Off the Grid
Creative comfort food and craft drinks in a laid-back Sandwich setting — the Cape's best-kept local secret.
Tucked off Route 6A in Sandwich — Cape Cod's oldest town — Off the Grid is less a restaurant than a laid-back outdoor campground: a cluster of food trucks, a converted bus, and open-air shacks scattered across the grounds of the historic Hillport Gallery. Built in 1911 for William Barclay Parsons, chief engineer of the Cape Cod Canal, the property has been reborn as one of the Upper Cape's most easygoing, family- and dog-friendly hangouts.
The food roams happily across styles: house-smoked, Caribbean-inspired barbecue (brisket, pulled pork, island flavors), fresh seafood and lobster, and tacos and burritos from the Lil' Phatty's window — plus breakfast and coffee off the bus and ice cream to finish. Island-leaning cocktails and cold drinks round it out.
It's the atmosphere that makes it, though. There's live music in the air and a back lawn full of yard games — cornhole, wiffle ball, badminton — so kids and dogs roam while the grown-ups settle in. Unpretentious and all-ages, it's more picnic-in-the-yard than night-on-the-town, and it doesn't pack up when summer fades: a heated tent keeps things going into the colder months, with indoor gallery dining in the works. Come for the barbecue, stay for the guitar and a game of cornhole as the afternoon rolls on.
