After our party bus returned from the Jimmy Buffett concert, a bunch of us were sitting on the patio remembering all the fun we had.
A young girl stumbled out of the bar, tripping over her high heels and slurring to nobody in particular as she passed by the patio "Don't go in there, that bar sucks."
And then she promptly stumbled on those pesky drop-offs from the sidewalk to the curb, and fell on her rear into the tire of a car.
We laughed.
Once upon a time, we had a fairly regular series on this blog called "Door Diaries." It was basically a running diary of the things our door staff encountered on a nightly basis.
We kept a notebook by the door, and the staff was encouraged to write down any issues or problems they had along with funny anecdotes and stories. And even drawings.
It's been almost six months since we've published any of these entries. Want to know why? I've gone through all the notebooks and exhausted everything that's worth re-telling here.
New project: convince the staff to start writing in the notebook again.
But you, too, can help: funny things happen in the bar that the staff doesn't always see or hear. I'd love to hear random anecdotes from the customers. Email them to us at sandbar@thesandbar.com; you can be anonymous or get credit for the tip.
"Sorry, it's one in, one out right now."
Those are the dreaded words that often greet customers at our door. Believe me, we don't want to make you wait- the line outside our door isn't part of some big conspiracy to make it seem like we're a cool place or to punish people for some reason.
Buildings have fire codes, and along with those codes come occupancy limits that are based on complicated formulas. In our case, it boils down to mostly one thing: we only have one door. Our legal occupancy is only 49, and when there's 49 people in the bar it still seems empty. Especially when they're all sitting down.
Our patio often complicates the situation at the door. In most cases, people who have been inside but go outside to the patio are allowed to come back inside without waiting in line again. Often, people who are waiting in line don't understand this, so it might seem like people are cutting the line, when they're really not. Our door staff has a lot to keep track of, and we think they do a pretty good job.
So, next time you're waiting in line, cut them a break. It doesn't help if you yell at the door guy, argue about how many people are inside, or tell them that you know Dave. For the record, Dave's actual friends don't use his name to get stuff; they just patiently wait their turn.
Tweeting at us to tell us our door guy sucks doesn't make us love you, either.
"This six foot nine dude came in all ticked off. He was really drunk. I tried to stop him from coming in, but he was too powerful. He was really angry. Danny tried to stop him, he punched Danny in the head, we called the cops, and they hauled him out.
Then he started serving drinks."
–John
(Our doorguys like to make funny stories up when they're bored at the door. Dave is six foot ten. Don't take away that inch.)
I found this in the staff notebook that lives by the door.
Apparently, a customer who was asked to leave wanted to register a complaint. The staff gave him a notebook and a pen and told him to write it down.
No indication of who the bartender was or why the person was asked to leave. No one was fired. Carry on.
UPDATE: According to a bartender at Fatso's, their establishment has a nearly identical note posted at their bar. Must be a serial complainer on the loose downtown.
We keep a notebook by the door. The doorguy/bartender are supposed to use it to write down any important thing that happens on their shift- fake ID's that got turned away, someone they had to cut off, a crazy dance party that took place on the bar- but occasionally, nothing happens that's worth writing down.
On those long, slow nights the staff has to find something to entertain themselves with, and sometimes this is the result:
I don't even know what the comments on this one mean, so don't ask.
I believe Joe is the one who produced this pretty decent drawing of the Shark Attack.
Didn't know we had artists on staff, did you?