As the days grow shorter and school starts up again, the peak summer months seem to be behind us. There are, however, a few places in the area that aren’t ready to give up on summer just yet.
Kief’s Reef: Friendship and Fun
Located right on the Fox River in McHenry, Kief’s Reef provides more than just a drink and a good time. Summer sand volleyball games offer not only a place to spend the remaining summer days, but also a great way to make some new friends. “The players are more like family and friends than customers,” owner Randy Kief said.
And sure enough, there are people and teams that have been coming out ever since Kief built the court 20 years ago. The players range in age and span a couple generations, he added. “We have young people that play and we have people that are my age at 55 that play,” he said. “They all get along; we all mix pretty well.”
Sharri Kapaldo has been playing on the same team for 11 years. Her daughter has grown up in that time and has since joined a team and plays on Wednesday nights.
She said the best part about Kief’s are the friendships made. “We live across the street, so it’s convenient,” Kapaldo said. “We’ve definitely made a lot of friends from other teams. It’s a lot of fun.”
Erik Pratt, Kapaldo’s teammate, has been playing on the same team for two years. Pratt, who also works at Kief’s, said he got his start by filling in for a friend one night. It stuck ever since. “I plan on playing until I can’t anymore,” Pratt said.
The recreational games are played Tuesday through Thursday starting around 6:30 p.m. and usually end after 9 p.m. Teams play on the same night every week and at the end of the summer, the best teams from each night play in a playoff, Kief said.
“Small trophies are awarded, but there’s not a lot of big stuff,” Kief said. “It’s strictly recreational and everybody knows it.”
Being on the river offers other advantages, Kief said, like a nice-sized audience to watch the games. “It’s a great spectator sport,” he added. “Boaters come, sit and watch. Friends and family are the fans. They’ll come and sit and have a beer and a burger. It’s really a quite a good time.”
Kief has noticed over the years, each night is different in the style of play, with each team finding its own identity. “Tuesday night they seem to kick it up pretty hard and Wednesday nights are a little different,” Kief said. “So they’ve all kind of found their niche and where they want to play.”
Weekend pickup games are also a way for people to play volleyball without having to join upon a team. “We’re open Saturday afternoon all day,” he said. "We have a band play outside every Sunday. We’ll cook burgers and brats and that sort of thing so it’s kind of like a picnic-like atmosphere.”
But it’s more than volleyball, Kief said, that keep customers coming back. It’s the food and the family-oriented atmosphere of the place. “We don’t really advertise, so it’s all really by word of mouth,” Kief said. “Our food is one of the biggest aspects of the place.”
Facebook is really the only way Kief’s Reef gets its name out on the Internet, Kief said. “That’s more honest than anything,” he explained. “If you look at Facebook and see what these people write, it’s not me telling you some story to try to get business.”
Sideouts: A League of its Own
Located right near the corner of 176 and Roberts Road in Island Lake, Sideouts Bar & Eatery offers one of the largest and most organized sand volleyball leagues in McHenry County.
Since its inception in 1994 the bar has gone from two to five courts, with plans for adding a sixth.
Jerry De Laurentis took over ownership from his father in 2007, but has been running volleyball since the beginning. “In the first year we had about 30 to 40 teams,” De Laurentis said. “This year we have 326 teams.”
The leagues run for 14 to 16 weeks, depending on the weather, until mid-September, De Laurentis said. "There’s a tournament for each league,” he added. “Sometimes single loss, sometimes double loss depending on the way the league goes and timing.”
De Laurentis’ father and grandfather built the bowling lanes, which are still up today, in December 1960. The bowling leagues were a quick hit at the bar, but they had to do something to draw in people during the summer. Sand volleyball was the answer.
“We built the volleyball courts to spark summer business because bowling leagues aren’t around very much during the warmer months,” De Laurentis said.
Part of what makes Sideouts’ sand volleyball so successful, he said, is its past experience with the bowling leagues.“Bowling leagues have to be organized as far as scheduling and standings,” De Laurentis said. “There also has to be someone here to talk to if there’s a problem with anything.
“That’s what we bring to our volleyball leagues. We run them very organized and strict and that reflects in our teams.”
There are teams that have been around since 1994, he said. And some travel quite a distance to compete. “We have guys coming from Evanston and even Lisle,” De Laurentis said.
Sideouts has also proven to be somewhat of a matchmaker for a couple who met while playing.
Bill Anderson has been playing on team Over the Net for 15 years. It’s also where he met his wife Marie. “This is the best volleyball around,” Bill said. “It’s the only sport you can play at a bar and not get hurt.”
Chris Souza, Anderson’s teammate, plays on three different leagues all at Sideouts. “It’s really competitive,” Souza said. “It’s very well organized and we have a lot of fun.”
Sideouts hosts several leagues during the summer, including recreational and intermediate for those teams that are just getting started, De Laurentis said. “The recreational and intermediate leagues all have refs,” De Laurentis explained.
There are also cash competitions that are for the more advanced teams looking to make a little money. “In the cash leagues there are no refs and the money they pay is paid back out in a prize fund,” De Laurentis added. “It’s highly competitive.”
For the Vanderbilt Chiropractic team, the competition is what keeps them coming back.
Darci Hansen said she was asked to play one summer and got hooked.“I’m addicted,” Hansen said. “They have the best courts here and the best teams.”
Hansen’s team has been playing for 12 years and they have won their league three years in a row.
There are several advantages to playing sand volleyball at a bar, according to De Laurentis. “The nice thing about beach volleyball is that it’s outside and at bar league you can eat and drink and it’s very unique compared to a park district league,” he explained. "It’s a very fun atmosphere. What’s better than coming out in your bare feet and having some fun?”
