The Division of Residential and Hospitality Services Culinary Services department keeps a close eye on the needs of Spartans. That awareness revealed an opportunity for a fast, flexible dining concept designed to test ideas, respond to trends and move at a speed appropriate for the ever-evolving Spartan community.
The result was The Sandbox, a quick-service location with mobile ordering seamlessly integrated for student convenience. Opened in fall 2025, the venue offers dirty sodas and bagel sandwiches with a structure built on student input and feedback. It has been a resounding success.
Sandbox Philosophy
Looking for something to complement the Grab-and-Go market on the second floor of Holden Hall, the CS team was not without restraints in creating the Sandbox. It needed something that could work with the equipment already in the location as well as with the hours of operation it would be open.
The name suggests what the location was meant to be: a sandbox — a space to experiment with the trends of the time.
“Trends change quickly in the food service and retail industry,” Associate Director for CS Gina Keilen says. “So being able to make it a location where the name doesn’t necessarily call out exactly what it is but allows us flexibility to adjust our service and menu to whatever might be the hot trend at that time.”
Another experiment in the physical and metaphorical Sandbox was the implementation of Grubhub mobile ordering. A partnership with Digital Strategies and Services (DSS) made it a reality. Students can now order online and have their order ready to pick up and continue on with their day.
“It was a divisional approach because of the addition of Grubhub,” Keilen says. “We added menu boards and more of a digital aspect. We have utilized DSS quite a bit in making sure that things are up and running. They’ve done a lot of troubleshooting for us to make this as successful as possible.”
MSU Bakers also excitedly joined as a partner on the project and rose to the innovative challenge.
“MSU Bakers are supplying the bagels, which was a big venture for them to increase production for us,” Keilen says. “But I think it’s a huge piece to the success to have a fresh bagel that’s made on campus.”
Importance of Student Feedback
The success of the ongoing Sandbox experiment has come in large part due to student help and feedback. Students have proved instrumental in creating menu items and giving feedback as to the ordering process and the menu items themselves.
“There’s a lot of involvement with them creating menu items,” Keilen says. “Or giving us suggestions of what they’d want to see. We utilized a lot of our student staff to be able to help and create the drinks we started with. They helped to create a menu we felt was really targeted toward them versus what we might like.”
This student-focused approach has played a large factor in The Sandbox’s success, including driving student-centered social media engagement.
“Throughout the fall semester, our team worked well on doing holiday specials or seasonal drinks,” Keilen says. “A lot of those came from our own team members saying, ‘This could be a fun thing,’ and trying out different items to bring excitement and that Instagram-worthy picture they’re looking for.”
According to Keilen, the success of The Sandbox is driven by a focus on students, and student feedback will continue to influence the approach CS takes in the future.
Building Flexibility into the Future
With the ever-changing student population and food service industry trends, student feedback has never been more important.
“Being able to keep up with how quickly the food service industry changes and what the trends are — I think that’s super important,” Keilen says. “Some of our more recent projects and ones upcoming being a little bit more open and flexible just allows us to make adjustments and changes quicker.”
Keilen says The Sandbox is a big change for CS. It strayed away from the traditional Sparty’s service model to something new and different.
“People were open-minded,” Keilen says, speaking of the CS team and leadership. “They were willing to try new things and experiment with it. I want to give credit to the people who were willing to try it. We didn’t know what it would do for sure, but we were willing to take the risk, and it’s paid off based on the customer satisfaction that we’ve had.”
This past fall, CS ran a survey asking students to rank their top three new favorite offerings throughout campus dining. The Sandbox ranked number two, with 42% of students listing it in their top three favorite new offerings.
As trends evolve and expectations change, The Sandbox demonstrates that the future of campus dining isn’t just about what’s on the menu, but about staying closely connected to students’ needs.
Feedback on The Sandbox can be directed to the Eat at State website, info@eatatstate.com.
Author: Zachary Phelps, student communication assistant