We told you about the boxing skit at Late Night in the Phog already, and how one of our shirts made an appearance in the skit. Rob Riggle, famous comedian and KU alumnus, was the referee of the boxing skit.
Later that night, Rob made an appearance at the Sandbar.
Blair says that he was busy bartending when all of a sudden someone started shouting his name. You all know how much the bartenders hate it when customers shout their name (and if you don't know that already, consider this your lesson. Don't do it.) He ignored the person shouting at him, until he glanced down at the end of the bar and saw none other than… Rob Riggle.
And now for the really exciting news: we found out that night that Rob actually worked at the Sandbar while he was going to school at KU! (That's what we meant by "again" in the title of this post.) It was before Dave started working here, so he had no idea that a former bartender is now a famous celebrity…Peach is the only person who's been here longer than Dave, and she had lost track of Rob. Of course she remembers him and said "he was always a funny guy."
Thanks to Twitter follower and frequent customer Molly for posting the above picture on Twitter.
When Dave and Blair discovered that Rob used to tend bar here, they quickly offered to let him reprise his job from twenty years ago and he hopped behind the bar with them.
Another funny anecdote that Blair shared: Mr. Riggle has a scar underneath his chin that is usually covered up with makeup when he's on screen. Where'd it come from? Well, back when he worked here, he was drinking out of a big gusto mug (something we had back in the early 90's) and an AC/DC song came on the jukebox. He started headbanging, and banged his chin right onto the top of the mug. It required stitches, and now he has a scar from the Sandbar.
We've had a number of famous people wander through our doors, but Rob Riggle might be the most famous yet. And finding out that he used to work here was pretty cool!
One of our Sandbar shirts made a surprise appearance at last Friday's Late Night in the Phog.
We printed a special white shirt with a red Sandbar logo for KU Athletics so they could use it in a skit. The skit featured boxer Victor Ortiz taking on Barry Hinson, the men's basketball team's director of operations. Barry wore the Sandbar shirt and was knocked out by Victor.
We weren't at Late Night to get a picture, but here's one from KUSports.com that photographer Nick Krug shot:
You can view the original picture (and the rest of the gallery) here. (Dear KUSports.com: if it's not okay that we used this picture here, please let us know and we'll take it down. We try to be very careful about proper online attribution.)
It's kind of hard to see his shirt, since he's lying on the ground, but it's definitely a Sandbar shirt. If anyone out there got a better picture, please let us know!
And yes, that's Rob Riggle serving as the referee. We've got a story about him, too, so come back for that one. It's good, we promise.
Captain Jack Sparrow was back for an encore performance. We haven't seen him since our birthday block party last summer, where he's been a special guest for the past two years.
The latest Pirates movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, opens on May 20 and Jack will be back for more adventures. We wanted to get our friend prepared, so we invited him out for a night at the bar.
He sashayed around the patio- the weather was beautiful!- and accosted cars in the street. He almost caused a traffic jam at the intersection at one point, when some excited young ladies wanted his picture.
Sandbar friend Laura was having dinner at Pachamama's across the street, and left a comment on our Facebook page about watching Jack sashay around the street.
Last Thursday the Sandbar participated in the Free State Social community tweetup. We were packed that night with social media types from not only Lawrence, but all over Kansas and even from a few other states.
Every night at 10 p.m. (and other times at the bartender's discretion or the paying public's request) we run our Indoor Hurricane extravaganza. It's a cheesy live show full of mermaids, wind, rain, lightning, music, and dancing on the bar. Thursday night was no exception, and several hurricanes blew through the bar that night.
Three of the keynote speakers at Free State Social agreed (were coerced?) to jump on the bar and pretend to be mermaids: Sarah Evans, Chris Brogan, and Shawna Coronado. Thanks to the handy Christmas present Dave got last year (a Kodak zi8) I was able to record the festivities.
This isn't the only video of the night, and it's definitely not the best- there's more to come. I'm working on putting together a type of "digital scrapbook" with pictures, videos, and comments from the Sandbar tweetup. It will be posted here when it's finished.
A few weeks ago, some of the Sandbar crew ventured south to Austin, Texas. It was a rag-tag bunch- managing partner Dave and his lovely wife, our art director Justin and his lovely wife, and our Man on the Street Patrick.
It also happened to be the weekend that KU played the Texas Longhorns in a little game called football, so there were lots of folks we knew down there.
But, the game wasn't actually the reason that Dave and I were there.
We planned the trip for two reasons: to check out the bar scene in Austin and steal borrow some ideas, and to catch a concert at the legendary Gruene Hall, the oldest continuously operating dancehall in Texas.
One of our favorite artists, Roger Creager, played Saturday night. He's played in Lawrence and Kansas City several times, and he's partied with us at the Sandbar after a couple of shows. We weren't about to miss the opportunity to see him at Gruene.
Dave and I had dinner at the restaurant next door to Gruene Hall, the Grist Mill, before the show. All of a sudden, who comes walking past our table but Roger himself. Dave got his attention, he stopped to chat for awhile, and went on his way.
About halfway through the concert later that night, Roger started talking about road trips, and fans, and how it's great that people come from all over to see shows. Then, he said this:
"I even ran into a buddy of mine who's here all the way from The Sandbar in Lawrence, Kansas!"
Clearly nobody's mind was on football, or else they knew we were losing badly, because we didn't get booed by the crowd. Dave and I cheered, and a kid about ten feet away came running over to us.
I won't lie, I had seen this guy earlier in the night and thought he looked familiar. Sure enough, he introduced himself as Andrew, a grad student at KU who had been in the Sandbar less than a week ago.
It's such a small world. It was very cool that our tiny little bar got a shout-out in front of a crowd of maybe a thousand people in Texas.
Coming soon, a post about some of the things we learned from the bars in Austin. I know, I'm slow.
I was really excited to see a recent album review in Ink, the Kansas City Star entertainment magazine that gets dropped off weekly at The Sandbar.
First, a bit of backstory. Peach has a brother, Patrick, who she bought The Sandbar from many, many years ago. Patrick has a daughter, Katlyn. We haven't seen her a lot around The Sandbar, but she danced with us on the Love Shack float in the St. Patrick's Day parade a long time ago:
I'm sure she'll love that I posted this picture. At least I didn't identify which one she is with little white arrows; you can try to figure that out yourself.
Anyway, Katlyn is a very accomplished singer and songwriter. She's been with the band Another Holiday for awhile, but she is getting ready to release her first solo album, "I Think I'll Stay Inside."
Ink magazine reviewed her album and really only had amazing things to say about it, even calling Katlyn "one of the most stunning female voices in the region." In fact, the only complaint they seemed to have is that the end of the album has a lot of slow songs.
The review ends by calling her album a "near perfect debut." That's a super compliment. The article doesn't say when her album will be out- maybe it already is- but if you're in the market for new music, pick up a copy and check it out.
Congratulations Katlyn, The Sandbar is proud of you!
