In Plaza Midwood, you can now get your favorite Sammy’s Deli breakfast at Dish
Don’t mess with Bob Killough’s breakfast. The man is 90, and he wants what he wants: “Two eggs, over easy. Bacon, burned. OJ. Applesauce. Coffee.” And he wants it within an easy walk from his apartment in Plaza Midwood.
For most of 20 years, he got exactly what he wanted at Sammy’s Deli, 1113 Pecan Ave.
Then came word that Sammy’s was going to close Dec. 1 so the land where it sits can be redeveloped.
You just don’t do that to a 90-year-old man who wants what he wants. Killough was already eating most of his lunches and dinners at Dish on Thomas Street. So he started pushing for a solution. Why not move the Sammy’s crew over to Dish, which was taken over by Lewis Donald of Sweet Lew’s Barbecue a year ago?
Turns out, Donald already had the same idea. He used to take his kids for breakfast at Sammy’s on the weekends. And last spring, at the beginning of the COVID-19 shutdown, he had figured out how to make one building work for two restaurants by offering his barbecue for takeout at Dish along with Dish’s own menu. Sweet Lew’s on Belmont Avenue has since reopened, but he’d seen you can do a lot with a single kitchen.
Expanding Dish’s lunch and dinner hours to add breakfast had always been in the back of his mind anyway. He bought Dish from the original owner, Penny Craver, in September 2019.
“I’ve always looked at Dish as a Southern diner. So a Southern diner, you’re open for breakfast.”
But with Sammy’s around the corner and Zada Jane’s nearby, a third breakfast place didn’t make sense.
“I put my foot in my mouth,” Donald joked. “I told my partners if Sammy’s ever went under, we’d do breakfast.”
‘I’ve known some of these people half my life’
When Donald got the word that Sammy’s was closing, he approached owner Billy Harris about coming over to Dish. Harris had decided to retire, so Donald tracked down dining room hostess Christina Black. Black, 35, went to work at Sammy’s when she was 18.
“I’ve known some of these people half my life, since I was a teenager.” She was happy to move to Dish to run a new breakfast service, on one condition: That she could bring breakfast cook Egli Daka, 23, with her.
“I gotta have my cook,” she said. Daka, a native of Albania, had already found a job at another restaurant, but Black talked him into meeting Donald. Donald brought them both over for dinner at Dish on a Saturday night so they could hash out the plan.
Donald figured out how Daka could handle breakfast while coordinating with the lunch-prep kitchen crew when they start at 9 a.m. He even arranged for a push-button cash register and paper order tickets for Black, who hasn’t used a digital point-of-sale system before.
What’s on the new breakfast menu?
For the moment, Donald is keeping the breakfast menu simple, mostly the same things from Sammy’s — eggs, biscuits, sausage gravy and the like. He subbed in a few higher-grade ingredients, like locally roasted Enderly Coffee, stone-ground grits and from-scratch hash browns. (Yes, the prices went up a little.)
For now, breakfast is just served 7-11 a.m. Monday-Friday. Quarantine permitting, Donald hopes to expand to include Saturdays and start opening at 6 a.m. in the spring. He’ll also bring in more employees to help. For now, Black is taking orders — by hand — at the front and delivering plates from Daka in the kitchen.
Killbrough and the other breakfast regulars have been spreading the word, even calling people.
“Sammy’s had a large morning trade,” he said. “Truck drivers from all over the city. Service people. People who work in the neighborhood.”
On Monday, Dec. 7, Dish opened for breakfast. When they unlocked the door at 7 a.m., Black said Killbrough was already waiting, ready for his two eggs, over easy, and his bacon, burned. There’s no applesauce — Black gives him fruit instead.
He has a new title from Donald, too: “He’s our morning greeter.”
