Arizonians were treated to a special performance on Wednesday night at the Margaritaville Cafe in Glendale, Arizona. Jimmy Buffett and Coral Reefer Band member Mac McAnally played an afternoon acoustic show to celebrate the opening of the restaurant.

Buffett mentioned during the show that they would end the 2008 tour in Hawaii.

The set list was largely “Songs You Know By Heart”, but a great acoustic version of “Stories We Could Tell” finished off the night. View the entire set list here and Bamafan’s show review here.

Did you attend the show? Share your thoughts on our Discussion Board or post your photos in our Photo Gallery.

Update – The Arizona Republic has a story on the show: “Buffett opens ‘Margaritaville’ to cheering crowd”. The article includes a great slideshow of pictures from the show.

The 2008 tour kicks off Monday, April 21st with a show from Houston, Texas.

The parent company of Cheeseburger In Paradise, OSI Restaurant Partners, is putting the Key West-inspired chain up for sale:

OSI Restaurant Partners, the Tampa-based owner of the Outback Steakhouse chain, which sold most of its stake in the Lee Roy Selmon’s barbecue chain last year, is looking to sell two more brands: Cheeseburger in Paradise, and Roy’s. “Our growth priorities in the future will be focused on our larger concepts: Outback … Carrabba’s Italian Grill, Bonefish Grill and Fleming’s,” general counsel Joe Kadow said via e-mail Wednesday. “We are evaluating strategies for ultimately exiting the smaller concepts” but are “under no set timetable,” he said.

Cheeseburger In Paradise was founded in 2002 by OSI Restaurant Partners in collaboration with Jimmy Buffett. According to the article, the chain has 39 locations across 18 states.

In 2005, Buffett sold his holdings of the chain to OSI, who previously held a 50% share in the chain. OSI pays a royalty of 4.5 percent of restaurant sales to Buffett.

In recent months, OSI has closed several CIP restaurants, including locations in Asheville, NC; Lansing, MI; York, PA; Greenville, SC; and Leawood, KS.

Jimmy Buffett and Coral Reefer Mac McAnally will play a show at the new Margaritaville Cafe in Glendale, Arizona today to celebrate the grand opening.

The show will be broadcast live on the web at www.radiomargaritaville.com and on Sirius Satellite Radio channel 31.

Miles Hampton will DJ the pre-show from the cafe beginning at 6pm EDT (3pm local). Jimmy and Mac will take the stage at 9pm EDT (6pm local). Gates open at 4pm local time.

You can follow along with the set list and chat with other parrotheads during the show on our discussion board.

Tickets for Jimmy Buffett’s 2008 Year Of Still Here Tour continue to sell at a brisk pace.

TicketNews reports that Buffett was number three in Top Concert Events for the week ending April 6th, up from number four a week ago. On the overall list, Buffett comes in at number eight.

In mid-March, Buffett peaked at number one on both the Overall Events list and the Top Concerts list.

Most shows are sold out, but at the time of this writing tickets are still available through TicketMaster for the following shows:

• 4.21.08 – C.W. Mitchell Pavilion – Woodlands, TX
• 4.24.08 – Verizon Wireless Amph. – Maryland Heights, MO
• 4.26.08 – Pizza Hut Park – Frisco, TX
• 4.29.08 – Verizon Wireless Amph. – Charlotte, NC
• 6.12.08 – Madison Square Garden – New York City, NY
• 7.24.08 – Toyota Park – Bridgeview, IL
• 8.24.08 – Boardwalk Hall – Atlantic City, NJ

Remember, you can still get tickets to sold out shows through StubHub!

Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band will play two shows in October at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada: Saturday, October 18th and Saturday, October 25th.

On sale date for tickets is not yet known, but it may be April 14th – that’s when the two California shows that have been announced are to go on sale. We’ll let you know though when we find out for sure the on sale date.

Check out all tour dates currently scheduled here.