St. Patrick's Day is our favorite holiday of the year, and we spend a lot of time, money and effort making it fun not only for us, but for the community. We're proud sponsors of the Lawrence St. Patrick's Day Parade, and our staff and friends participate in many of the fundraising events and on the committee.
It all culminates on March 17 each year with the annual parade.
This year, we built a float around a theme we've considered for many years: Gilligan's Island. We've talked about this one for a long time now, but we've never been able to put together a building plan. It all came together this year.
Our building crew created half a boat called the S.S. Minnow, a giant boulder that it "crashed" into and a beach. We had the full cast of characters and a boat load of Gilligans. We even had the golf cart, native islanders and the golf cart!
Here's a couple pictures:
There's more pictures on our Facebook page, you can check them out here. (You have to be logged into Facebook to see our page.) And we'll have more to add in a few days.
Also, here's a short video made with Vine from Twitter user @uh_burton:
Sunday night was the 11th annual Pub Quiz trivia event to benefit the Lawrence St. Patrick's Day Parade, which benefits local children's charities.
Eleven years already- wow. The Sandbar has had a team in this event for at least most of those years. Our former bartender, Scottie Mack, puts the event together. We actually won last year, believe it or not.
This year we had nine smart people on our team who could cover topics ranging from military history to celebrity baby names (that's my area of expertise and I'm not ashamed to admit it).
We're sad to say, however, that we missed this question:
"John Hampton claims to be the first male to portray this downtown Lawrence character."
Got an answer? We didn't. It wasn't our question, but the team who got that one couldn't answer it, so everyone had a chance.
We didn't win the trivia game, but we finished in the top half so we're proud of that.
So, now that St. Patrick's Day is almost a month in the past, and we've waited nearly two weeks to post on our blog…TWO WEEKS! This has never happened before.
Here's more from this year's St. Patrick's Day…Patrick, Peach's brother, loves to shoot video. He brought out his camera (inside a crazy contraption that holds it steady) on St. Pat's and recorded our float.
Here are some videos:
This is a great video of our float. You can't hear the music until the boat gets closer to the camera, but it certainly shows off the boat in all its glory.
This one features the girls on the main deck dancing to the Drunken Sailor song. We loved their dance!
Many thanks to Patrick for filming our float and posting the videos!
This post is waaaay late, but I've been busy. Going back to work after a three-month maternity leave, adjusting to daycare and taking care of a sick baby keep a person busy and doesn't leave much time for blogging.
St. Patrick's Day was so much fun this year! The Sandbar construction crew built a ginormous pirate ship. This float was bigger than any we've built before.
Check out the LJWorld's coverage of the parade here, along with a fabulous photo of our ship. We might buy a copy of that one and frame it for the bar. The LJWorld talkbackers seem to think we build boats every year, but that's not true. We haven't built a boat since 2007, when we danced on a double decker riverboat, and before that it was 2004's Love Boat. Our last pirate ship was back in 2002.
Here's a picture from atop the float as it made its way down Mass Street:
The float had several decks for dancing pirates. The ladies on the middle deck improvised their dance moves and created a circle dance during the Drunken Sailor song. It looked so good that Dave the DJ kept playing that song over and over…and apparently it wore them out. Sorry, girls!
Our floats always have secret touches or inside jokes, and this year was no exception. In keeping with recent tradition, the pirate ship had his and hers bathrooms. And this year, two of our chief float builders decided to go on a cruise on a real ship instead of dancing on ours. Dave made sure they were still represented though:
These Justin and Michelle heads rode on the highest point of the float, up in the crow's nests. After the parade, we had a lot of fun posing for pictures with them.
As a thank you for missing the parade, Dave played a prank on them. He left a life-size statue of a pirate we call "Shaky" in the bathroom in their house. It scared the crap out of them when they got home. They'll never miss another parade again!
See more parade pictures on our Facebook page. Got pictures of our float? We'd love to see them! Email them to us at sandbar@thesandbar.com.
Celebrate St. Patrick's Day in style with brand new Sandbar glasses. Our logo's on the front, and here's the design on the back of the glass:
You might remember this design from our T-shirts a few years ago. We didn't have time this year to run a contest for new pint glass designs, and we didn't have time to create a design ourselves. Luckily, this one worked just as well for glasses as it did for shirts.
Stop by and pick up your glass today! They're $3 each.
We got a late start on this year's St. Patrick's Day parade float, but we promise it will be bigger and better than ever!
Every year, we have lots of helpers. Builders, painters and even cleaner-uppers. Here's a picture from our friend Curtis after last Sunday's work day:
His two little boys help with the float every year. They're great at picking up all the loose screws and other things that the rest of us can't bend down far enough to find. Their reward for all their hard work is a place of honor on the float during the parade.
Be sure to look for the littlest members of our crew this year! The parade is Saturday, Mar. 17, at 1 p.m. in downtown Lawrence.
