Ocean Annie’s Beach Bar opened in 1984, on the oceanfront pool deck at Sands Ocean Club on Shore Drive. Four decades later the band still plays out there, the bar is still open to the public, and a good number of the people ordering at it were coming here before their kids were born.
This is the short version of how a pool bar became the thing people drive to Myrtle Beach for.
Where it is, and why that matters
The bar sits at 9550 Shore Dr, Myrtle Beach, SC 29572 — on the deck at Sands Ocean Club, right where the pool stops and the beach starts. Shore Drive is the quiet end of the Grand Strand: off Restaurant Row, closer to North Myrtle Beach than to the boardwalk, with a beach that does not fill up the way the strip does.
That location is most of the story. A bar with live music in the middle of Myrtle Beach is a bar. A bar with live music on an oceanfront pool deck, at the end of a road most visitors have to be told about, becomes somewhere people come back to on purpose.
Four decades of afternoons
Not much about the formula has changed since 1984. The band sets up on the deck. People come off the beach, order a cold drink, and stay longer than they planned. Some of them are staying upstairs. A lot of them are not — the bar has always been open to the public, and locals treat it as theirs.
What builds over forty-odd years is not the bar, it’s the people. Bartenders who know an order before it’s spoken. Couples who met out on that deck. Families working through a second and third generation of the same week in July, in the same building, walking down to the same deck. Regulars who plan their year around the first warm weekend the band comes back.
None of that shows up in an amenity list, which is why we put it on its own page.
The bar today
- Live music on the pool deck through the season.
- Open to the public. You do not have to be a guest to walk up. No shirt, no shoes, no problem.
- 4.5 stars from 1,500+ Google reviews (checked July 2026), one of the highest-rated establishments on the beach.
- Oceanfront, with the pool on one side and the sand on the other.
The bar page has the current details, and the bar FAQ answers the questions we get asked most — who runs the place, whether anyone can come, and how parking works.
Help us keep the history straight
Four decades of a bar is four decades of stories that were never written down anywhere. If you have photos from a season we’ve forgotten, or you remember a band that should be on the wall, tell a bartender or the front desk. We would rather print your version than a tidied-up one.
Staying where the legend lives
Ocean Annie’s Resorts runs the front desk and the on-site rental program at both buildings on this stretch, so the choice is a real one and we would rather you make it up front:
- Sands Ocean Club — the flagship building and the home of the bar, with 375 condos under our management. One, two and three bedrooms, indoor and outdoor pools, a lazy river, hot tubs and the beachfront deck. This is where the party is. If the band is playing, you will hear it.
- Sands Beach Club — 15 units under our management, all one- and two-bedroom suites, with its own oceanfront pool a quiet mile up the beach. Walking distance to the bar when you want it. Out of earshot when you don’t.
If you are not sure which one you are, our building picker lays out both honestly. When you have decided, book direct with us — the same people who run the desk, the deck and the dining rooms. Check-in rules, deposits, parking and our pet policy are all on the resort policies page.
The condos are individually owned, so no two are identical. Book direct and our front desk will tell you straight what you’re getting.
