Sandlot — Restaurant in Baltimore

It seems like just yesterday I was sitting on the patio at the Harbor East Gordon Biersch location, looking out at the cranes and construction equipment at the newly open Harbor Point. Fast forward to summer 2017 and Harbor Point is up and running complete with apartments, a coffee shop, a furniture store and Baltimore's newest outdoor attraction - Sandlot. It's a concept by Chef Spike Gjerde of Woodberry Kitchen. The name is an homage to the baseball movie with the same name. Sandlot can be described as a Baltimore Beach but on the harbor - a manmade beach with sand, sun and fun without the swimming. It's an adult playground with volleyball courts, giant jenga, sidewalk chalk, hammocks, corn hole, bocce ball and top 40's blasting from the speakers. I've been to Sandlot about five times since it's opened and I'd say by day it's family and dog friendly and at night it has a laid back beach party vibe that us locals enjoy. Also, the views at night are incredible, you can see across the Baltimore skyline. It's normally open from 4-11pm daily but times can get delayed if it rains.

My first visit to Sandlot was their opening day and it was packed, so packed that I stood in the line for about 45 minutes just to order a cocktail. They've since worked out the cocktail kinks by adding extra beer stations around the site and allowing servers to take orders at your seat. The cocktail selection normally includes your normal liquor selection, beer and a few frozen drink specials...gotta have the frozen drinks at the beach.

The food options include traditional American Fare such as Nachos, Specialty Hot Dogs, Chicken, Fish, Potato Salad, Onion Rings and many more options. Since I've visited several times, I've been able to try a variety of entrees.

Soft Shell Crab Sandwich - Lightly fried, topped with fresh, crunchy, tangy cole slaw on a soft toasted bun... This soft shell crab sandwich was one of the best I've ever had.

Rotisserie Chicken - I had the chicken twice. My first sampling was flavorful and falling of the bone good. My second time having it, wasn't that great. I guess it's a hit or miss.

Crab Fritters- Lots of corn, not enough crab. But the chilli pepper jam made up for it...so good.

Chessie Nachos - The menu offers a variety of five nacho options. The Chessie is topped with smoked fish, crab, corn salsa, beer cheese, onion and jalapeños. I ordered them because I've never had smoked fish nachos. Lots of fish and crab on every chip. These are great if you like seafood.

Sandlot is definitely the place to take out of town guests to show them how cool we are in Baltimore. Or visit for a chill weekday evening or a people...

The bad:

Expensive parking Ran out of ALL food by 6 PM and didn’t bother to update the menu they had posted on IG that same day Staff doing the absolute least Barely any seating Misleading FAQ

In more detail:

This place had mixed reviews, but most of them had to do with the quality of the cocktails, the wait for a beer, or the price of parking, so we decided to take our chances here when looking for a fun outdoor place to go with a fairly large group (that included children). However, we had such a terrible experience that we ended up having to leave.

The day we wanted to go, I looked at the Sandlot’s Instagram page, and they advertised a food menu of burgers, fries, crab cakes, grilled corn, and hot dogs. We showed up and paid for parking (the reviews saying it’s $5-10 are outdated, by the way, as we paid $15 for just two hours). When we got to the security check, most of us told the woman that we weren’t planning to drink, and we headed inside.

It was a Saturday night at 6 PM, and the weather was beautiful, so we expected it to be crowded, but the table situation was terrible. There’s plenty of space but barely ANY tables, and groups of two were camped out at huge picnic tables. I’m not sure if this was a COVID thing, but Sandlot could have added like 50 tables and still had them decently distanced from each other. We also would have been happy to bring picnic blankets to sit on the sand, but the FAQ said they had plenty of seating and that you’d have no issue finding a place to sit.

The lines for drinks were super long, but we were mostly there for food. But there was no food to be found. Finally, we asked the woman up front where we could find the food that they had advertised, and she told us that they ran out?! Like why on earth did she not tell us upfront when we walked at 6 PM with children and said that we weren’t planning on drinking? That would have saved us a ton of trouble hunting for a table and then searching all over for food. You think a business would have figured out how much food they would need to not run out by the START of dinner time on a nice weekend. And while it was busy, it was far from the busiest bar I’ve been to, so it’s bizarre they ran out of food by 6 PM. The woman also wasn’t apologetic at all about the situation. It seemed like she didn’t want to be there.

So if you’re thinking of coming here, believe the bad reviews. And check out their Yelp, where they have a very low rating of 3 stars. It’s poorly rated...

Sandlot, Sandlot, Sandlot, I really wanted to like you, but you sadly let me down. Now first disclaimer, this place is fairly new and I realize it will take a while to work the kinks out but after my experience, I don't know if i'm willing to give them a second try. My main issue with sandlot that I cannot get over was the food. The fact that this is owned by Woodberry kitchen I expected sheer greatness. I was sadly mistaken. First issue with the food was it took so long to get it. You have to stand in a super long line with only two cashiers to order both your food and drinks. I noticed while standing in line a lot of people around the "beach" just had drinks or nothing at all, they probably realized it was a train wreck. There is a lot of outdoor activities to do so they seemed to just be enjoying the scenery. They probably ate before they came, I unfortunately had not. So once I actually got my food, several ingredients were missing for example cheese on a dish called cheesy crab fries. When I ordered they failed to tell me that this key ingredient had run out. So they literally brought me fries with dry sprinkles of crab on it. My friend got oysters and those were pretty bland and subpar as well. Even the ketchup I asked for to put over my fries was an overbearingly sour homemade ketchup. I would have been ok with just some simple old Heinz. What I will say is, when I complained about my food the manager came by, apologized, and took the order off my bill. She also brought me crab fritters on the house. Those were not good either. My friend and her son order chicken wings that literally were plain dried up little pieces with no seasoning what's so ever. Overall Sandlot was a waste of my Thursday evening. The concept is great and the scenery was pretty chill, crowd was young and attractive, but being a foodie, the experience I had from that aspect is unforgivable. I would suggest Sandlot revamp how you order your food and the whole menu in general. And try to over stock key menu items like cheese. I wish you all the best this Summer but I don't think I will be visiting here again unless I have...