Shark Beach isn’t just a clever name. It’s a destination covered in 900 tons of sand on East Farm-to-Market Road 1151, where families eat burgers, play games and dance barefoot under the stars, all in the middle of a landlocked West Texas city.
But in September, the inland beach is making waves on a whole new scale. Shark Beach will host Amarillo’s first Sandcastle Days event from Sept. 18 to Sept. 21, bringing in professional sand sculptors, local vendors, food trucks, beach-themed activities and field trips for students. The event is a collaboration with Virginia Beach and South Padre Island Sandcastle Days, aiming to bring authentic coastal culture to the Texas Panhandle.
Organizers estimate more than 30,000 attendees in its inaugural year. The weekend-long celebration promises creativity, fun, sunshine and surprises — from live music to interactive exhibits — all at Amarillo’s own inland beach destination. Shark Beach hopes to host 1,000 local grade-school students for a unique educational field trip that makes the excitement of the Texas coastline accessible to kids who may never get to visit the beach.
For co-owners Brenda and Brian Bailey, the event is a dream years in the making.
“We’ve been praying about doing something like this for two or three years now,” Brenda said. “We just had to find the right time, the right people and — most importantly — the right sand.”
A different kind of beach story
Shark Beach began as a pandemic-era revival of Brenda’s mother Charlotte Schroeter’s old restaurant, Graham’s Burger Farm. With COVID shutting down travel and limiting options, the couple reopened the spot in 2020, then reimagined it with beachy flair — turning a small food stand into a family-friendly, open-air venue.
The idea, Brenda said, started as a joke.
“I told Brian one day, if we had a little sand and a stage with live music, I wouldn’t even miss the island,” she said. “And by the next summer, he made it happen.”
That playful vision grew into a full-blown destination: sand, burgers, music, themed events and a laid-back coastal vibe — all built with accessibility in mind.
“We get a lot of special needs kids, kids from lower-income families, families who’ve never been to a beach,” Brian said. “We’re bringing the beach to them, and that’s very special to us.”
Sand, sweat and sculptors
The sand — all 900 tons of it — comes from a local quarry and had to be carefully sourced, tested and approved for sculpting.
“Turns out there are a lot of different kinds of sand,” Brian said. “It took us five tries, but we finally found the closest thing to beach sand that we could get here. It packs well, it doesn’t blow away, and it doesn’t turn to clay.”
Amarillo’s Sandcastle Days will feature master sculptor Lucinda “Sandy Feet” Wierenga, co-founder of the iconic South Padre Island Sandcastle Days festival. Wierenga has been building sand sculptures around the world since 1987 and is the author of the best-selling book “Sand Castles Made Simple.” She teaches private and group sandcastle lessons, leads corporate team-building workshops, and operates the SandBox Inn, a guesthouse on South Padre Island. For the Amarillo event, Wierenga will lead the inaugural build and help train local volunteers.
Brian said the first major sand delivery for the event, totaling more than 100 additional tons, is expected to arrive any day now at Shark Beach, helping transform even more of the space into a sculptor’s playground.
Field trips and touch tanks
One of the most unique elements of the event is its educational angle. From Sept. 14 through 18, local fourth-grade students will be brought in for special educational field trips, giving them the chance to tour the site, explore the sand sculptures, and interact with hands-on exhibits designed to fit into Texas curriculum standards.
Touch tanks will let kids experience marine life up close, offering a tactile and memorable way to learn about Texas coastal ecology. Brenda, a former teacher and WT graduate, said the goal is to create something memorable and meaningful.
“We want kids to look forward to this when they get to fourth grade,” she said. “We want them to remember the sandcastles and the fun — but also to learn something, too.”
From Land Shark to Shark Beach
Originally called Land Shark, the venue changed its name after receiving a letter from Jimmy Buffett’s legal team.
“They were super nice about it,” Brian said. “They gave us time to change, but they were rolling out a bunch of Land Shark bars across Texas and didn’t want us to have it here. We made a funny video about it and just rolled with the new name.”
Though they lost a name, they gained something even better — a local identity.
“I actually like the name Shark Beach better now,” Brian added. “It’s ours.”
A family affair
The Baileys say nearly everyone in their family has helped build Shark Beach into what it is today.
“My nephews work merch and fry station, my brothers take tickets,” Brenda said. “My dad passed away over a year ago, but he used to run the snow cones and hot dogs. He’d even go out among the crowd and dance with anybody who didn’t have a partner. We called him the ‘Dance Shark.’”
Brenda said those memories — dancing in the sand under the lights — are what make Shark Beach feel like something more than just a novelty.
“We often say if my mom looked down, she’d be saying, ‘What the heck?’” she said with a laugh. “But she’d also be proud. We’ve created something joyful,” she said. “We’ve had all kinds of people dancing in the sand — from little kids to grown-ups, people in wheelchairs, everyone just having fun.”
That joy, the Baileys say, isn’t just about what they’ve built. It’s about who shows up.
“I get told all the time how amazing this place is,” Brian said. “But I tell people right back — it’s not us that makes it special. It’s the people who come here. Amarillo has loved us, supported us and given us grace every step of the way.”
If you go
This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Shark Beach brings Sandcastle Days and coastal fun to Amarillo
Reporting by Michael Cuviello, Amarillo Globe-News / Amarillo Globe-News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
