The Sand - La Salle

What an awful place... We stopped in on a Saturday around 5:30. The place was packed. I took a look around and almost wanted to leave upon arrival. There was someone playing guitar and it was way too loud (I used to play in a band so I 'm sympathetic to musicians playing dinner venues . Live entertainment during a dinner setting is just a bad idea for everyone. It costs the owner money, the guy playing is never enjoyed by the patrons and the patrons can 't stand the fact that they have to scream at one another during dinner so they can be heard. I wish the idiot owners would bring in the bands around 8:00 and not during dinner service. Anyway, I wanted a drink, but my usual martini would have been a bad idea, so I ordered a margarita. Cool, sweet, festive libation that should be a no-brainer for any place like this. We walked up to the bar and it was obvious there was no chance of ordering anything. The bartenders (2 of them were busy trying to crank out drinks for the waitresses. Even the waitresses were mixing drinks for themselves. I can 't imagine the sales this place is blowing because of service issues. The manager even pushed us out of the way so he could re-stock the drink straws (an excuse me would go a long way, Mr. Manager . I 'd think he 'd be more concerned with sales than straws, but what do I know? Anyway, after waiting for 15 minutes to get a drink, our table was ready. We were taken to a table on the patio, outside of the screened-in area. They had hexagonal picnic tables that were anchored into the concrete slab. The seats were fixed to the table, so they couldn 't be moved. To say these were uncomfortable is an understatement. I think these were designed by the Marque DeSade... Probably tolerable for 20 minutes, but any longer and things start hurting that you didn 't know could hurt. They could have used these during the Spanish Inquisition. W should have used these instead of waterboarding. So, after sitting around for 10 minutes or so, the waitress came around and we ordered drinks. After another 10 or 15 minutes, she came back with drinks!!! My margarita looked like watered down Mountain Dew. It had a slight taste of tequila, with lime juice and club soda. I couldn 't drink it. The strange thing is after looking around, I saw a lot of folks drinking these. They all grimaced after taking a sip, but they all seemed to hang in there. I threw in the towel after 3 sips and sent the drink back. It was terrible! So, many, many years ago, I worked at Chi-Chi 's at Sylvania and Talmadge in Toledo. To say we served a lot of margaritas would be an understatement. We served gallons of those things. In the name of efficiency, we mixed those up in large stainless-steel containers (think of an old-fashioned milk can, but twice as large and then served them through a pop gun. I have no idea how they do it here, but the way things were backing up at the bar, I doubt they were doing anything like this. If they are, the guy mixing the concoction needs to taste the stuff before it goes out for sale. And if the entire batch tasted anything like what I was served, I can 't believe folks weren 't sending them back. $10 bucks for a drink that couldn 't be consumed. So, our waitress came back to take our food order and then disappeared again. After 35 or 40 minutes, 4 of our 5 dinners were delivered. The 5th one came 10 minutes after the others. Inexcusable. It looked like all of the food was coming out of a food truck. No way could they crank out the orders fast enough, even with their limited menu. What I received was pretty crappy... I ordered the steak tacos. What I received was 3 stale, flour tortillas with about an ounce of meat on each one. Some griddled onions, peppers, sour cream and maybe some cheese??? I 'm saying they had cheese, because I can 't imagine tacos without cheese, but I don 't recall seeing any. The 3 tacos were $14.00. So, after sitting on the patio, we did see some really nice boats. People were being nice, and the weather was fine (not too cold or hot with a nice breeze . That said, if I 'm told this is the dinner destination before I get in the car, I 'll decline the invite and go to 7-11 for a roller dog. It 's better than the stuff they serve at The Sandbar.

The food and atmosphere was good. The service was good too. Rather small menu. But WAY too expensive. I don't mind paying good money for a good experience but damn.

We were traveling to Ann Arbor and wanted to find a unique, local place to have lunch. Not an easy place to get to but definitely worth it. Fun to hang out watch the boats ,and enjoy the breeze off the water while sipping a Creamsicle cocktail. The steak bites with horseradish sauce and the fries were great! Everyone was friendly. Definitely worth the effort to find it. If we lived closer we'd come again!

Great fries live music spot. Perfect post-boating or mid-boating spot to refuel. I *truly* enjoyed the blue frozen life preservers.

Great food super kind people and really cool area to sit down. I definitely recommend this place to everyone