When you walk into Sammy’s Food Service & Deli at lunchtime, it might look like you’ve entered the scene of an emergency. The atmosphere is buzzing as a collection of police officers, firemen, and military personnel fill the modestly-sized dining area.
“There are post office workers, too!” added Sammy Schloegel, who has co-owned this Gentilly eatery with his wife, Gina, since the early 1990s. “We give all government employees twenty percent off,” he laughed, “so that probably helps bring them in.”
But it’s not just the public sector that’s sitting down for lunch at Sammy’s. Lawyers, staff from nearby businesses, neighbors, and even the occasional crew member from A&E’s long-running crime documentary The First 48 dig into everything from massive po’ boy sandwiches to plate lunches ranging between crispy fried catfish, barbecue ribs, and Gina’s very own alfredo sauce over pasta.
These days there is also no shortage of tourists. At first glance, it’s a little surprising, given that out-of-the-way Gentilly isn’t a must-see for visitors. But discerning visitors buck the guidebooks and listicles, making the extra effort to get to Sammy’s. That is, in large part, because of the restaurant’s 2010 and 2015 appearances on Guy Fieri’s hit television show Diner’s, Drive-Ins & Dives. But it’s also because Sammy’s is a restaurant that regulars insist never fails to deliver.
“When people walk through our doors, they’re going to get an incredible meal,” Sammy said. “That’s because we don’t skimp – we don’t skimp on the quality of our ingredients, and our customers will tell you we don’t skimp on our portions, either.”
Almost as if on cue, a roast beef po’ boy, dripping with brown gravy and thin slices of garlic, is delivered to a nearby table. The sandwich is almost as large as the arm of the woman who will attempt to eat it. Sammy’s roast beef po’ boy isn’t just renowned for its size, however. It’s also famously flavorful – as if the restaurant’s owner was born to do this.
“Well, I was a butcher by trade,” Sammy told us, “and I come from a family of great cooks.” In fact, his family is three-quarters Italian (and Gina’s is fully so). “Growing up, Sunday dinners were a big deal for us,” he explained. “They were huge meals. Red gravy with meatballs. A big salad. Eggplant. Bread pudding. Cucuzza with a light red gravy and ham. Spinach cake. Broccoli cake. Green beans. And my Aunt Connie would make this amazing roast beef – she’d stuff it with garlic while it cooked,” he remembered. “I’ve tried a lot of roast beef over the years, and there is nothing like hers. So when we started the restaurant and needed a recipe for our po’ boys, I knew Aunt Connie’s was the one.”
But when Sammy’s began, it wasn’t yet a buzzing restaurant – rather, a traditional butcher shop. “We didn’t even have tables,” Schloegel recalled. “We had walk-in freezers, meat hanging from the ceiling, and a display case. That’s about it.”
This is how the business was born, in fact, when Schloegel’s uncle, John, purchased a flood-damaged grocery store after Hurricane Betsy in 1965 and converted it into a butcher. Uncle John named the shop – using his last name – “Shambra’s Food Service.” Schloegel grew up less than 10 minutes away, and as he got older, he was recruited to work. “I started when I was 14 years old,” he said. “I’d go in on Saturday’s, during the holidays, or over the summer. My uncle taught me how to cut meat. I started at the bottom, but worked my way up over the years.”
As he did, his responsibilities grew. Schloegel and Shambra would go to the packing house on Mondays to select their meat. “Back then you had to go and tag the meat you wanted,” he explained. “It was all hanging and swinging, and you’d go inspect it. Uncle John taught me what to look for. The right level of firmness, and the fat color. Yellow fat means the animal wasn’t fed well. For fat, he taught me, the whiter, the better.”
Unfortunately, in the late 1980s, Shambra developed brain cancer. As the illness progressed, Schloegel – still only in his twenties – took over many of the day-to-day responsibilities of the business. When his uncle passed away, the young Schloegel eventually purchased the business and gave it its new name.
It wasn’t long after that he had an idea that would set his butcher shop on a fundamentally different course. “Back then, the building was split in two. I didn’t own it; we were just renting one side,” Schloegel remembered. “On the other side was a laundromat, and I noticed they were making a killing selling these little, cruddy sandwiches. Their place was a mess, but people in the neighborhood needed a lunch spot.”
