– dancing and laughing and drinking. (It’s a big plus if they dance on the bar and get excited about the hurricane.) Someone who brings a crowd with them. And someone who never causes trouble, even if they get drunk. Most staff members "worked" at The Sandbar before they were actually hired- watching the door when the doorguy has to pick up glasses; hanging around at closing time and helping to stock the cooler; stuff like that.
This blog will start spotlighting Sandbar staff- current employees as well as some of our notable- or not-so-notable- former staff members. Is there anything you want to know about these folks? Email your questions. You may find out more than you ever wanted to know about the fun crazy world of The Sandbar!
Here’s another pic from the Get Downtown! party that we received:
by Debbi | Oct 7, 2006 | Events
Wow. The Get Downtown! party was amazing.
We made a beer garden/patio/sidewalk dining area in front of The Sandbar using bamboo fending. It was actually quite a large area and of course had a bench for dancing. The new windows were open all night and there were people everywhere. The Sandbar started filling up early and by about 7:30 or 8, the entire block was packed. It totally reminded me of Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras, but with a much more family-friendly atmosphere. None of that shirt-lifting stuff that New Orleans is famous for….at least that I saw.
This is what our outdoor area looked like, around 5:
And much later in the evening:
It was a super night. The weather was incredible, not hot but not cold. The music was loud and fun, and people were (mostly) happy. Most of The Sandbar employees were present at some point in the evening, either working or playing, but mostly working.
One of the frustrating, but also funny, things of the night was trying to keep our customers from leaving with drinks. People who were either inside the building or inside the beer garden could go back and forth freely; however, they couldn’t leave either area with our drinks. Likewise, people couldn’t enter either of our areas with drinks purchased elsewhere. Normal rules that people are usually aware of- most people know that you can’t walk into a bar with a drink in hand. Likewise, people know you can’t leave a bar with a drink. Tonight, though, was different and all things ‘normal’ were out the window. It was almost comical to see and hear people ‘plotting’ how to get their Sandbar drinks out into the street area. A couple different folks were caught by Morgan, super doorgirl, more than once, and sent right back into Sandbar space. I think it became a game with them after awhile. I commented to Morgan once that it was kind of like trying to herd cattle all night, and she said "Yes, but cows don’t talk back!"
The night turned out to have record-setting sales, bigger even than St. Patrick’s Day. If you know anything about The Sandbar, you know that holiday is huge…all day long. Imagine St. Patrick’s Day crammed into 6 hours instead of 14 and you can understand how crazy last night was. You can read more about the event here.
by Debbi | Oct 4, 2006 | Stories
Notice anything different? Dave built new window casings and our good friends at Kennedy Glass came out today to help Ted and Dave install the windows. I think they make The Sandbar look very home-y in the front. Not a bad thing…as the bar sometimes seems like home to some of us! The guys were joking that back in the day, when The Sandbar was A.J.’s, the front glass had to be replaced quite a bit. Apparently the crowd was a bit more rough in those days. Come on down this Friday for the Get Downtown! party and check out all our new scenery: the windows, the new back room and fish tank, and our sidewalk dining area-for-the-day!!!
by Debbi | Oct 3, 2006 | Places
Looks like the Shark Attack is the favored Sandbar drink, at least for those of you who read our blog. It’s closely followed by our new Pink Flamingo.
The Shark Attack has been served since the summer of 2003. Dave and I went to New Orleans with our friends Kevin and Lisa that summer and discovered a fun Sandbar-like bar on Bourbon Street called Tropical Isle. It’s about ten times the size of The Sandbar and had all sorts of fun Jimmy 
Buffett memorabilia. Like us, the proprietors of this bar are all about fun drinks with toys. Dave ordered a Shark Attack and was thrilled when it came with it’s very own toy shark. A really big toy shark. But that wasn’t all- the toy shark was filled with grenadine (or cherry juice) that we got to pour into the drink ourselves! Hence, the shark "attack." We were in love and couldn’t believe that we hadn’t thought of a gimmick like that.
As soon as we returned home from our trip Dave came up with a recipe for our own Shark Attack, and we quickly found vinyl sharks from our Bahama Mama toy supplier, Fun Express. We now order sharks by the case. The drink became a big seller really fast. And it’s not just a "girly" or "frou-frou" drink, guys like it too. It tastes like a cherry limeade. Besides, it’s fun to pour in the grenadine and sing the theme from "Jaws." If you haven’t had one, you should order one next time you’re in the bar.
