Earl of Sandwich has a new permanent home at Downtown Disney! After moving around Disneyland Resort for seemingly the last decade, the sandwich shop has a new building next to Din Tai Fung and below the soon to be opened Gordon Ramsay at The Carnaby. Earl of Sandwich offers hot and cold sandwiches as well as salads and a wealth of cookie and cake desserts. In this post, we’ll review the counter-service restaurant’s food and the new digs.

Earl of Sandwich has a long and interesting backstory, claiming the invention of the sandwich in 1762 under his Lordship John Montagu (the 4th Earl of Sandwich). Time jump with me to 2004 when the 11th Earl of Sandwich, also named John Montagu, opened franchises that have become an integral part of Downtown Disney (or Disney Springs or Disney Village). There’s certainly more to it than a brief 2 sentence summary but you can read about the backstory on their website for more details.

While the sandwich shops are cloaked in royalty, the Disneyland Resort edition deserves a superhero label. For the last decade, Earl of Sandwich has opened up locations whenever Disney turned on the bat signal. You’re closing our main shop? That’s fine, we’ll bring in a food truck. You want us to fill in for a few years in between bakeries? Sure, the Earl is at your service. You’re now tearing down that building to make way for Porto’s? No problem, we’ll go back to a temporary location. Oh, you want us all the way back in a brand new build? Let’s do it!

That’s how the Disneyland Resort-Earl of Sandwich relationship has felt for the last decade. Wherever Disney wanted to put the chain, they went. Either they have a great working partnership or the 12th Earl of Sandwich, Luke Montagu, really wants some VIP treatment in Anaheim. Heck, he’s making an appearance at this new location on July 15th to celebrate the grand opening. It’s good to see the sandwich shop get back into a permanent home that should be theirs for a long time.

That new home looks pretty good too! Don’t get me wrong, this is very much a counter-service restaurant in Downtown Disney. Earl of Sandwich is not about to set new standards in themed design, but as far as sandwich shops go this looks very nice. The location is easily spotted by Downtown Disney’s main gate and is right by the grassy (turf) area where live music is often taking place. That should mean a lot of foot traffic for the restaurant, which is open from 8 AM until midnight on Fridays and Saturday and 8 AM until 11 PM on all other days of the week.

Earl of Sandwich’s new location is on the bottom level, with Gordon Ramsay at The Carnaby sitting on the second floor. Guests enter Earl of Sandwich and place their order. After that, they’re given a buzzer and walk by the cookie and cake showcase as well as the fresh pastrami cutting! If that was a strange mix of words to see in a sentence then just trust me that it looks better than it sounds. Guests then give their buzzer to the cashier and pay before finding a seat and waiting for their order to be called or, uhh, buzzed (this is not a drinking joke but it is a Flight of Passage preshow joke).

Melissa and I both tried to make sense of this process. Why do you order in one spot, walk down and then have the order read back to you again and then pay? I haven’t come up with a good answer. This doesn’t really matter, as it’s not hurting the experience but the layout is slightly confusing.

Process aside, the kitchen area looks nice and has some good organized chaos to it. All sandwich shops should have that. The blue and red colors look great mixed with the wood tones. And that dessert showcase, a term I’ve apparently settled on, is extremely enticing.

The seating area is less successful. That’s not because the space is ugly or anything, it’s still nice. There are photos of royalty and UK memorabilia strewn across the walls. The fun colors continue here and the lights hanging down are a nice touch. But take a peek at how close those tables are together, specifically the booths. There’s no way anyone can fit in between those tables unless they’re Gumby and I don’t think Gumby is walking through those doors anytime soon. Did I just lose a bunch of you while referencing Gumby?

The other end of the restaurant was slightly less crowded, as Melissa kindly modeled for my photo. There’s at least some space to get between the tables! Again, all of these areas look nice, they just need to take out a third of the tables. There’s plenty of spaces for guests to go eat, including just outside, if they run out of room in this restaurant.