Schloegel estimated that 42,000 cars drove by his shop each day. And, while there weren’t many restaurants nearby, there were tons of employees at surrounding businesses, such as the cement business down the street. “They needed a place to eat lunch,” Schloegel explained. He made the risky decision to buy the building, and to expand Sammy’s into a butcher that also served hot food. “Those were some of the scariest times back then,” he said. “I didn’t know if it was going to work, but man, I’m very relieved it did.”
According to Schloegel, Sammy’s original hot food menu in 1994 was roast beef (Aunt Connie’s recipe, of course), local Chisesi ham, and red beans and rice. As the years marched on, the burgeoning restaurant’s customer base grew and so did the menu. The momentum was unbroken, with the exception of a two-year closure following the destruction wrought by 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. “We had to rebuild the restaurant while living in a trailer because our home had also been destroyed,” Schloegel said. “That wasn’t easy, but at least we were able to rebuild and decorate the place the way we wanted.”
The new look paid off, because in 2010, Schloegel received a call from Diners, Drive Ins & Dives, Guy Fieri’s popular food travel show. This would prove a major moment for Sammy’s. “I remember, when we were filming, we took Guy into a walk-in fridge and Gina said, ‘Sorry, I know there’s a lot of stuff in here,’” Schloegel laughed. “Then, without missing a beat, Guy shot back, ‘“Just wait until this airs. You’re going to need a lot more.”
The “Mayor of Flavortown” was right. After appearing on the show, Sammy’s was getting so many new customers, they needed an entirely new walk-in freezer just to keep up. The newfound fame Sammy’s received might have helped them gain new customers, but it was the restaurant’s commitment to quality that kept those customers coming back for more. “We do things differently here,” Schloegel said with pride, “and I think diners recognize and appreciate that.”
Co-owners Sammy and Gina have no shortage of specifics on what, exactly, that “different’ looks like. It’s everything from the types of pickles they use (“We pay more for pickles because we think the flavor and crunch makes a difference on our po’ boys.”) to the intense care they take when making their roast beef. “Some people use other cuts of meat like the outside round or the eye of the round, but we use the inside round because it makes for a better roast beef.” Schloegel spoke with passion, showing a man who loves his craft.
“A lot of places boil their roast beef and it falls apart into a debris. But we bake ours,” he continued – the butcher within him taking over. “We season it with salt and pepper, stuff it with real California garlic instead of the cheap stuff, and after we take it out of the oven, you can see all that garlic at the bottom of the pan.” As his trophy of roast beef cools, the treasure on the bottom of the pan becomes a gelatin.
“That’s all flavor, and we let our roast sit with it and suck it back in,” he beamed. “And while other places use flour to thicken their roast beef gravy quickly, we take all the extra gelatin and slowly let it cook down to make our gravy. Time thickens ours, and the flavor and care we put into this is why people love our roast beef so much.”
Po’ boys are everywhere in New Orleans. They are iconic, with hundreds of New Orleans restaurants serving a roast beef version all their own. Sammy’s stands out in the crowd. Hot sausage is another popular po’ boy variety, with several well-known shops producing their own recipe. Again, Sammy’s is at the top of the pile. Even po’ boy giant Parkway Bakery & Tavern uses Sammy’s hot sausage in their sandwiches.
While Sammy’s does tradition well, they refuse to stop there. Their Ray Ray po’ boy, named after Schloegel’s brother-in-law, is a testament to that. It features fried chicken (another Sammy’s specialty) topped with Chisesi ham and swiss cheese. The Ray Ray won first prize at New Orleans’ popular Po’ boy Festival three consecutive years. (Their roast beef po’ boy also won twice.)
Add it to the accolades Sammy’s has won, and will likely continue to win. But it’s the opinions of their customers they care about most. “Whether our customers come in and order their old favorites, or they want to try something new,” Schloegel said, “they’re going to love what we make them. They see the effort we put into it, and they can taste the result. That’s why they come back.”
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Published on August 09, 2024
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