So, now that St. Patrick's Day is almost a month in the past, and we've waited nearly two weeks to post on our blog…TWO WEEKS! This has never happened before.
Here's more from this year's St. Patrick's Day…Patrick, Peach's brother, loves to shoot video. He brought out his camera (inside a crazy contraption that holds it steady) on St. Pat's and recorded our float.
Here are some videos:
This is a great video of our float. You can't hear the music until the boat gets closer to the camera, but it certainly shows off the boat in all its glory.
This one features the girls on the main deck dancing to the Drunken Sailor song. We loved their dance!
Many thanks to Patrick for filming our float and posting the videos!
Today's the day: the KU men's basketball team takes on Ohio State in the Final Four, the second time the teams will meet this year.
KU won the first round, and you might remember it was sort of a special event at the Sandbar. We hosted a live radio broadcast from the bar with Ryan Lencl and his show, the Angle of Pursuit. We're hoping KU can beat the Buckeyes for a second time!
The City of Lawrence and the Lawrence Police Department have been busy making plans for Saturday night in the event KU wins. Last Sunday, crowds of people flooded downtown Lawrence after the Jayhawks beat North Carolina, and if KU advances to the championship game tonight, the crowds downtown will be even bigger.
Something important to note: don't bring your car downtown.
If KU wins tonight, the city will close Massachusetts Street to traffic from 6th to 13th streets, and the side streets that cross Mass will also be closed. That means if you park downtown for the game, don't expect to leave anytime soon if KU is victorious.
You can read more about what the police department has to say about their plans here.
We'll be open at 1 p.m., our usual time, and we'll be ready and excited for the game!
This is going to be a busy weekend in downtown Lawrence!
Today is the last Friday of March, which means it’s Final Fridays- the monthly art walk that takes place downtown. The event generally runs from 5-9 p.m., although some locations might be open earlier or later. On Final Fridays, Mass Street is always full of people eating, drinking, shopping and perusing the great selection of art. It’s great for people-watching, too!
Saturday, of course, is the day of KU’s Final Four matchup against Ohio State. Bars and restaurants downtown will undoubtedly be packed as soon as they open. Some places were taking reservations and others are first come-first served. We’ll open at our normal time, 1 p.m., and we expect a crowd even though we aren’t your typical sports bar and we don’t have awesome TV’s.
Sunday is the 18th annual Brew to Brew Run, a fundraiser for Cystic Fibrosis that starts at Boulevard Brewery in Kansas City and ends in Lawrence on the levee, sort of near Free State Brewery. The event is expected to bring 3,500 people into downtown Lawrence.
I’m tired just writing about all the activities in downtown Lawrence this weekend! We’ll see you there!
The KU men's basketball team won a huge game last Sunday, beating North Carolina to win a spot in the 2012 Final Four.
Downtown Lawrence was crazy after the game! Traffic started backing up on Massachusetts Street as far back as 14th Street right after the game, and probably backed up even farther as the day got later. People packed downtown and the crowds got bigger all night.
Some of the bar band members put on an impromptu show at 8th and Massachusetts, and the Kennedy Glass float from the St. Patrick's Day Parade, a replica of Allen Fieldhouse, made an appearance too.
The city of Lawrence prepared well for this event, and the crowds were well-behaved even among the mayhem. Dave was surprised that so many people came downtown after this game, but the bar was prepared for it. He jokingly posted on his Facebook page that he was opening late on Monday because he didn't have anything left to sell- not entirely true, he didn't run out of beer completely, but it was definitely a great Sunday night.
Channel 6 News even interviewed Dave about the alcohol supply. You can read the article here.
Here's to hoping we have another fun weekend downtown!
This post is waaaay late, but I've been busy. Going back to work after a three-month maternity leave, adjusting to daycare and taking care of a sick baby keep a person busy and doesn't leave much time for blogging.
St. Patrick's Day was so much fun this year! The Sandbar construction crew built a ginormous pirate ship. This float was bigger than any we've built before.
Check out the LJWorld's coverage of the parade here, along with a fabulous photo of our ship. We might buy a copy of that one and frame it for the bar. The LJWorld talkbackers seem to think we build boats every year, but that's not true. We haven't built a boat since 2007, when we danced on a double decker riverboat, and before that it was 2004's Love Boat. Our last pirate ship was back in 2002.
Here's a picture from atop the float as it made its way down Mass Street:
The float had several decks for dancing pirates. The ladies on the middle deck improvised their dance moves and created a circle dance during the Drunken Sailor song. It looked so good that Dave the DJ kept playing that song over and over…and apparently it wore them out. Sorry, girls!
Our floats always have secret touches or inside jokes, and this year was no exception. In keeping with recent tradition, the pirate ship had his and hers bathrooms. And this year, two of our chief float builders decided to go on a cruise on a real ship instead of dancing on ours. Dave made sure they were still represented though:
These Justin and Michelle heads rode on the highest point of the float, up in the crow's nests. After the parade, we had a lot of fun posing for pictures with them.
As a thank you for missing the parade, Dave played a prank on them. He left a life-size statue of a pirate we call "Shaky" in the bathroom in their house. It scared the crap out of them when they got home. They'll never miss another parade again!
See more parade pictures on our Facebook page. Got pictures of our float? We'd love to see them! Email them to us at sandbar@thesandbar.com.
Even though the Sandbar is a tropical bar with every Jimmy Buffett CD on the jukebox, we appreciate a wide variety of music. From Elvis to the Blackeyed Peas to Captain and Tennille and everything in between, you can bet that someone in the bar loves whatever song is playing at the moment.
We also have a soft spot for old-school country and the newer country/rock music out of Texas. Our buddy Justin has a weekly radio show, Kansas City Limits, and plays all the songs we love to listen to. Many of the bands travel through Kansas frequently, often playing at the Bottleneck or the Granada, and the Sandbar has become sort of an unofficial pre/post show party spot.
Last weekend, one of our favorites, the Randy Rogers Band, was in town for a show. We spotted this picture from the band's Twitter feed:
Great to see visitors to our beautiful downtown enjoying our shark attack!