Earl’s outside seating isn’t anything fancy but it looks nice enough. The red chairs are a good touch and the space is separated from the grass area by a small fence. No one is coming to any of these seated areas for the vibes, although I did enjoy the UK-influenced music loop including The Beatles, Elton John and more. Upstairs at Parkside Market is still by far the nicest counter-service area to sit at Downtown Disney but this does the job.

As for the food, I’m guessing the majority of people reading this already have an opinion on Earl of Sandwich. Many fans swear by this place, almost as a Disney Parks rite of passage. I have never gotten there. Not that it’s bad, it’s just never been my favorite sandwich spot. It easily clears the likes of Subway though. Having said all of that, it’s not going to stop me from reviewing a bunch of their offerings now. I had to try out the new spot multiple times and stuff my face, in the name of research. You’re welcome. Here’s a link to the menu, although the prices aren’t accurate on there. Sandwiches at the Downtown Disney location are $10.99, still a fair deal relative to typical theme park offerings.

This is the Full Montagu, one of Earl of Sandwich’s most popular offerings. It consists of roasted beef, turkey, Swiss, cheddar, lettuce, Roma tomato & Earl’s mustard sauce. All of the sandwiches in this review are served hot, although there are some cold offerings as well. This is a good sub, with a hefty portion of meat filling the middle. The mustard sauce is on the sweeter side. It’s easy to see why this is popular, it’s filling and tasty.

Here’s the Cuban filled with tender carnitas, ham, Swiss, pickles & Cuban mustard sauce. Melissa liked this one more but I wasn’t as impressed here. The carnitas were lackluster. On the bright side, the ham was tasty paired with the pickles and mustard sauce. This isn’t a bad Cuban, I just didn’t think it was very good either.

My favorite choice at Earl of Sandwich is the Holiday Turkey. This includes turkey, cornbread stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce & mayonnaise. It’s a messy sandwich that tastes like Thanksgiving except the turkey isn’t dry and you don’t have to avoid talking politics with relatives. There’s a lot of sauce here but they all work well together giving a sweet and savory taste to go along with the turkey. Earl’s cornbread stuffing is delicious, as well! This is extremely filling but a good bang for your buck.

We’ve also tried the Chicken Caesar Wrap, which was our least favorite of the four. The dressing was a little heavy handed and the chicken was not fresh. It wasn’t a terrible option for those looking for something lighter than a sandwich but we weren’t very impressed.

All in all, we think the sandwiches are good but not special. Neither of us love the bread that Earl offers and that drags the sandwich game down a little bit. The positives are that this is a very filling meal at a fair price. It’s easy to see why this has become a favorite for families or those on the go.

We did try a couple of cookies! The S’mores option was very good – a chocolate chip cookie topped with marshmallows, graham cracker crumble and chocolate drizzle. It would be better if it was served warm but the cookie was soft and freshly made. It’s also large and very shareable.

The chocolate chipper covered with Kit Kats and caramel drizzle called to me but was less interesting. It’s extremely sweet (duh) and overpowering to the taste buds. The cookie was well made but the toppings felt more thrown on than they did with the s’mores option.

All of the desserts looked like they were worth a try though and I’d be happy to stop in for a cookie on our walk home most days! Therein lies the appeal of Earl of Sandwich. It’s not going to be the best food you’ve ever had but it’s the most convenient spot at Disneyland Resort. Your food will be out quickly, it will be consistent and worth the price and the place to eat it in is nice enough. While I still don’t understand the hype for the taste at Earl of Sandwich and think there is much better food in Downtown Disney, I get why it has become a staple of the shopping and dining district. I expect the love to keep growing now that the sandwich shop has a permanent location.

Overall Rating – 7/10

Have you been to the new Earl of Sandwich at Downtown Disney? Let us know, along with any questions you have, in the comments below. If you are planning a trip to Disneyland Resort then check out our planning guide. Looking for discount Disneyland tickets? Check out this site! If you enjoy what you are reading here on Wandering in Disney please share this post with your friends, as well as like our social media pages. You can also subscribe to the blog via WordPress or email. You can do all of that on the right side of this page. Thank you for reading, we really appreciate it!