Sam's Restaurant Reopens on Court Street in Cobble Hill

"How far away from this thing can we get where it still continues to be this thing?" Rene Hidalgo runs the bar at the reopened Sam's, and he told Grub Street that this question guided the whole project. On September 10, 2026, the red-sauce restaurant at 238 Court Street opened again under Georgia Fulton. It is the first new family to run it since brothers Danny and Sam D'Arco planned it in 1930.

Three weeks in, it's possible to take stock of the work. Much of what reads as renovation was removal: clutter came off the back bar, a dark room was put back in use, and old menus were studied before new ones were printed. The few things that are truly new mostly came from one place, the Long Island Bar on Atlantic Avenue.

A Renovation That Mostly Took Things Away

The old Sam's was valued for staying unchanged. Sam's own history says location scouts kept coming because the red vinyl booths, checkered tablecloths, wood-paneled walls, old bar, telephone booths and Art Deco details were all "stubbornly intact." By 2026, cameras had rolled inside 60 times. The most recent shoot was Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride!, which turned the room into a 1930s Italian-American social club.

Fulton's renovation keeps that room intact. Grub Street described the Brooklyn-built back bar, with its gingerbread canopy, as "long buried behind a massing of bottles, knickknacks, framed pictures, government signage, and files." It now shows again. The back room, once dark and used mainly for large parties, now serves regular diners. Fulton also plans to restore murals that date from the 1940s.

Most of the kitchen was taken out for new equipment. Two things stayed: the brick oven and a huge cast-iron flour mill made by the Peerless Bread Machine Co. of Sidney, Ohio. "You couldn't get rid of it if you wanted to," Fulton told Grub Street. Townhouse owners will know how that goes. The pieces that can't be moved often end up defining the job.

Recipes Measured in Coffee Cups

Bringing the food back took the same archival approach. Lou Migliaccio, who ran Sam's after his father Mario retired in 2009, left almost nothing in writing. "There was no recipe book," chef consultant Andrew Halitski told Grub Street. "Lou showed me the special coffee cups and dishes he'd use to do the measurements." He described the oven, with no thermostat and two gas pipes, as needing to "be babied a little bit."

Halitski was a sous-chef at Flora Bar and briefly ran La Rose Pizza, a Detroit-style pizzeria on Smith Street. The printed menus were designed by May Redding, who has worked on her sister Ann's restaurants, including Thai Diner. Redding said the team "worked from a bunch of old menus and archival material going back almost to the restaurant's opening."

The biggest change is length. The old menu ran to roughly 90 items, and the new one offers a few choices in each category. Several standards are back:

• Celery and olives, which Fulton remembers from the old menu as plain celery and olives "straight from the bag"
• Baked clams
• Veal and chicken parms with a side of spaghetti or ziti
• Pizza, which has anchored the menu for as long as anyone remembers
• A Sam's Salad and a Lou's Salad

The new dishes are orecchiette with broccoli rabe and sausage, rigatoni alla vodka, a Caesar salad and a pork chop Milanese. Fulton thinks most diners won't spot them as new. "We've finessed it so it's pretty close to the original," she said. The posted menu lists cheese pizza at $27, chicken parm at $29, veal parm at $36 and the orecchiette at $24.

The New Parts Came From Atlantic Avenue

The pieces with no precedent in the old Sam's have a clear source. Fulton started serving at the Long Island Bar a few months after its current version opened in 2013, and she stayed 12 years. She didn't eat at Sam's until 2021. Grub Street reports that after that first meal she became a regular, dining early on weekends and working her way through the long menu. She worked beside Lou for six months before Sam's closed in 2025. Every order and bill was written by hand, and every ticket was walked back to the kitchen. Curbed reports that she bought the restaurant from him in April.

Joel Tompkins, a Long Island Bar co-owner, is an investor in Sam's. Fulton had a rail built between the bar and the tables, which gives the room a layout much like the Long Island Bar's. "It looks like it's always been there," she told Grub Street.

The drinks follow the same pattern. Grub Street says Sam's always had a long cocktail list that was "mostly for show." Under Hidalgo it's a working list. Classics like a Cuba Libre, a Singapore Sling and a Rob Roy made with both Cutty Sark and Laphroaig sit next to a house spritz with rhubarb amaro. There's also a "shakerato" riff on the Spaghett, made with shaken Aperol and topped with Miller High Life.

"This is red-sauce, Italian American. It's not an Italian restaurant." Rene Hidalgo, to Grub Street

A longtime Sam's regular put it to Grub Street more simply. He said of Fulton, "Her superpower is to deal with grumpy old guys."

A Delay That Followed the Old Calendar

Sam's regulars are used to waiting in late summer. Lou closed every August and went to Italy, and he reopened well after Labor Day. Fulton had planned a midsummer reopening and ended up pushing it to September 10, which happened to match that old schedule. The cause was a film crew that had moved into the space. The intact interior that the renovation protected is still drawing productions.

Early reviews were positive. The Infatuation, on September 18, praised the preserved atmosphere and familiar dishes, singling out the brick-oven pizza, chicken parm and baked clams. On September 21, Brooklyn Magazine called the relaunch a gentle reboot. It liked the shorter menu and the reopened room, and it recommended the pizza, the parm platters and the salad.

Where Sam's Sits on Court Street This Fall

Curbed's August 31 piece on the Italian institutions of Carroll Gardens and Court Street put Sam's into a larger pattern. Sam's and Ferdinando's both changed owners in April. Francesco "Frank" Buffa sold Ferdinando's to Sal Lamboglia, who kept the name and the room and adjusted the menu. Caputo's Bake Shop closed in May after 124 years, and owner James Caputo cited reasons for the closure. The owners of Mazzola Bakery, open since 1928, listed the bakery building and the building next door together for $9.75 million.

In that pattern, Sam's and Ferdinando's both passed to people who kept the room, and Sam's went to an individual. When she first walked in, Fulton said, she knew she "had to somehow commit to making this happen." She added, "It would break my heart to hear that it was closed, or that it was taken over by some corporate restaurant group."

The block itself is still changing. Next door, at 240 Court Street in the former MooBurger space, Compton's was listed as "coming soon" in a June 13 report from The Gowanaut. Compton's is a Queens sandwich shop known for stacked builds and house-baked bread. As of September 30, no reliable report confirms that it has opened.

Before You Book

• Hours: Wednesday through Sunday, 5 to 10 p.m., per Brooklyn Magazine on September 21.
• Reservations: Sam's website links to OpenTable. It doesn't say whether walk-ins are seated or whether cards are accepted, so it's worth calling ahead.
• Waiting: Bench seating has been added near the entrance for waiting diners.
• Nearby on October 25: The Court Street Fair runs from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., from Atlantic Avenue to Joralemon Street.

Lou Migliaccio declined to be interviewed by Grub Street, and no source we found says whether he's still involved day to day. What's on record is the room: a back bar that went back into view, phone booths that stayed, and an oven that still has no thermostat.

A brownstone with a gingerbread back bar hidden under decades of clutter goes through the same choices Sam's did, about what to uncover, what to keep and what to add. Paul Murphy tracks how those choices show up in townhouse sale prices across Cobble Hill and Brownstone Brooklyn. Subscribe to the Brooklyn Townhouse Report, or ask for a valuation that accounts for the original details in your own house.