San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Anthony Bourdain’s ‘Top 3’ burger spot opens spinoff
The family behind a historic San Francisco burger restaurant has expanded with a brand-new venture right next door.
Sam’s East is now open at 620 Broadway, beside the 60-yearold Sam’s Burgers on the border between Chinatown and North Beach. Owner Emad El Shawa described the new restaurant’s menu as “small but mighty,” with chicken, rib eye steak and falafel served inside lavash wraps and pita sandwiches or atop salad bowls or fries.
El Shawa said opening the restaurant was a way of honoring his father, Mike Shawa, a Palestinian immigrant who took over Sam’s in 1970 and passed away in 2016.
Mike Shawa’s uncle Sam Shawa originally opened the restaurant in 1966. A no-frills yet inviting stop for burgers past midnight, Sam’s grew into a place where workers, tourists and bar hoppers often ended their nights. Mike Shawa flipped the charbroiled patties in front of customers who watched from their stools or outside the restaurant through a big window.
Mike Shawa first worked as a cook at the old Keystone Korner jazz club, where he would make falafel and shawarma. “We thought that would fit North Beach perfectly, and it’s culturally significant for us,” El Shawa
said. “My dad was cooking those meals before he made burgers.”
The expansion with Sam’s East also allows Sam’s to serve customers who might be vegetarian, have gluten-free diets, or simply don’t want a burger at the end of the night. “Our expectation is to provide the same environment that Sam’s is known for, but give it a bit of a different taste,” El Shawa said.
Pitas and bowls come with a choice of protein (rib eye $15, chicken $13, falafel $11) atop red pickled cabbage, pickled cucumber and fattoush salad topped with tahini sauce. The rib eye wrap ($14) comes with grilled red onions, a hit of tangy sumac, and optional grilled tomato. The chicken wrap ($14) is filled with thin-sliced breast meat enhanced with shawarma spices atop garlic and pickled cucumber and finished with a squeeze of lemon juice. Customers can make their meal spicy with a house shatta sauce, or super spicy by adding a grilled serrano pepper.
El Shawa also wanted his drinks to be different from those at Sam’s. IPAs ($7) from local breweries like Calicraft and Drake’s are available. So are Lebanese and Palestinian wines ($9), which El Shawa said have light, fruit-forward profiles.
The interior has a shotgun dining room layout that is similar to Sam’s next door. Running alongside the long wall is a mural of a sunset over the San Francisco skyline with a portrait of Mike Shawa above the buildings. The mural also features famed chef and TV food show host Anthony Bourdain, who, after biting into a Sam’s burger, proclaimed “That’s a good burger. Top three in the world.” For the work, El Shawa commissioned local artist Natalie Gabriel, who has painted other large-scale works in the neighborhood.
The new restaurant takes over space after former tenant Tacorea left in 2023, months before closing its original Nob Hill location. Because the businesses had the same landlord and Tacorea owner David Lee was considering closing, El Shawa
Photos by Brontë Wittpenn/The Chronicle and his family were able to reach an agreement for the adjacent restaurant space.
El Shawa said his family feels it has contributed to the North Beach community for decades through the restaurant. (It was added to the S.F. Legacy Business registry in 2021.) Now, they’re building on that history.
“If we can keep my dad’s memory alive and what he stood for — treating people with dignity and making awesome food — then that’s what we strive for,” El Shawa said.