Thank you to all of our wonderful customers and friends who celebrated with us, and a huge thank you to Peoples Bank for sponsoring this year’s party.
In case you missed it, we went all out this year with a giant stage, even bigger beer garden and a Grammy-nominated band, the Fabulous Thunderbirds.
And perhaps the best part? The weather was gorgeous—really, we couldn’t have asked for better weather, especially after a long, gray, rainy week. It wasn’t hot like it’s been for all our other block parties; it didn’t rain; but it wasn’t cold, either. Truly perfect.
Very Important People enjoyed a pre-party in the brand new Sandbar Subs World Headquarters right across the street from the bar, where a new Peoples Bank location will be housed as well.
Local band Cowboy Indian Bear opened the show and then the Thunderbirds took the stage. They played until around 10:30, which left plenty of time for party-goers to mingle in the beer garden after the show.
We took a lot of pictures. Watch the slideshow below:
We're very excited to announce that construction of our 2010 St. Patrick's Day Parade float has officially begun! It actually started last weekend, when the longer-than-usual trailer was delivered to our rented garage space, and some of the usual suspects hauled out their power tools and lumber.
This is at least our 14th or 15th year in a row to have a float in the annual parade. Our float, like the parade itself and the crowd that watches it, has grown bigger and better every year. Except maybe for 2008, the year of the Soggy Sandbarn– the torrential downpour that day kept lots of people away from the parade and made our dancers cranky.
Every float is our favorite one at that particular time, but the 2007 Showboat stands out as perhaps our largest undertaking ever (two levels of people!), and the 2003 Love Shack was a crowd favorite that featured a palm tree falling off the float and nearly crashing into the judge's table. Fortunately, no small children or animals were injured.
We're officially behind schedule since Mother Nature has been particularly uncooperative this year. But as long as it's sunny and somewhat warm on the big day, we're not complaining.
The Parade is held on Wednesday, March 17, at 1 p.m. It begins at South Park and travels north on Massachusetts Street and across the bridge, and then from there it's anyone's guess. The Flamingo Club is still the destination, but due to never-ending construction in North Lawrence, we don't know what the actual route will be yet. (We're just hoping that our enormous float will be able to make the trip through North Lawrence, actually.)
It seems like every time a member of the Sandbar family is in the news, another one or two follow right along.
Dave is starting his third year as a member of the Downtown Lawrence Board of Directors. The LJW had a little blurb about the new additions to the board, as well as the continuing members.
If you have ideas, suggestions, complaints, or whatever about Downtown Lawrence, feel free to send them his way. He can at least take your thoughts to the board.
It doesn't seem like it was January of 2008 when Dave started this foray into board membership. It's been an interesting two years for him, learning about the inner workings of an organization and getting up at the crack of dawn the morning after he's worked all night in order to make a 7:30 a.m. meeting. At least they're only once a month.
Some of the Sandbar crew visited Austin, Texas, right before Thanksgiving. It seems like a million years ago after all the holiday hoopla, but I still wanted to share some of the fun stuff we saw at Austin bars. I'm going to break this up into several posts, because there's a lot to share. So, check back later this week for more.
Everyone always talks about Sixth Street as "the place to go" in Austin. And maybe it is, but not until 11 p.m. - even on weekends with home football games, apparently. Several of the bar employees we talked to confirmed that they rarely get busy until late at night.
Dave and I stayed at a hotel in downtown Austin about two blocks from Sixth Street, and on our first day there we spent the afternoon walking around the area. We noticed right away that it's very different than Mass Street in Lawrence. We're used to seeing people in Downtown Lawrence all the time- morning, afternoon, and late into the night- but the Sixth Street area was practically deserted. In fact, most of the other people walking around were sporting KU attire just like us; other tourists there for the football game who had been directed to Sixth Street as the place to be.
We found a somewhat-tropical looking place to grab some food, the Paradise Cafe & Bar. This was a research trip, after all! It was a cool old building that had been restored, and the staff was super friendly. Probably because there were several of them, and only a couple of us. We asked the bartender to whip up her best tropical concoction (the name escapes me), and it was pretty tasty. The staff even bought us tequila shots. In the middle of the afternoon,ugh.
Most of Sixth Street was populated with bars and restaurants, with a few random businesses or offices sprinkled in. Not like Downtown Lawrence, where you can buy practically anything. We also noticed that a majority of the bars seemed to offer some type of food. Another one we liked was the Jackalope– awesome burgers and a surprisingly delicious spicy Guiness Bloody Mary.
One of the few stores that we saw along Sixth Street that was actually open and busy was Wild About Music. As music fans, we spent quite a bit of time in there. It was a neat gift shop that I would compare to a combination of Hobb's/The Palace/Etc. Shop.
While we had a great time on Sixth Street, we decided that Lawrence is lucky to have a downtown area like we do- an area that is vibrant almost any time of the day, with office workers, shoppers, diners, and bar hoppers all sharing the space. It wouldn't be nearly as great if Mass Street activity shut down at 5 pm, or if it didn't get busy until late at night.
As of Tuesday, your pocket change won't buy you quite as much time as it used to. Rates at the meters on Massachusetts Street doubled- now you get 30 minutes for your quarter, 12 minutes for a dime, and 6 minutes for a nickel. The meters should all be clearly marked with the new rates.
The other big change for many of you- and us- is the price of parking tickets. Those are going up to $3, from the previous $2.
But that's not all!
Enforcement of the parking rules used to end at 5 pm; now you have to feed your meter until 6 pm or risk getting a ticket. And, if you're one of those habitual violators (I'm looking at you, Dave), the city is going to start enforcing that ordinance. They've had something like this around before, because unfortunately we're familiar with it, but basically if you get five or more parking tickets in a 30 day period, you'll get a $50 fine and have to pay court costs.
So when you're coming out to have a drink or grab some dinner, or to just hang out on the patio afternoon while you're playing hooky from work, make sure to feed your meter!
(Frank, this might be a good time to start working on that parking meter app we talked about….)
