Who bakes the bread at Sam's now? The menu at 238 Court Street opens with a $5 bread course described as "Caputo's bread selection," with butter, sesame roll, focaccia and sourdough. Caputo's Bake Shop, the Court Street bakery that line seems to point to, put out its oven for the last time on a Monday in late April, after 124 years and five generations of family ownership. Sam's reopened on Thursday, September 10. The menu doesn't say where today's bread is baked.
That gap says something about how Court Street keeps its old institutions. Sam's came back because someone from Atlantic Avenue picked it up. When Georgia Fulton laid out her plans in April, she named three old-line Court Street shops as suppliers, and one of them closed within days of the story running.
A Rescue Led From Atlantic Avenue
For years, Sam's regulars treated the restaurant as a ticking clock. Louis Migliaccio ran the room almost by himself, and no succession plan was in sight, Grub Street reported in April. The family line ran back to 1930. That year, brothers Danny and Sam D'Arco opened the restaurant and named it for Sam, who died before the doors opened. Their nephew Mario Migliaccio started in 1950 as a dishwasher and stayed six decades. His son Lou took over after Mario retired in 2009.
The heir didn't come from a restaurant group or from Court Street's Italian American families. Fulton is Australian. She started serving at the Long Island Bar on Atlantic Avenue a few months after its current version opened in 2013 and stayed 12 years. She first ate at Sam's in 2021, became a regular, and in the six months before it closed in 2025 she worked next to Migliaccio, where every order and every bill was still written by hand.
"It would break my heart to hear that it was closed, or that it was taken over by some corporate restaurant group." Georgia Fulton, to Grub Street
The money and the floor plan also came from Atlantic Avenue. Joel Tompkins, a Long Island Bar co-owner, is an investor. Fulton had a rail built between the bar and the tables, copying the Long Island Bar layout. The other named investor, Sam Premutico, is a longtime Sam's regular. Adam Kolesar, another regular, told Grub Street he saw the new Sam's as "an annex of Long Island Bar for people with kids."
What Stayed in the Room
Fulton's renovation was written up as making Sam's a brighter version of itself, and most of the changes uncover things that were already there. A Brooklyn-built back bar with a gingerbread canopy had been buried under bottles, framed pictures, signage and files, and it's visible again. Grub Street listed what the renovation kept:
- The brick pizza oven
- A huge cast-iron flour mill built by the Peerless Bread Machine Co. of Sidney, Ohio, which Fulton said "you couldn't get rid of if you wanted to"
- The wooden telephone booths and telephone-book stand, with one booth moved upstairs to fit another barstool
- The murals from the 1940s, which were slated for restoration
There are barstools for the first time in the restaurant's history, plus a waiting bench. The back room, which used to open only for large parties, is now part of regular service. In its September 21 review, Brooklyn Magazine pointed to the restored murals and historical objects in that back room and upstairs.
The kitchen kept less. Most of the old equipment was taken out for new gear. Chef Andrew Halitski cut the menu down from roughly 90 items. He was a sous-chef at Flora Bar and briefly ran La Rose Pizza on Smith Street. Pizza, the parms and baked clams are still on it. New additions include a Caesar salad, rigatoni alla vodka, orecchiette with sausage and a pork chop Milanese. Rene Hidalgo runs the bar, and cocktails get more attention than before. One item Fulton rebuilt on purpose is "celery and olives," a relish she told Grub Street used to be Key Food celery and olives straight out of the bag. It's now $8.
Three Suppliers on the April Plan
When Grub Street profiled Fulton on April 20, she said she would keep Sam's long ties to what the magazine called "the few remaining culinary holdouts on Court Street": bread from Caputo Bakery, meat from Staubitz Market and cookies from Court Pastry Shop. A week later, Court Street had two of those three.
| Shop | Address | Roots | Status as of October 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caputo's Bake Shop | 329 Court Street | 1904 | Closed in late April 2026 after 124 years |
| Staubitz Market | 222 Court Street | 1917 | Open, owned by John McFadden and John McFadden Jr. |
| Court Pastry Shop | 298 Court Street | Bought by Salvatore Zerilli in 1948 | Open daily, run by brothers Gasper and Vincent |
Caputo's closure came with no warning. James Caputo, the current owner, posted a letter in the window thanking customers and staff. "The flame in our oven has been lit for the last time," it read. Neighbors left flowers at the door. The letter gave no reason, and the Brooklyn Eagle reported only what people were guessing.
The other two shops are still running. Staubitz lists in-store shopping and posted hours at 222 Court, a few doors from Sam's on the same Cobble Hill stretch. In August, the Gowanaut called Court Pastry Shop 78 years old and noted it has never needed a rebrand or a renovation. In May, while the renovation was still underway, the Gowanaut reported that Sam's would keep getting its meat from Staubitz and its cookies from Court Pastry Shop. No report published since the reopening has confirmed either arrangement.
Where the Caputo Starter Went
Some of Caputo's recipes are still around. They've moved off Court Street. According to an October 2 Brooklyn Eagle report, James Caputo is opening Caputo Bagel Shop at 81 Fifth Avenue in Park Slope on Monday, October 5, in partnership with Rafael Hasid, the owner of Miriam. The bagels are made with Caputo's sourdough starter, which is at least 45 years old. Plain, sesame and everything bagels start at $2.50. A $4 lard provolone bagel is based on the bakery's well-known lard bread.
On Court Street itself, the closest lard bread is now at Mazzola Bakery on Union Street, the Eagle said in its April closure story. That story also reported that Mazzola's building had been put up for sale, with sale terms requiring any new owner to let the bakery, open since 1928, stay.
All of this explains why the Sam's revival was set up the way it was. Fulton held on to what can't be moved: the brick oven, the Peerless mill, the phone booths and the murals. The staff, the investors and the bar layout came from a 2013 bar on Atlantic Avenue. St. John Frizell, co-owner of Gage & Tollner, told Grub Street that at Sam's "you couldn't be anywhere else in the world but Italian American Brooklyn," but that the year could be anytime from 1935 on. The room can stay as it is because its owner controls it. The block's other businesses aren't hers to keep.
Getting a Table
Sam's is open Wednesday through Saturday from 5 to 10 p.m. and Sunday from 4 to 10 p.m. Those are last-seating times, and the bar stays open until 11. Reservations are on OpenTable through the restaurant's site. Our sources don't say whether walk-ins get a waitlist, and hours and prices posted on the site can change, so check before you go.
On the posted menu, baked clams are $23, a cheese pizza is $27, veal parmigiana is $36 and the pork chop Milanese is $29. Brooklyn Magazine singled out the orecchiette with sausage, the brick-oven pizza and an oversized chicken parm. Eater NY put Sam's on its Brooklyn Heatmap of the best new restaurants in its October 2 update, noting that the room looks familiar with small changes. To keep Court Street's 20th-century order in one evening, buy cookies at Court Pastry Shop on the way to dinner. It's at 298 Court and open daily.
Jon Aguilar grew up in New York, and he follows how institutions like Sam's, Staubitz and Court Pastry change hands as closely as he follows prices on the brownstone blocks behind them. If you're weighing a move to or from Cobble Hill and want a reading of Court Street at the street level, call Jon at Aguilar New York.
