by Debbi | Oct 1, 2011 | Events, Good Things
Once again the Sandbar sponsored a team at the Spurling Scramble, the sixth annual golf tournament put on by the Lawrence Police Officers Association, Fraternal Order of Police and International Association of Firefighters. This year's event was held last Thursday at Alvamar.
Proceeds from the event benefit a family or organization in need.
Team Sandbar consisted of staffers Tegan, Joe, Nathan and Tyler. Dave dragged himself out of bed early to be there at 7:30 a.m. with thermoses full of hot chocolate and bottles of Buttershots. He didn't golf, but he happily handed out shots and hung out with Karen and Kalissa.
According to the golfers, the "Factor" was in full effect that day. If you don't know what that means, you need to spend more time at the Sandbar.
by Debbi | Sep 30, 2011 | Downtown, Events, Good Things
Ladies, mark your calendars for a Girls' Night Downtown, a fun new event in downtown Lawrence!
Downtown Lawrence, Inc., and the Lawrence Memorial Hospital Endowment Association are teaming up to bring a shopping extravaganza to our downtown shopping district. Along with special discounts at participating stores, the proceeds will all benefit Mario's Closet, a specialty shop at LMH that offers wigs and other accessories for cancer patients that was founded by the Mario V. Chalmers Foundation.
Here's what you need to know:
- When: Thursday, Oct. 13
- Time: 5-9 p.m.
- Cost: $20, or $10 with a college I.D. (All ticket proceeds go directly to Mario's Closet)
Tickets can be purchased online in advance here. You can also purchase tickets at the DLI office, 833 1/2 Massachusetts, or on the night of the event next to the Eldridge or in front of U.S. Bank.
So, what do you get for the ticket price?
A pink shopping passport that gives you access to great discounts at participating merchants (see a list of participants here) and a pink shopping bag from Douglas County Bank filled with more coupons.
At every store you shop, be sure to get your passport stamped, and after you've shopped 'til you're about to drop, you can stop by after-parties at several venues, including the Sandbar. Drop your completed passport into the drawing box at the after-party, and you'll be entered to win the grand prize: a pink wallet full of gift certificates to downtown businesses!
This is a fabulous opportunity to shop downtown, enjoy great discounts, get some early holiday shopping done AND help raise money for a great cause.
We'll be participating in the party afterwards with a shot special, and everyone who visits and shows their pink passport to the bartender will get a free Sandbar pint glass. It just so happens that Thursday nights are tropical drink nights, too, so you can enjoy $2.50 tropical drinks in your new glass!
by Debbi | Sep 29, 2011 | Newsworthy, Social Media
Last week, Dave was contacted by a reporter who wanted to interview us about our use of foursquare, the location-based social networking service.
I spoke with the reporter, Stephanie Miles, this week to answer a few questions. The interview is featured online at StreetFight.com, a site that looks at the business of hyperlocal. Read it here!
We haven't done much with foursquare lately. We were one of the first businesses in Lawrence to use it, but it's hard to figure out a special to offer customers when you run a bar. Liquor laws in Kansas don't allow us to discount drinks unless everyone is entitled to the same discount, all day, so that kind of defeats the purpose of checking in on foursquare.
The first special we ran rewarded frequent customers: for every third check-in between 5-9 p.m., the customer could show their check-in to the bartender and get free jukebox credits. People love our jukebox, so this seemed like a fun way to reward them for coming in regularly on a shift where we aren't usually very busy.
Another special that we ran didn't reward the customer with anything but warm fuzzies, but it was a success. We borrowed the idea from the Legends shopping center in Kansas City. For every check-in during a period of time, we donated a buck to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. We raised almost $100 with this special, which is great.
Other exciting achievements (for us, anyway) with foursquare were when we unlocked the swarm badge for having 50 people checked in at the same time, and the night we hit 1000 check-ins and rewarded the customer with a T-shirt.
We aren't currently running any foursquare specials, but if we can come up with a good one we'll certainly do it again.
by Debbi | Sep 28, 2011 | Newsworthy
A few days ago, I got a Google alert for "Sandbar." Many of the alerts I get for the bar's name aren't relevant- they're either talking about one of the millions of other Sandbars around the country, or they're talking about an actual sandbar. You know, the kind with sand and an ocean.
This one, though, also mentioned the local university paper, so I clicked the link.
The article was a review of local bars that students frequent, and after reading the entire article, I saw no mention of the Sandbar.
Finally, I saw the small picture that accompanied the article. Oddly enough, the paper chose a picture of our bar to go with the article that didn't mention our bar at all.
I guess our building is more aesthetically…interesting? It's a cool picture. But I'd also bet that 90% of the "students" convening outside the bar aren't students.
by Debbi | Sep 23, 2011 | Around the World
We love all the Sandbar shirt pictures we've been getting from all over the world! Ecuador is definitely a place we haven't seen one of our shirts in before.
Sandbar fan Richard sent us this picture on Facebook:
Here's what he had to say about it:
I just returned from Ecuador today. While there I took a trip into a small town called Mindo about 1.5 hours from Quito. From Mindo I went hiking through the mountainous rainforest with a few friends and proudly wearing my Sandbar shirt. Rock Chalk!
Thanks for the picture, we love it! And for those of you who don't know, our shirt wall of fame by the popcorn machine is full, but we started a new wall of pictures in the back room. Dave put up a huge corkboard and we've got lots of space, so send us your pictures!
