If you haven’t realized it yet, next week is Valentine’s Day.
Last year, I told you all about how Dave and I met. It’s a cute little story that never fails to get mothers, grandmothers, and complete strangers to gush all over it. But there are so many more couples who have met at The Sandbar. Apparently the place just screams romance from behind the faded dollar bills on the walls. Some of the Sandbar-matched couples I knew about and mentioned in last year’s post; others spoke up in the comments. And I know there are so many more of you out there.
So this year, I want to hear your stories.
Send me an email (email link is over to the right near the top of the page) and tell me how you and your sweetie met at The Sandbar. Or maybe you stopped by the night before your wedding, or perhaps you brought your wedding party in after your reception. Or maybe you even got married at The Sandbar? (Don’t laugh, it’s happened, and it was fun.)
I’ve got a couple old pictures and stories (from before even my time) to share, but this will be a lot more fun if some of you contribute, too. If you have pictures, even better- send those too, if you don’t mind being published on the internet. And if you don’t relish the thought of having your name or picture plastered on a blog that attracts people searching for topless mermaids, that’s fine- I can easily change your name and keep you anonymous and picture-less. I just want your story. You can even pick your own fake name.
Otherwise, I’ll have to tell the one about me and Dave again, and it’s getting kind of boring.
Another busy Monday for The Sandbar. It would be awesome if this trend continued. The other thing we would like to see continue is the fabulous weather that graced us today, nice enough that we could open our front windows for the first time in a long time. Unfortunately, we’re supposed to start getting a “wintry mix” tonight and tomorrow. Enough of this winter stuff!
We hosted a retirement/farewell party for a friend today. Around 3 p.m. guests started to trickle in to eat, drink, and congratulate. Poor Dave- his Mondays are usually quiet and he can meet with his vendors, clean things that don’t always get cleaned, and generally get things done. Instead he divided his time among his regular duties and serving drinks to the partiers. Around 5- when it was perhaps a bit easier for folks to justify leaving their office and going to a bar- we got even busier.
Besides the farewell party, Peach and Dave had a small meeting scheduled for 5 p.m., so they retired to the back room with their group, leaving Joe behind the bar all by his lonesome. He brought us some tasty carrot bread that his girlfriend Teresa whipped up; it was yummy.
We also had our regular Monday visitors. A young boy has music lessons next door at Richard’s Music Company every week, and his mom hangs out for at The Sandbar to chat while she waits. We usually send the boy on his way with a Shirley Temple after his lesson. And, of course, our loyal computer expert and video crack champion Frank.
Last night around 9 p.m., there was a small group of young ladies seated on stools in front of the big fish tank. One of them excused herself to use the facilities, and when she returned to her friends, I overheard a bit of their conversation:
Girl #1: "I think you have to be under age 21 to be in here at this time of night!"
Girl #2: "Well, how old are you?" (I thought this a strange question; wouldn’t her friends know how old she is?)
Girl #1: "I’m 26! Apparently that’s ooooold for this place!"
I wanted to turn around and say "hello! 32 here!" but I didn’t. I was amused with their exchange; they obviously aren’t regulars. And as I looked around the bar, it seemed to me that the average age of the customers was around 30, which is normal for an early Friday night. Either she was a poor judge of age, or she was feeling a bit insecure about her own. There was most definitely not an abundance of young twenty-somethings in attendance last night, and certainly none that were underage.
A gentleman was harassing the mermaid by pulling on her dress. When I looked over, he had his head in the mermaid dress*. I walked over to him and asked him to behave** and walked away. When I came back he asked what I said, I told him again to respect the girl and quit trying to peek in the dress. He then said "What’s respectful about girls dancing on a bar!" and then he stood up.
I told him we could argue about it all night or we could let it go. At this point he used a few choice words so I grabbed his drink and Matt and I told him to leave.
The guy claimed to have known Peach for longer than I’ve been alive. Well la-de-da.
Our staff always looks out for the customers and makes sure that everyone is respectful. There is nothing wrong with girls dancing on the bar, plenty of men dance up there too and it’s all in fun. Good grief, it’s not like we’re a strip club or something. No one is ever forced to get up there if they don’t want to, unless it’s their birthday and their friends threaten to withhold presents or shots until they agree to be the mermaid.
*The mermaid dresses are wrap dresses that are intended to go on over the wearer’s existing clothes. Even if someone pokes their head into the dress, they can’t see anything. But we don’t like to condone that kind of behavior.
**Will, asking someone to behave? Does anyone else see the irony of this? That’s Will in the picture below, behaving by doing the worm on the bar.
Well, since the latest hurricane video has already been unveiled to the world (on New Year’s Eve), and it’s been running at the bar every night since, I might as well upload it to the internet. It seems kind of anti-climactic to have a red carpet premiere at this point.
The video might not be as funny to you if you didn’t see the most recent one; we expand on some jokes that were introduced last time.
I had to cut off the storm and the dance (same song, same dance moves, new video) because my computer wouldn’t cooperate. Look for the dance at a later date.
So, now that the holidays are over and we’re all digging out from underneath our month-long holiday-induced hangover, we now return to our regularly scheduled programming.
Back in the beginning days of The Sandbar, in an effort to start drawing a regular crowd, Peach had the girl bartenders wear bikini tops and dance on the bar.
Several years ago, Heather had a brainstorm {no jokes about Heather being a dumb blond, please, and those are her words, not mine} that was recorded for posterity in our "enforcement log," otherwise known as the daily chronicle of nonsense that occurs at the door and elsewhere within the building and is a source of amusement for the readers of this blog under the "Door Diaries" category.
Dave said they used to have bikini night on Monday’s. I believe that bringing back that fine tradition would pack the bar. I for one would be willing to tend bar in a bikini top, it’s just the bikini bottom that stops me.
Hmmm…something to think about.
At that point, the guys started to chime in with "hail, hail to the bikini tops." And they even started a petition on the next page of the notebook, although the signatures on said petition are dubious at best. I don’t think Nelly has actually set foot in The Sandbar.
And for the record, I am familiar with Heather’s distinctive handwriting and can vouch that it truly was she who wrote that bikini top suggestion in the notebook, and not some wishful-thinking doorman trying to pass the idea off as coming from one of the girls.
