by Debbi | Feb 22, 2010 | Events, St. Patrick's Day
Did that get your attention?
The Sandbar sponsored a team at the 8th annual St. Patrick's Day Pub Quiz Trivia event last night. This event has traditionally opened the St. Patrick's Day season in Lawrence, although this year some other events have actually taken place already. We've had at least one team in this event every year since it started.
Our buddy/regular/go-to web guy Frank's business also sponsored a team this year. Between us, we originally had about 12 people committed to play, but one by one they started flaking claiming headaches and school work as excuses, so we ended up with eight. Which caused us to pool our brains and collapse our two teams into one. Good thing, too.
Art director Brother Pants named our team Frank's Dirty Banana. (You can take that however you want. We did.) Our category of choice was Train Songs. Our team members skewed heavily to the old-school crying country fan base, so we figured we'd own those questions. And we did, for awhile.
Our first important missed question: some long-winded diatribe about Johnny Cash and prison and we answered too quickly with the seemingly obvious "Folsom." Uh, no. The song title might have Folsom in it, but it was actually written about San Quentin, which practically every other team in the room knew.
Perhaps our more embarrassing miss of the night involved a question about The Sandbar's muse, Jimmy Buffett. Did you know that Bono, lead singer of U2, was on Jimmy's plane with him when they were shot at by Jamaican authorities who thought the plane was smuggling drugs? Yeah, neither did we. We've all heard the story behind the song "Jamaica Mistaica," (from the Banana Wind album), but we don't even have a U2 song on the jukebox and would've never guessed who the passenger on the plane was.
Andy, the announcer, was happy to point out that The Sandbar missed a Jimmy Buffett question. We like to say that we were Scottie-Mack'd. Twice.
We redeemed ourselves somewhat by answering the final question correctly:
(image borrowed from Sandbar friend & fellow trivia player, Chris Pumpelly, who posted this on his Twitter stream.)
It wasn't enough to land us in the top three, but we managed to end up with a respectable score.
Congrats to the team from The World Company, who knocked off the consistent winners from Tabula Rasa to take first place this year!
Do you know the answer to the final question? Leave it in the comments.
by Debbi | Feb 20, 2010 | Cool Stuff, Newsworthy, People
Peach brought us a copy of the Baldwin City Signal- it featured a picture of one of our Sandbar friends!
Check out this snow sculpture (and try to ignore the horribly crooked scan):
The caption reads:
Scott Schoenberger had a little time on his hands Friday and plenty of snow to create this snow sculpture of a shark. He even took time to don fishing gear for a picture.
It should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone that we know this guy.
Scott is famous around The Sandbar. He sang lead vocals on our original Hurricane song, a re-worded version of Copa Cabana that we recorded in a local studio. (Does anyone remember that version?) He's also a popular character on many of our St. Patrick's Day Parade floats. Many guys don't like to dance, but not Showtime. He lives up to his name and puts on a show.
Very creative use of the few inches of snow in his yard. Nice job, Showtime!
by Debbi | Feb 18, 2010 | Bar Band, Events, St. Patrick's Day
That's a lot of stuff for one title- and it's also a summary of our upcoming Friday (February 19) night at The Sandbar.
Here's a breakdown of what's happening:
Tacos
For many years we've had free wings after work on Friday, ordered from our neighbors up the street at Jefferson's. While we love the wings and adore our friends at the restaurant, we wanted to mix it up a little and try something new.
So, we're having a free taco bar starting at 5 and ending when the tacos run out. Stop by and enjoy one, and let us know what you think!
Beads
The St. Patrick's Day Parade (our favorite event of the year!) committee folks will be pub-crawling around Lawrence on Friday night between 6:30-9:30. They'll have armloads of beads, t-shirts, caps, and other commemorative parade stuff for sale. Buy something or make a donation- it's for the kids!
And don't forget the annual parade this year. It's on Wednesday, March 17, at 1 p.m. Get downtown early to get a good spot, and make sure to watch for the Sandbar's float!
Bands
Everybody's favorite Lawrence pre-game-night tradition, the Bar Band will arrive around 9:45 and play your favorite KU tunes. It gets pretty crowded while they're here, so make sure to get here early if you want to see them.
Even if you can't get in the door, the doorguy usually keeps the door open during this extravaganza. Everyone in line (and down the block) can hear the band playing.
Toast
And finally, the toast. Friday, February 19, is also known as "St. Practice Day." It's the day of the annual Great Guinness Toast, which takes place at 10 p.m. The Toast started in 1993 in Pittsburgh, and breaks its own participation record each year.
I'm not sure how we're going to pull off all of this, since 10 p.m. is a popular time that night. What do you think of the Bar Band dressed up as mermaids and playing during the indoor hurricane, while the crowd around them is toasting with Guinness?
by Debbi | Feb 16, 2010 | Random Holidays
Happy Fat Tuesday!
Mardi Gras is somewhat anti-climactic at The Sandbar. After all, we deliver beads to our fans all year long, and no flashing is required to get them. In fact, we prefer that you keep your clothes on.
But, it's still a holiday, and you know we're all about the holidays around here. We'll still have our usual $1.50 almost-anything cheap drink special all day long, and plenty of beads for everyone.
If you're looking for a fun time tonight, come out and join us.We don't have balconies and parades and floats (but this parade is going on RIGHT NOW, hurry up! We're totally participating next year!), but we promise lots of beads. And tasty drinks.
(If you take any pictures tonight, we'd love to see them. Send them to us- our email link is on the right side of the page- or upload them to our fan page on Facebook.)
by Debbi | Feb 15, 2010 | Social Media, Web/Tech
If you follow any kind of social media, you've probably heard about "checking in" and location-based social networks. Maybe you've even been teased by your friends about being the "mayor" of a location in town (yes, I speak from experience).
But back in the days when Foursquare was still a playground game with a bouncy red ball, and Yelp was something you did when you hit your funny bone on the desk, people were checking in to The Sandbar in a decidedly old-fashioned way.
Dave and Peach long ago figured out that the way to attract more customers was to first attract the ladies; the men would soon follow. They came up with a game to encourage the girls to come in and stay awhile, and one that would reward them for time well spent.
They set up an old time clock near the door and created time cards for regular female customers; upon arrival, the ladies would punch in at the time clock, and punch out when they left. After accumulating a certain amount of time at the bar, the girls could pick out gift shop merchandise like t-shirts as a prize.
I honestly don't remember this gimmick- so either it was pre-1996, or I wasn't cool enough to have a time card. Dave doesn't remember how long it lasted, but it was fun to hear about an old-school style promotion.
Of course, now Dave and Peach think it would be funny to bring it back, since I've been trying to sell them on the idea of offering incentives to customers who check in or become mayor on a social network like Foursquare, Gowalla, Whrrl, or Yelp.
Thoughts? How many of you use a location-based social network? Or would you rather punch a time clock?
