Our famous Shark Attack drink has inspired a love of all things shark-related at The Sandbar. We were thrilled when one of our favorite customers, Brenna, told us she was going to make shark attack cupcakes.
The picture doesn't do the cupcake justice, because I'm not a good photographer, but use your imagination:
This weekend, she brought by the finished product. And man, were they good! You might wonder how if a baked good can actually taste like a tropical drink; the answer is yes. Somehow she managed to add blue curacao liqueur to the cupcake recipe, grenadine to the frosting, and make it taste exactly like what you'd imagine a shark attack cupcake to taste like.
The cupcakes even had little plastic toy shark picks stuck in the frosting and ocean blue paper cups. They were very fancy.
Big thanks to Brenna for the delicious treats!
You can read more about Brenna's baking adventures on her blog.
The Bar Band visited the Sandbar last night to rally the fans for today's football game against Colorado.
The Bar Band is one of our very favorite traditions. This ever-changing group of musicians has endured for over a decade now! You can read about their history here and see a picture of the original group here.
I wasn't there last night to see them. But the cool thing about social media and the online world today is that I can still share pictures and even a video with you, thanks to friends of the Sandbar who were there.
Heather took this picture from her awesome spot in the bar- right in front of the band. She probably can't hear today, but as she said, "it's a small price to pay for the awesomeness!"
Another Sandbar fan, Becca, took this great picture:
And finally, Brent, an out-of-town visitor here for the game, uploaded this video:
Thanks to everyone who came in last night, and especially to Heather, Becca and Brent for sharing pictures and video with us! Enjoy the tailgate and the game today, and Rock Chalk Jayhawk!
Our pint glasses are a popular item, especially on Tropical Thursdays. We like to change the design on the glasses to match holidays or other events, but we don't always have time to create the artwork.
We know there are lots of talented Sandbar fans out there, so we want to use your artistic abilities!
Here's what we're looking for:
Thanksgiving/turkey-themed design
Christmas/winter holiday-themed design
New Year's Eve design
The designs are printed in a single color, so we need a black and white design. It needs to be a line art drawing with no shading or other complicated techniques. The design also needs to be simple- these are small images that are printed onto glass, so lots of tiny details will get lost. You don't have to be a professional artist to do this!
Clip art is fine or an original hand-drawn design works too. You can see some past examples here, here and here.
Send your submission to us at sandbar@thesandbar.com. Submit something for one holiday or all three, we don't care.
We'll either let our staff choose the winners, or we might let the fans vote. Submitting your design to us gives us the right to use it; we're not going to deal with fancy copyright and trademark issues. But, we'll compensate you with a pack of pint glasses or some other prize, our undying gratitude and the chance to be known to other Sandbar fans!
It's no secret that we love to create big and entertaining things- like our annual St. Patrick's Day float, which gets bigger and better every year. Our friends at Pet World are the same way when it comes to Halloween.
The crew at Pet World, along with volunteers from the neighborhood and all around town, have been creating haunted houses for a number of years now. Like our floats, every year their haunted house gets bigger and better, and they spend countless hours and lots of money putting together a labor of love, all for just a few hours' worth of entertainment. And like us, they have as much fun putting everything together.
This year's theme is a haunted castle- and the dragon from our castle float this year makes an appearance!
Dave and I got a sneak peek at this year's haunted castle, and it is truly amazing. They've created a whole maze of rooms in their yard, complete with all the spooky Halloween props, decorations and costumed actors you can dream of. Even in the daylight the castle was creepy, and the amount of time and energy that goes into putting this together is something we can definitely appreciate.
Details for this year's haunted castle:
Sunday, October 31, from 7-9 p.m.
29th Court and Missouri Street in Lawrence, 2 blocks south of 27th & Missouri
Free line to the north for costumed trick-or-treaters age 12 and under
For everyone else, the line forms to the south. There's a $1 charge which goes to the Lawrence Humane Society.
The first 300 people will get free, reusable Pet World shopping bags.
If you love fun, interactive, family events- and Halloween- we encourage you to take the family over to the Pet World haunted house. You won't regret it!
We LOVE Halloween and we love JibJab almost as much.
If you're not familiar with JibJab, you need to get with it. It's a site that lets you upload pictures of you and your friends and insert them into hilarious personalized videos and cards. We like it so much we paid for a subscription last year, so we get access to even more videos. It's a great time waster.
So, here's our first Halloween JibJab card this year: the Monster Mash, starring Dave, Heather, Blair, Andrew and me.
Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!
We hope you enjoyed our first Happy Halloween card! More to come, since last year there was a staff uprising when people got left out of the Christmas elf video.
Last night featured a unique event at the Sandbar: a spray tan party on our fake beach.
Amelia of Premier Mobile Spray Tan brought her supplies and set up shop upstairs. All she needed? A tall, black pop-up tent and a paint-spraying contraption. She offers custom spray tans, which is much better than an automatic machine because she can see missed spots. No Ross or Snooki's here!
The whole process takes barely ten minutes. Disrobe to your comfort level- bathing suit, underwear, tank tops- and stand in the pop up tent while Amelia sprays on the color. It's kind of cold! Turn when she tells you to, close your eyes and breathe out when she sprays your face, and then you're tan.
The hardest part is the aftercare. No water on the skin for at least eight hours. That means no showers- which is difficult because you can feel the spray-on color constantly. It's sugar based and feels kind of sticky, no matter how dry it is, and all you want to do is get in the shower and scrub your skin. And, it's really hard to avoid all water- it also means no sweating and especially no puppy kisses.
But the end result is worth it! After showering the following day the color looks really great. It's smooth and even, not orange at all, and not so dark that it looks ridiculously fake. Just a nice, natural beachy glow.
We'll do more spray tan parties in the future, but in the meantime if you want to try it out, contact Amelia for an appointment!
Update: An endorsement from Michelle, a happy customer
I just wanted to say…I love my tan! This is the first time I've had a spray on tan and I've been getting compliments for two days now. People at work want to know what I've been up to over the weekend to get my tan, or have asked if I went on a vacation somewhere. I'm loving it! My birthmark came out a little darker than the rest of me, as expected, but not as dark as it is with a regular sun tan. The top of my feet never tan, just burn, and they turned out great when I saw them in the morning. I'm super happy with the results!
