My wife and I stumbled on a real find recently when we stopped for dinner at the Sandwich Shack. Located in the picturesque Village Square shopping center just south of Main Street on U.S. 1, the restaurant has a bright, beachy décor and interior design that puts diners in mind of an old-fashioned boardwalk sandwich stand, with a pass-through counter for pickup orders by the front door.
Current hours at the small restaurant are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and when we arrived a little after 5 p.m. on a Monday evening we received a friendly greeting from cook David Hockenbury who stepped up to the pass-thru to see if we were picking up an order and then invited us to sit at whatever booth or table we preferred when we told him we were dining in.
Because it was near closing time, the waitress had gone home and Hockenbury came out from the kitchen to take our order and serve us when our food was ready.
A friendly, helpful young man who clearly cares about the quality of the food he presents to customers, he answered all our questions and offered a couple of suggestions when asked.
The Sandwich Shack menu includes a wide array of salads, deli and specialty sandwiches, hoagies, Panini’s and burgers, with all entrees under $9. Daily specials are posted online at 11 a.m. each morning at sebastiansandwichshack.com and typically include an entrée, two types of soup and a list of delectable deserts, which one day last week included Mango Cheesecake, Mango-Coconut Cheesecake, Blueberry Cobbler, Key Lime Pie and homemade Brownies!
According to the website, owner Keith Martin believes “the best food is homemade. This is the reason we prepare all of our own Salads, Soups, Daily Specials, and Desserts and brew our own Sweet and Unsweet Iced Tea!”
Martin bought the business two years ago. He says he has been self-employed since he was 21 but had no prior experience as a restaurant owner.
“I love people and this seemed like a great way to be with people,” Martin says. “It has worked out really well. The business was on the downslide when I bought it, but we have been able to build it up.”
Hockenbury says the restaurant is jammed non-stop between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. each day, and gets a little quieter in the early evening, at the time my wife, Mary, and I were there.
That may change going forward. Martin plans to extend evening hours to 8 p.m. sometime in the near future, which will likely attract a bigger crowd for dinner. Based on his success so far, he would also like to expand the size of the restaurant in its current location or find a bigger place nearby to accommodate his growing clientele.
I started with a cup of superb lobster bisque ($2.50), one of the two soups of the day, and ordered a Shack Attack sandwich for my entrée ($7.48). It consisted of Turkey piled an inch thick and topped with Swiss cheese, avocado, lettuce, tomato and mayo on rye bread and was absolutely delicious. I ordered it with a crisp, flavorful potato salad, one of several side choices.
My wife had a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich that was likewise piled high with an inch or more of grilled bacon strips topped with the other named ingredients, all fresh and crisp. She had French fries for a side and compared them to the thin fries served by In-N-Out Burger, a popular West Coast franchise famous for the quality of its fries.
The food was served on kitschy colorful plates designed to look like fish and washed down with some of the freshest, best-tasting iced tea I have come across in a restaurant.
Even though the sandwiches with sides made a substantial meal, we sampled two of the large salads, too, for the purposes of this review. I had a Greek Salad ($6.48) that was perfectly prepared and proportioned with lots of black olives, feta cheese and pepperoncini peppers. My wife was equally pleased with her Caesar ($4.98).
For desert we tried the Mango-Coconut Cheesecake, which was recommended by Hockenbury in glowing terms and lived up to its press, and the homemade brownie, about which I heard absolutely no complaints.
The Shack’s location adds to its appeal. Village Square is an attractive cluster of cottages with a central lake and fountain and lots of lush landscaping that is home to a dozen restaurants, retail boutiques and service providers, including a furniture shop, jeweler, veterinarian, hair salon, optical shop and the Beach House Grille.
The Sandwich Shack is not fine dining, obviously, but it is awfully darn good eating at very reasonable prices. It serves much better food than you would get in many much more expensive places, and the food is served with a genuine smile.
Two people could easily eat a hearty lunch or dinner with non-alcoholic drinks for $25 and feel like the money was well spent.
The Sandwich Shack is definitely a place we will be returning to and I doubt if we are alone. It seems unlikely to me there are many people, other than tourists passing by on U.S. 1, who come here just once.