Sandbar Shirt in the… trash?

Remember John the bartender, of Jake-and-John Australian adventures fame?

He's long gone from the Sandbar, having moved away to Houston with his college sweetheart Natalie, who he married almost two years ago.

Recently, Natalie shared this with us:

I must confess, I was packing our closet up as we get ready to move and made a pile of John's clothes that *might* be ready to go to t-shirt heaven. His frayed and paint-splashed Sandbar tee ("I was PAINTING the sandbar!") might've been in the mix… because seriously, in its current state, it's probably not street legal. When he saw it in the purgatory pile, you would've thought he was ready to divorce me. HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?!?!? GET THAT OUT OF THERE! …. Whoops. Guess I won't be making wardrobe suggestions anymore!

Sandbar shirts are important wardrobe pieces! And often, they are sentimental souvenirs of a previous life.

I was amused with the picture of the shirt Natalie sent, mostly because the shirt isn't in nearly as bad of shape as I expected.

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See those little paint spots on the front? Heck, Dave wears shirts worse than this to work sometimes!

However…we can certainly appreciate the idea that someone has too many T-shirts for their closet. Coming soon, a little contest called "how many Sandbar shirts does Dave have." Kind of like guessing how many jelly beans are in the jar.

Sandbar Shirt at the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame

Recently we got a picture of Sandbar friend Kevin wearing his Sandbar shirt at the original site of Woodstock (the music festival, for you youngsters). We proclaimed on Facebook that it was the coolest Sandbar shirt picture we'd received yet.

But this next one is pretty cool.

Our favorite man on the street, Pat, recently got engaged to his lovely girlfriend Andrea. They took a trip to Ohio, and while they were there they took some pictures in Sandbar shirts.

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These pictures are from the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. We're pretty sure the Sandar has never been featured on the cover of Rolling Stone before!

If you've worn your Sandbar shirt somewhere neat (can you top this place?!), send us a picture. Email it to us at sandbar@thesandbar.com, upload it to our Facebook page, or tweet it to us. We'll post it here and hang it on our wall!

Sandbar birthday block party, Aug. 11

It's almost time for our fourth annual birthday block party!

This year's extravaganza will be held on Saturday, Aug. 11. The fun starts at 7 p.m. with live bands, a beer garden and tropical drinks.

Around 9 p.m. we'll have a special surprise: the unveiling of a brand new Sandbar hurricane video! We're also attempting to create the first outdoor hurricane in Lawrence. Mark Valentine and his band will play afterwards, starting around 9:45.

We're also putting together a slide show of Sandbar pictures from the past year. If you have pictures you'd like to have included, email them to us at sandbar@thesandbar.com. We'll do our best to include all the photos we receive!

There's a $5 cover charge for the beer garden, and you must be 21 to enter the beer garden and/or the bar. Alcohol must be kept within the beer garden. Otherwise, everyone young and old is welcome to join the party!

We've had some questions about the shark slide from last year. We weren't able to reserve the slide again this year, someone else beat us to it. So, it won't be there this time.

Sandbar: the best country bar in America?

The sales pitches we get via email never fail to amuse.

You might remember the really crazy, bad-grammar-laden train wreck of a pitch we blogged about last time. The most recent pitch wasn't quite that awful, but it was still a surprise.

We were solicited to take part in a promotion to find the- wait for it- "Best Country Music Bar in America."

Yep, you read that right.

While many of us at the Sandbar love country music, and we have a lot of country music on our jukebox (or, at least, we used to- but that's another story for another day), we're pretty sure that no one in their right mind would consider the Sandbar a country bar.

Not to mention, this particular contest requires a "small fee" to participate.

Typically, the email pitches we get are completely impersonal and it's obvious they're just blasting them to out everyone. This one was a little bit different.

The sender made a point to mention that she grew up in Kansas, graduated from K-State but has lots of Jayhawk family members and is familiar with Lawrence and she really wants a Kansas bar to win.

It might have been better had she not mentioned those things and just let us think it was another anonymous, impersonal pitch. Because someone who was familiar with Lawrence and a "Jayhawk at heart" would surely know we're not a country bar, right?

It's funny, because the big prizes in this contest are concerts with major-label recording artists in your bar. Where in the world would we put them?!

So, no. We won't be paying to participate in this contest, but the email was good for a laugh.

Bike and Beer Wednesday

Like bikes? Like beer? Of course you do. So do the folks who participate in Bike and Beer Wednesday, a self-described group of "laid-back people who love bicycles and beer."

This past Wednesday, the group kicked off their weekly event at the Sandbar.

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(photo borrowed from the Bike and Beer Wednesday Facebook page)

One commenter noted that there are no bikes in the above picture; so it may have just been Beer Wednesday.

A number of Sandbar friends participate in this group. Former bartender Carrie; man on the street and former bartender Pat and his fiancee' Andrea; art director and sometime-bartender Justin and his lovely wife Michelle; Randy, Thom, Lisa and many others.

The group rides different routes around Lawrence, and sometimes it's a BYOB event while other times they end up at a local watering hole. Or start there.

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Picture from the BBW Facebook page.

We love the creative alliteration they added to our Jimmy Buffett collage.

BBW'ers, come back soon! And next time, harass Dave into going with you.