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It Was A Wet & Wild Memorial Day Weekend At Lake Of The Ozarks

The cool, wet Memorial Day Weekend was a moneymaker for some Lake area businesses, but a dud for others.

  • Updated
  • 3 min to read
Lake Ozark Strip on Saturday Night

For what is traditionally the busiest weekend of the year at Lake of the Ozarks, the weather didn’t get the memo. It was cool and occasionally wet: a bust for boat rental companies, but a massive blowout for on-land venues.

Up On The Land

On Saturday night the Bagnell Dam Strip was wild. Local business owner Mark Brick shared video from one of his restaurants, Casablanca, which showed the strip absolutely packed on Saturday night. It looked like downtown Nashville.

Business owners and cops say Memorial Day Weekend was the busiest they've ever seen it on the Bagnell Dam Strip in Lake Ozark.

video courtesy Mark Brick -- Casablanca Restaurant/The Brick House

Bars along the strip were filled to capacity, with people waiting outside to get in.

"Roxie’s had a line out the door all the way up the sidewalk towards Old Time Photos," Lake Ozark Police Chief James Boren said. "Marty Byrd's had a couple hundred people on the sidewalk waiting to get in."

"It was busier than I’ve ever seen it," said Boren, who's lived at the Lake nearly his entire life. "Sunday afternoon there were more cars parked on the Strip than I’ve ever seen outside of a special event."

And while it was a giant weekend party on land, things on the water looked different.

Down On The Water

For boating-based businesses, Memorial Day Weekend left much to be desired. Employees of on-water restaurant/bars saw their hours cut on what should have been a blowout weekend.

"It was bad," Tom said Tom Randall, owner of Scooters Rental, Gas Dock & Snack Shack. "All of our boat bookings cancelled, and some of the jet skis." He added that Scooters gave full refunds to those people, acknowledging that it's frustrating for vacationers when their boating plans get rained-out... though the rainy forecast cost his business dearly. Unsurprisingly, fuel sales at his gas dock were way down too.

However, in spite of the threatening forecast, Saturday had actually turned out to be a decent boating-weather day; the skies even cleared in late-afternoon. Tom says vacationers shouldn't be so quick to bail on a Lake vacation just because there's a chance of rain in the forecast. "If we have a 75% chance or greater, it's definitely gonna rain here," he said. "But this is the Lake! And a lot of these storm systems go around the Lake."

"[The weather] did not tarnish anyone's appetite for ice cream," he said, laughing, noting that at least Scooter's famous Dole soft serve sales weren't too bad.

The cool weather was enough to delay SuperSplash USA's grand opening. The waterpark (formerly Big Surf) on Highway 54 had been preparing for a big opening weekend, but instead they opted to throw in the towel for Memorial Day Weekend, with sunny skies on tap for next weekend.

Catfights & Jailbirds

While most folks came to enjoy their weekend at the Lake and behaved themselves, troublemakers arrived too.

On Saturday night, with weather keeping most folks off the water, Lake Ozark Police Chief James Boren says his officers were extremely busy, with plenty of trips to the Tuscumbia jail.

His officers were called out to numerous scuffles. And while many of those are broken up before police even arrive, he said a significant number of the fights that broke out on the Strip were between women. There were reports of women brawling on the ground, tearing at each other‘s hair. An employee of one waterfront restaurant told LakeExpo of a brawl involving men and women in a bathroom that left even a security guard with a black eye. 

What brought the drama to the Strip? Weather certainly drove many people off the water and toward the largest concentration of bars at the Lake. But some might also have been drawn by the filming of a certain TV show…

Ozark Law, it was recently announced, is returning for a second season. The A&E documentary series followed Lake Ozark and Osage Beach police officers for a busy summer at the Lake, and the show performed well enough that producers opted for a second season. Camera crews accompanying officers caught a cross-section of the weekend'd wildness, and might have been a draw for more people to come down on the Strip in hopes of showing up on the show.

"It’s interesting because the atmosphere on the Strip in the daytime is vastly different from the atmosphere on the Strip at 11 p.m.," Boren said. "We certainly have to get creative on how we manage such large crowds with so few officers." He praised his officers for "a job well done this weekend, adding, "They definitely had their hands full."

Take On The Lake — a new podcast by LakeExpo — interviewed Chief Boren for a recent episode, where he talked about the interesting challenge of policing a place like Lake Ozark. Check out the full episode video below, and subscribe to Take on the Lake wherever you get your podcasts.

Here’s where to find Take On The Lake:

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Apple Podcasts

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What’s it really like to police The Strip at Lake of the Ozarks?

We sat down with Lake Ozark Police Chief James Boren to talk about what’s changed at the Lake, summer wild times on the Strip, and hosting a camera crew for Ozark Law. We also dove into issues like police officer pay and body cameras — plus, we talked about his other job: worship leader at a local church!

Take On The Lake is produced by LakeExpo, the leading digital media company and news/events source for Lake of the Ozarks.

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#LakeOfTheOzarks #TakeOnTheLake #JamesBoren #OzarkLaw #PoliceChief #LakeLife
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