by Debbi | Sep 13, 2011 | Downtown, Events, Good Things, St. Patrick's Day
Everybody knows St. Patrick's Day is our favorite holiday. Did you know this Saturday is the halfway point to the next extravaganza?
The Lawrence St. Patrick's Day Parade Committee is kicking off the 25th annual parade season with a Halfway to St. Patrick's celebration on Sept. 17 from 5 p.m. to midnight. The street in front of the Sandbar will be the site of a street festival that features Irish music from Flannigan's Right Hook and Ashley Davis. The rock band Eminent Domain will close out the party.
EDIT: Flannigan's Right Hook has canceled their appearance. They'll be replaced by the Radio Flyers, followed by Ashley Davis and Eminent Domain. There will also be some members of the KC pipe and drum corps performing on the bagpipes.
The suggested donation is $5 per person. Alcohol will be available for sale outside; if you want to drink, you must be 21 and purchase a wristband. All money from donations and wristband sales will go towards the St. Patrick's Day committee's fundraising efforts. Since 1988, the parade and its activities have raised more than $645,000 for charities that benefit local youth. Area organizations can apply to be this year's beneficiary until Oct. 3. Visit www.lawrencestpatricksdayparade.com for more information.
Come out and see us on Saturday! The bar will be open as usual at 1 p.m. and our staff will be serving drinks outside in the evening starting around 5.
by Debbi | Sep 9, 2011 | Downtown, Events, Good Things
The Fun Police are back for the fourth year!
Bartender Danny has been a huge supporter of the National MS Society for years now, riding in the annual MS Ride to help raise money for multiple sclerosis research. The Sandbar is proud to sponsor the Fun Police this year. Here's a picture of our logo on their cool new jerseys.
This year's Kansas City and Topeka rides will converge in Lawrence, with overnight camping in South Park. Also, a festival!
On Saturday, Sept. 17, South Park will be the site of a fundraising party with bands, children's activities and food and drink vendors. The festival is from noon-9 p.m.
Click here to read more about the festival on Wellcommons. Sounds like a fun activity for the family and a great way to help support a good cause.
You can also donate to the MS Society through Danny's personal donation page. His goal this year is $3000 and he's so close. Click here to visit his page, read about his experiences with the MS Ride and the Fun Police and make a donation.
For the first time this year, Sandbar art director Justin is also participating in the MS Ride. If you'd like to donate and help him reach his $300 goal, click here.
by Debbi | Aug 30, 2011 | Cool Stuff, Downtown, Newsworthy, St. Patrick's Day
The Lawrence Journal-World recently featured a cool photo project they called "Dear Lawrence," based on the Dear Photograph site. The objective is to take a picture of a picture from the past in the present. Confused? So were we, until we saw examples.
We searched through our photo archives, which are pretty limited prior to around 2003 when we started using digital cameras, and we finally found a couple of pictures of our building from the 90's. They aren't very old pictures, but our building looked significantly different back then- many of you may only know us as the lime green building with a giant tiki head, but it wasn't always that way.
Here's our first submission:
Remember the white building? And the giant green palm trees that adorned our old windows? Back then our windows didn't open, and we didn't have a patio.
We used another picture from our wall to create our second Dear Lawrence photo:
This picture is fun for us because it features Sandbar people in it. The picture is from St. Patrick's Day 1997, when we built an "Under the Sea" themed float.
Pictured are Cheryl, a former Sandbar-tender and one of the only girls to ever work the door (read her memories of the Sandbar here); Peach, our esteemed founder; Betsy, Ted's daughter; and finally little Andrew, who tends bar today.
And yes, that's a zebra. Peach and Ted own zebras on their farm outside Baldwin, and Peach walked the zebra in the parade behind our float.
We actually profiled the St. Patrick's Day/zebra picture as part of our "Off the Wall" series, where we share the stories behind the stuff on our walls. Read about it here.
You can see the entire Dear Lawrence photo gallery here.
by Debbi | Aug 29, 2011 | Downtown, Events, Our Ghost
Regular readers of this blog know that we've been serious about researching the ghost that seems to haunt the Sandbar.
Last week, on the 148th anniversary of Quantrill's Raid on Lawrence, several Sandbar staff and friends went on a history tour around town.
Our chief ghost researcher, Emerson, believed at one time that our ghost was a soldier killed in the raid. He's since moved on to other potential theories, but during his research we got interested in the raid and thought it would be smart to learn more about it. Just in case our ghost really was a soldier.
We met up with the tour leader and other participants at the Eldridge Hotel, one of the most historic sites in Kansas related to the Civil War and also home to a ghost. From there, we traveled by van to Oak Hill Cemetery in East Lawrence, the site where Quantrill's raiders gathered and looked out over Lawrence before the raid; South Park, where Lawrence soldiers were camped; Pioneer Cemetery on the KU campus, where many of those killed in the raid are buried; and finally back to the Eldridge.
The tour we took was through Paranormal Adventures USA. This group offers a variety of history and ghost tours around Kansas and Missouri, including some "ghosts and grapes" tours at wineries that really piqued our interest!
They also offer the opportunity to "clear your space" of ghosts, something we're not really sure we want to do as our ghost appears to be friendly and harmless, as well as ghost investigations. We're hoping to schedule an investigation sometime soon so we can learn more about our ghost.
In the meantime, though, we'd like to encourage everyone to learn more about the history of Lawrence, especially the Civil War and Quantrill's Raid. It was a significant event in this country's history, and it gives a lot of insight to today's ongoing sports rivalry between Kansas and Missouri!
by Debbi | Aug 18, 2011 | Birthday Party, Downtown, Events
One of the highlights of last weekend's Shark Fest block party was the giant, 40-foot-long inflatable shark slide.
We first spotted the shark slide last year when McDonald's on 23rd St. rented it for their grand reopening celebration. Not really sure how McDonald's and sharks go together, but the slide was perfect for our party.
The slide went up on Saturday afternoon and the kids swarmed. Their parents couldn't believe the slide was free. We had no intention of charging people to slide, but if we'd charged a buck a ride we could have easily paid for probably the entire party!
Dave and Curtis raced each other down the slide. The rules said only two adults on the slide at a time, but the rules probably didn't expect two giant men to ride at the same time.
Bartender Tegan escorted a baby down the slide. We didn't get a picture of that one.
Our slide supervisor Ken informed us that local downtown legend Dennis even took a ride on the slide. we aren't sure if his baby doll went with him, or if someone held onto it for him. No picture of that one, either.
Overall, the slide seemed to be a big hit with kids, parents and party-goers. Now what can we do next year?
by Debbi | Aug 17, 2011 | Downtown, Events, Our Ghost
If you've followed this blog for very long, you know we have a ghost in the bar. And you may also know that we're actively researching the ghost to find out who he was in his former life. You might say we've become a little bit obsessed.
Our good friend Emerson is leading the investigation. He's also a history buff, and he's spent countless hours poring over old maps, pictures and other information trying to figure out who our ghost might be. At one point, he was convinced that it was the ghost of a soldier killed in Quantrill's Raid.
So, when we saw that Paranormal Adventures USA had a history tour scheduled for Lawrence this weekend, we jumped on it. A group of us are going on the Quantrill's Raid tour on Sunday. It starts at the Eldridge Hotel- another local spot known for having a ghost- and lasts for two hours.
Who knows, maybe we'll find out something interesting about our block or even our building!
