by Debbi | May 2, 2011 | Events, Jukebox, Pub Crawl, Stories
The event the Sandbar crew has waited for for years happened last weekend: Jimmy Buffett's return to Kansas City with the "Welcome to Fin Land" tour.
The party started early Saturday afternoon at the Sandbar. We had a pre-party with boat drinks, parrothead hat-making supplies and Ted cooking beer brauts on a grill outside. The bar was full of partiers by 2 p.m.- most of them were parrotheads with spots on our party bus to the show, but teams on a local charity pub crawl taking place downtown also detoured from their route and stopped by.
Peach had fun making a party hat for the concert, and bartender Andrew and his girlfriend Jamie decorated their brand-new commemorative concert shirts.
Our two party buses pulled up at 4 p.m. We had nearly 80 people signed up for a fun ride to the Power & Light District! Passengers ranged from staff and regulars to hard-core Parrotheads of all ages. We loaded up our buses and headed for Kansas City.
It was such a beautiful day in downtown Lawrence to be on our patio! If you were there, we'd love to see your pictures. You can email them to us at sandbar@thesandbar.com, or upload them to our Facebook page.
More stories to come…
by Debbi | Apr 25, 2011 | Off the Wall, On the Patio, Stories
Spotted on Dave's Facebook page, in the wee hours of the morning after the downtown shot put event:
Dear smart guys, not the brightest move to try and steal the Red Stripe table. Running with a table is a lot slower than without one. Hope you had a good night in jail.
Lots of comments and likes on that one. That night was like a full moon without the full moon.
Here's the story.
Two guys came in the bar to meet some friends. Later that night, out of the corner of his eye, Dave saw one of the guys hop over the patio railing and another guy lifted the patio table over the rail to him.
Dave yelled at doorguy John to get the table.
John and about five customers took off after the guys. One by one, the thieves peeled away from each other- eventually leaving just one poor shmuck hauling the table by himself. This table's not light, either.
Our crew of table-rescuers eventually caught up to the guy and knocked the table out of his grip. As luck would have it, a police officer was parked half a block away. He came over, cuffed the guy and took him away.
Dave feels sort of bad- all he wanted was the table. But hopefully these kids- and anyone else reading this- learned a lesson. Don't steal stuff, people! Just because you're drunk and you think it's a harmless prank, that's no excuse. (And also, your real friends wouldn't let you take the fall all by yourself.)
The kid came in the next day and apologized for "the incident." Kudos to him for stepping up and making the apology, we appreciate it.
by Debbi | Apr 13, 2011 | Stories
Former Sandbartender, current draught specialist on call and man on the street Pat uploaded this fantastic picture to our Facebook page awhile back:
Yes, that's our boy Blair. Bartender extraordinaire and apparently a fraternity rush chairman in his past life. We're pretty sure Blair could sell anyone on joining his fraternity…as long as you don't make him angry.
Things Blair doesn't like: people who order fourteen different drinks at the same time for the various members of their group, people who order drinks with fourteen different ingredients and people who yell his name at the bar. Especially people who yell his name to get his attention and then do one of the above; or worse, realize they actually have no idea what they want to order.
by Debbi | Mar 28, 2011 | Cool Stuff, Guest Blogs, People, Social Media, Stories
Editor's note: I discovered Team Cocktail on Twitter one day, and after perusing their website decided that they seemed like people who would hang out at the Sandbar. I asked them to write some guest blogs to introduce our friends to their lifestyle. No, I didn't get a free t-shirt in exchange for letting them talk about their products, just wanted to share their story.
We were very excited to be asked to join The Sandbar party by writing a few guest blogs. So here we are, ready to party! As you can tell by our name, Team Cocktail, we love cocktails…especially tropical beverages like the Hurricane. Since our company and designs are inspired by beaches and cocktails, and we're based out of Olathe, KS, it seems that The Sandbar and Team Cocktail have a lot in common! So, to start I'm going to give you a brief background on how Team Cocktail got started and answer a few questions. Now go pour a cocktail and let's have some fun Team Cocktail style!
Team Cocktail – The Story (2006)
Every great story begins in the Caribbean, right? To set the scene: think 28 friends on a cruise ship, 8 days, 7 islands and a boat load of liquid inspiration. We had a group, we needed a name and the obvious name was born: Team Cocktail.
The Brand (A few years later)
Sailing away from Barbados, a few martinis in, the Team Cocktail founders had an epiphany. Life is best enjoyed in a t-shirt, shorts and flip flops…and with a drink in hand. We always loved buying destination t-shirts from all of the local businesses but hated the way they felt and washed up when we would get them home. They were typically cheap, scratchy and would shrink to an unwearable size. So we decided to create our own beach & cocktail inspired t-shirts, hats, koozies and other accessories with an emphasis on quality. All of our shirts are a cotton/poly blend, so they are ultra soft to the touch and will not shrink. Thus you can wear them time and time again.
And so here we are a year later, and a few more martinis in, lawyers have been called, trademarks are registered and t-shirt designs are hot off the press.
Now on to the fun stuff!
How do you decide on new shirt designs? I was going to say something proper like "our shirt designs are inspired by a deep creative process where we look back on our favorite travel memories & cocktails." But let's be honest. Most of the time they are developed after we have had several drinks and then inspiration hits, or the buzz hits, and then we think every idea is fabulous. So the next day we look back through our notes and see which ones truly are funny, fun and representative of the Team Cocktail brand. We also work with the Kansas City creative agency Johnny Lightning Strikes Again who has great ideas and is able to bring our ideas to life!
