Sami Ladeki

Dialogue

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Sammy’s Woodfired Pizza is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year as the most successful full-service restaurant group in San Diego. And the biggest serving of credit goes to its founder, Sami Ladeki, a food-and-beverage man who took a long and winding road from his native Lebanon through Germany, England, New Orleans, Las Vegas, Houston, San Francisco, Atlanta and Los Angeles to San Diego, where he’s stayed put for two decades.

Our taste buds owe him a huge debt of gratitude. Ladeki has ventured forth into other restaurant realms, including Tokyo, where he franchised his pizza concept. But the path always leads back to Sammy’s, with 17 branches in Southern California and Nevada. A generous philanthropist and consistent political contributor, he lives in La Jolla with his wife, Sharon.

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Tom Blair: Happy anniversary.

Sami Ladeki: Yes, thank you. We opened June 15, 1989, in La Jolla.

TB: And that one is packed every time I go there. Your restaurant group has been phenomenally successful, but it was a long road to success. You started in the food-and-beverage game in New Orleans, right?

SL: I had gone to hotel-and-restaurant school in Germany. I came to the United States – to New Orleans – in 1968, to work at the Royal Sonesta Hotel. The Sonesta had written to the school to recruit employees, and I applied.

TB: Had this been part of a career plan for you?

SL: No. It ended up being life-changing. I was just 23, working in London, and I had a five-year plan. In Europe, in the hotel and restaurant business, the most important asset you can have is knowledge of languages, because the Germans, the British and the French obviously all speak different languages. I expected to stay in Europe and spend a year in England, a year in Spain, a year in France ... because I spoke a lot of languages, and that was a good thing.

TB: But you landed in the U.S., and you’ve been here 40 years.

SL: Right. And I can still barely speak English.

TB: Ha. Was the Royal Sonesta smooth sailing for you?

SL: No, I was there for six months when I got a letter – greetings from Richard Nixon. This was during Vietnam.

TB: You were drafted?

SL: Really. I was scared to hell. I went to Immigration; the officer looked at my file – he was a nice guy – he said, “So what’s the problem?” I said, “I’ve gotta get out of this.” He said, “The only thing you can do is surrender your visa, and you can leave the country. No questions asked. But you can never come back.” I didn’t want to leave. So I thought about it and thought about it and said, So what, I’m going to stay and do it. So I served.

TB: And you were sent to Vietnam?

SL: They sent me to Fort Polk, Louisiana. And they put me in the mess hall.

TB: You didn’t get any of your recipes for Sammy’s from the Army mess, did you?

SL: No, no, but we used to feed 2,000 people a day.

TB: Well, you serve a few more than that now. How many Sammy’s are there today?

SL: We have 17 Sammy’s and one Roppongi, in La Jolla.

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