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\n Georgia Fulton inside her new-old restaurant, Sam\u2019s.
\n Photo: Jingyu Lin\n <\/p>\n
Fans of Sam\u2019s<\/a>, the pizzeria that has been around since 1930, have long viewed the restaurant as a ticking clock. Louis Migliaccio, the beloved curmudgeon who ran the place all but single-handedly, regularly groused about his aching bones. But he didn\u2019t appear to have any succession plan in place. Sooner or later, Sam\u2019s was seemingly fated to shutter. Against all odds, the restaurant has found an heir apparent: Sam\u2019s savior is not a deep-pocketed restaurant group or even an experienced restaurant owner. It is Georgia Fulton, a young Australian whose chief r\u00e9sum\u00e9 credit is as a server at the Long Island Bar<\/a> nearby. She began working there just months after its current iteration debuted in 2013 and stayed for 12 years, becoming as much a fixture in the place as any of its bartenders.<\/p>\n \u201cI did not have an idea to open my own place,\u201d Fulton says. \u201cI surprised myself when I first walked in. I said, \u2018I have to somehow commit to making this happen.\u2019 It would break my heart to hear that it was closed, or that it was taken over by some corporate restaurant group.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam\u2019s will be the latest in a string of restaurant resurrections and renovations, but unlike Gage & Tollner, Le Veau d\u2019Or, or Ferdinando\u2019s Focacceria, Sam\u2019s is not a culinary icon, nor is it terribly famous. Instead, it\u2019s cherished by an ardent contingent of fiercely devoted regulars who appreciate its frozen-in-time quality. This group won\u2019t hear a word against its classic red-sauce-joint menu or Migliaccio\u2019s idiosyncratic, \u201cmy way or the highway\u201d approach to hospitality. (I am one of these people.) \u201cSam\u2019s is an archetype,\u201d says St. John Frizell, co-owner of Gage & Tollner. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t be anywhere else in the world but Italian American Brooklyn. But what time are you? Anytime from 1935 to the current day \u2014 it\u2019s hard to say.\u201d<\/p>\n Fulton didn\u2019t eat at Sam\u2019s until 2021. Once inside, she was hooked. Determined to save the place, she became a regular, dining early on weekends, and slowly started to work her way through the voluminous menu. She also began working on Migliaccio. \u201cI was quite obsessed with it, but I had to be subtle,\u201d she says. \u201cHe always put me in a booth. That\u2019s how I knew Lou liked me.\u201d<\/p>\n For the six months before Sam\u2019s closed in 2025, Fulton worked alongside Migliaccio, slowly learning the business \u2014 or at least Migliaccio\u2019s version of the business. \u201cI thought I was an analog person, but this was so far beyond analog,\u201d she says. Every order and bill was written by hand; tickets were walked back personally to the kitchen staff. \u201cYou get three tables and you are in the weeds, because you have to do everything,\u201d Fulton adds. \u201cI\u2019m trying to make martinis and Lou is yelling at me because I\u2019m chilling the glasses.\u201d<\/p>\n Fulton persevered, which is no small feat: The restaurant was founded in 1930 by Migliaccio\u2019s great-uncles, brothers Danny and Sam D\u2019Arco. It was named after Sam, who died before the place opened. Mario\u00a0Migliaccio, an Italian immigrant and the D\u2019Arcos\u2019 nephew, entered the picture in 1950 as a dishwasher. He worked at Sam\u2019s for six decades, retiring in 2009. Louis Migliaccio (who declined to be interviewed for this story, of course) took over after that, and he\u2019s been front and center ever since. There were cooks in the kitchen, but they were not seen. An additional waiter has assisted Migliaccio here or there over the years, but none lasted long.<\/p>\n \u201cHer superpower is to deal with grumpy old guys,\u201d Adam Kolesar, a longtime Sam\u2019s regular, says of Fulton. \u201cShe\u2019s got that sensibility dialed in.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, Fulton is in the final stages of renovating the space, essentially making Sam\u2019s a brighter version of itself. A beautiful, Brooklyn-built back bar, with its gingerbread canopy \u2014 long buried behind a massing of bottles, knickknacks, framed pictures, government signage, and files \u2014 now shines. There will be barstools for the first time in Sam\u2019s history. The back room, which was often dark and used only for large parties, will now be open for business. There are plans to restore the murals, which date from the 1940s. The old wooden telephone booths and telephone-book stand are staying \u2014 though one booth was moved upstairs to make room for an additional barstool.<\/p>\n Other details couldn\u2019t be saved: Most of the kitchen was removed to make way for new equipment, with the critical exceptions of the brick pizza oven and an enormous cast-iron flour mill made by the Peerless Bread Machine Co. of Sidney, Ohio. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t get rid of it if you wanted to,\u201d says Fulton.<\/p>\n Other design changes owe a debt to Long Island Bar. (Joel Tompkins, a Long Island Bar co-owner, is an investor here.)\u00a0Fulton had a rail built to divide the bar from the tables, creating a layout much like that at LIB. \u201cIt looks like it\u2019s always been there,\u201d Fulton points out.<\/p>\n The food will still be red-sauce Italian, but paring down the 90-ish-item menu was no easy task.\u00a0\u201cWe wanted the essence of it to stay the same,\u201d Fulton says, \u201cto definitely do things that are Sam\u2019s.\u201d She hired Andrew Halitski \u2014 who was a sous-chef at Flora Bar and ran La Rose Pizza, a Detroit-style pizzeria, on Smith Street for a short time \u2014 to be the chef. (\u201cIt was like looking back in time,\u201d Halitski says of his first scan of the original menu.) The new roster of dishes will include a few selections each of appetizers, pastas, salads (including a Sam\u2019s Salad and a Lou\u2019s Salad), meat dishes (including the various parms), desserts, and, of course, pizza. Fulton became particularly intrigued by a humble relish listed as \u201ccelery and olives\u201d on the old menu. \u201cIt was just Key Food undressed celery and olives straight from the bag. It was like a painting. I thought, If I can re-create that and make it delicious \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Fulton also plans to keep up Sam\u2019s long-standing relationships to the few remaining culinary holdouts on Court Street. She will get bread from Caputo Bakery (established in 1904), meat from Staubitz Market (1917) and cookies from Court Pastry Shop (1948).<\/p>\n The menu at Sam\u2019s always listed a wide array of classic cocktails, usually mixed by Migliaccio himself. At the new Sam\u2019s, cocktails will take a more central role, and there will be more wine choices, including a \u201cSam\u2019s house red.\u201d The old regulars \u2014 one, Sam Premutico, is another investor \u2014 are already onboard with the new direction. \u201cI see this as an annex of Long Island Bar for people with kids,\u201d Kolesar says, \u201cSam\u2019s being a complement, a synergistic Brooklyn experience.\u201d<\/p>\n Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism. Want more stories like this one? Subscribe now<\/a>
\n If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the April 20, 2026, issue of
\n New York\u00a0Magazine.<\/p>\n
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