How long have you been in business? We have been working on building the brand (i.e. developing designs, getting trademarks, etc.) for over a year. But went live with our website and first designs in December 2010.
What inspired the idea to actually create products & a business? Our mission is to create products that make people have fun, relax, and enjoy life as we do…one cocktail at a time. We really want to create quality products that people can enjoy while traveling or just spending time with friends. Team Cocktail is about having fun and enjoying what you do. We enjoy traveling and cocktails, so we made it our business. People always tell you to love what you do, well that couldn't be more true for us. We LOVE what we do, and we hope you do too!
If you made it to the end of this blog I'm sure your glass is empty so you better go get another. We hate for ice cubes to be lonely. Please check out our website www.teamcocktail.com where you will find our t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, flip flops, bottle openers, slap koozies and much more. We are adding new products weekly and will soon be launching a men's board shorts line.
You can also find our blog there, where you can read about our travel experiences (focused on favorite beaches, beach bars, & bartenders), party times (pictures of our fans partying in TC style) and drinks (drink recipes we love, & love to make). We would love to hear from you so feel free to contact us on Facebook, Twitter, or through the website. You can also sign up for our newsletter to receive special discounts, new arrival announcements, and just fun stuff!
As you are traveling remember to TRAVEL GLOBAL, DRINK LOCAL!!
Cheers!
Team Cocktail
by Debbi | Mar 10, 2011 | People, Stories
Cheryl, one of our bartenders in the 90's, was back for a visit last fall. She wrote a great guest blog post about the Sandbar, then and now, and she also sent us some fantastic pictures from back in the day.
Here's what a line of bar dancers looked like, circa 1996ish, while shaking their tailfeathers:
Notice the abundance of denim shorts and oversize tops, and the white socks.
This was also back in the days of the dangerous ceiling fan, which more than one person caught their hand on while dancing. These days, we have an awning in place for unsteady dancers to lean against, and the ceiling fans came down long ago.
Some things never change, though. You can often still find a group of ladies dancing on the bar, with the boys gathered in front of the bar watching them.
by Debbi | Mar 7, 2011 | Guest Blogs, People, Stories
This is a guest blog from former bartender/bouncer Cheryl, who worked here in the mid-90's. Cheryl was the first female staff member who actually was assigned a door shift- and she was an excellent doorgirl/bouncer. Cheryl was back for a visit last fall, and we asked her to share her thoughts on the Sandbar with our readers.
Sometimes I think that college was so long ago there is no way the Sandbar could really have been such a perfect place and there is certainly no way that it could be anywhere close to the same now. Then I get a little nostalgic, make myself a margarita and think "those were the days." And that's just a little sad…
So I decided a visit was in order.
It had been about 10 years since my last trip and 15 years since I worked there. I started working for Peach at Jox Sports Bar and Grill, with the famous hot and honey wings courtesy of Kelly French, and started tending bar at the Sandbar as soon as I turned 21.
I also was the Tuesday $1 anything night bouncer, which made for many memorable nights, with Dave behind the bar. I worked at the Sandbar for a year a half, and I am pretty sure I made about $20 – the rest of my pay went to liquor. I would hazard a guess that in those 18 months I was at the Sandbar at least 5 nights a week. Of course we went elsewhere, but we always started and/or ended at the Sandbar.
We spent so much time there – time well documented in photos and various hairsyles – that I thought a return trip might be a let-down. I'm certainly not in college anymore, and I'm practically old enough to be some of the customers' mom. Well that might be a stretch, but I am definitely old enough to have babysat one of the current bartenders. (That would be Andrew.)
I am proud to say I was part of the first Sandbar St Patrick's Day float. But that was a LONG time ago. Surely the jukebox had changed or the drinks or the decor or the atmosphere… there was just no conceivable way that it could be as much fun now as it was then.
My old schol hall roommate and I met in Lawrence in November to go to a game at Allen Fieldhouse. My mom came with since she loves the Jayhawks and the Sandbar nearly as much as I do. After the game on Friday night we headed straight to the Sandbar. Dave was behind the bar and it was immediately apparent that nothing fundamental about the Sandbar had changed.
Don't get me wrong, there have been many changes- the swag handed out with drinks, the hurricane, the tiki hut over the bar, the dirty banana shot. There's even more than 2 taps now – the choices have expanded beyond Bud Light or Bud Light. But the vibe is the same, many of the customers are the same, the jukebox is basically the same (Shake a Tailfeather anyone?), my license plate is right over the jukebox where it belongs.
Most importantly, the way the Sandbar feels is the same. The sense that all is well and the beach is just around the corner. It's a party, it was home for a time, and it is still one of my favorite places in the world. Somehow it was like I never moved to Colorado.
We came back Saturday and had just as much fun making fools of ourselves. Like Jimmy Buffett said, "we are the people our parents warned us about".
Thanks to everyone there for making my trip to Lawrence memorable. I won't wait 10 years to come back…
(And as a side note, thank god Pizza Shuttle hadn't changed their number -call 842-1212, call it now Pizza Shuttle – and still offers a 2-fer special and delivery into the wee hours…)
Cheryl also sent us a bunch of old-school Sandbar photos. Here's a sneak peek of one now, and we'll publish more over the next week:
Cheryl and a much-younger Dave, back in the day.
