The Sandbox is the newest sports bar and grill – and Derby’s own version of Chicken and Pickle.

It’s a cheap knock-off of the original. 

The service at The Sandbox seems haphazard at best – a group of teenagers with no real direction. This is not, however, the servers’ fault but instead the restaurant seems to be missing a lot of support systems for them.

Everything in The Sandbox seems like someone had a rough idea of what a restaurant was like and decided to open one of their own. When I visited, the restaurant was missing a host stand, which is something one expects when walking into a restaurant. 

We were sat at one of the only small tables in the main dining area, a high top table. The options were very limited, having no booths only tables and the bar.

What I ordered was a club sandwich with a side salad. Instead of a salad however, I got a cold plate of soggy fries. They were unseasoned and tasted old. When I asked my server for my salad, I was met with a tinge of disdain. 

The salad itself was nothing to write home about. It was bland and some of the lettuce had already started to rot.

The sandwich I ordered had smoked ham, turkey, bacon, lettuce, tomato, pepper jack cheese with chipotle aioli on Texas toast. The chipotle aioli was nonexistent in the sandwich and added nothing to it. The “Texas toast” was incredibly hard and tasted like store-bought white bread. 

The Sandbox’s prices promise luxury, but their food fails on every front.