- May 9, 2024
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After running a successful breakfast restaurant near Boston for 17 years, the Reids opened Sammy J’s.
On the east end of State Road 100, right before the Flagler Beach bridge, a plain white sign with a red arrow waves in the breeze of passing cars. It doesn’t have much to say, just: “Breakfast.” It’s the only advertising husband and wife Harry and Sharen Reid have done to plug their new breakfast-only restaurant in Flagler Square, called Sammy J’s Boston’s Best Breakfast.
But so far, they say it seems to be doing the trick.
Back home, Sharen Reid says, their 17-year-old breakfast restaurant outside of Boston, called Reid’s Ultimate Breakfast, owned by Harry’s mother and sister, never advertised at all. Yet, every day, there was a line out the door.
The store won “Best Around” awards 10 years straight. Patrons would even routinely be found waiting in their cars before staff arrived to work to open the store at 5:30 a.m.
Today, the Reids are hoping to replicate that success in Flagler.
“We didn’t come into this place blindfolded,” Reid says. “(But), people don’t know how we’re back here.”
Still, business has been consistently expanding since their Sept. 22 opening, a growth she attributes to neighborhood buzz.
“Word of mouth is a very powerful thing,” she says, sitting in her diner-like breakfast joint, a sort of hole-in-the-wall where everybody seems to know everybody. High school-age waitresses laugh with friends who come in for a meal. Reid looks back at a guy in a skull cap and wallet chain, who comments on his favorite spicy Portuguese sausage, linguica.
She says that he used to live with her and Harry up north, and would spend a lot time at Reid’s, refilling creamer trays with ice and topping off mugs of coffee when customers were running low.
“Everybody that comes in says that they just feel absolutely comfortable,” Reid says. “We just love interacting with people. We like the mom-and-pop thing … And we want to retire doing this. But we’ll probably work forever.”
Named after the Reids’ 5-year-old daughter, Sammy’s J’s will never expand to lunch or dinner, Reid says.
Opened from 5:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekends, Reid says the couple would rather get second jobs — maybe Sharen would go back into hospital work, or Harry would open another cemetery — rather than compromise the restaurant’s initial vision.
On a white board by the entrance, specials are written in blue. Salisbury steak, pork chops with eggs, chili or bacon cheeseburger omelets, barnyard sandwiches — anything but your typical pancakes and eggs, Reid says.
There’s also $2.99 early-bird specials, before 8:30 a.m., with several meal options and bottomless coffee. All of Sammy J’s prices are based off Reid’s Ultimate Breakfast menu from five years ago.
“We like it just the way it is,” Reid says, adding that Sammy’s already has its share of regulars. “It’s like we’re building an all-new family … We know breakfast, and that’s what we’ll stick to.”
