Here’s Why There Is Another Deal For Capitol Hill Burger Bar Sam’s Tavern

There is a deal for Capitol Hill burger bar Sam’s Tavern — again. The new owners are very familiar with Pike/Pine. Their acquisition might say a lot about the near-term future of the neighborhood.

“I’ve been trying to sell it, keep the brand alive, and keep people employed,” owner James Snyder tells CHS.

“When I first opened Sam’s, our burgers were 13 bucks. Now they’re $20. People are getting paid more but there are less people working.”

This is the second deal in just over a year for a sale of Sam’s. Snyder says this one is done.

A year and three months ago, CHS reported on a planned sale to an investor looking to cash in on Pike/Pine’s nightlife district. Snyder says that fizzled agreement was part of a long line of challenges faced by the E Pike burger joint and its siblings in the changing Seattle economy coming out of the pandemic.

“We’ve gone through quite a bit. Before COVID, it was really good. Even going through CHOP, we felt pretty good,” Snyder says.

But rising labor costs twinned with inflation on top of already high rent brought the Sam’s growth to a halt and Snyder said he tried everything to balance the books.

“We had to try to figure out a way. We either borrow a bunch of money — or we close,” Snyder said.

“I borrowed so much money to try to keep it going. I made deals with everybody.”

Borrowing for a bar or a restaurant comes with one critical, major wager. Over the course of four or five years, an owner is betting on sales coming back.

They never came back. Spending, dining, and drinking habits have changed.

Those cold, hard facts combined with higher wages changed the math on everything from ingredients to how many people Snyder could afford to have working.

“The rising minimum wage has made it almost impossible to keep the doors open,” Snyder said. “We could run with two people and still lose money.”

It’s possible that Snyder is just bad at the burger bar business. That seems unlikely.

In 2012, CHS introduced Snyder to Capitol Hill as the son of Red Robin. It was a good headline. And true. Snyder is a son of the Red Robin founding family and operated a handful of Sonic drive-ins across the state before investing in Pike/Pine.

The thing that carried on, the piece of trying to take care of your team, make sure your team is paid,” Snyder said of his family experience in the industry. “That had always been a strong piece of Sam’s and any place that we opened.”

“If you can’t pay, you aren’t paying the landlord,” he adds. Snyder didn’t pay rent for over a year so he could keep paying his workers at Sam’s Capitol Hill, he said.

Snyder’s family and his experience couldn’t prepare him for the 2020s in Seattle.

Things were brighter in the 2010s.

Thirteen years ago, Snyder outmaneuvered some of the biggest names in Pike/Pine nightlife for the lease where he opened the first Sam’s Tavern at Pike and 11th Ave.

In 2026, he is selling to his landlords. They might be some of the few food and drink investors around who can make the city’s economic landscape pencil out.

“Labor is going to crush you, and the rent is going to crush you,” Snyder said.

Your lease? That will crush you, too. The new owners at Sam’s have that part solved.

Husband and wife team Walter Lee and Mari Tiscareño held onto the commercial condo where they created and ran Chino’s, a Taiwanese-Mexican mash-up by way of Los Angeles, for a year before selling the restaurant to make way for Snyder’s project and what would become Sam’s Tavern.

Snyder had to out-deal and outbid business partners Jason Lajeunesse and Dave Meinert for the 2013 agreement with the Lees.

CHS’s coverage of the sale included lots of sour grapes from two of the big players in Pike/Pine at the time. “I thought we were getting to know each other, and making good progress,” Lajeunesse said back then. “I was looking at this is a potential 20-year relationship.”

Lajeunesse of Neumos, Comet, Lost Lake, Big Mario’s, and the Capitol Hill Block Party remains a Pike/Pine pillar. Meinert is now re-growing his food and drink business off Capitol Hill following sexual misconduct allegations.

The Capitol Hill Sam’s Tavern? This weekend will be its last under Snyder’s management. Snyder says he has sold the rights for Lee and Tiscareño to reopen the joint as a new Sam’s Tavern. The South Lake Union Sam’s is “temporarily closed,” also under new owners.

The Lees, he hopes, will give Sam’s new life. “You have to sell it to someone who has capital and a long runway,” he says.

At least they already have rent figured out.

Snyder also says he isn’t done with the restaurant business and might look to his home city of Yakima or someplace new like Boise for his next ventures.

Capitol Hill doled out some good times and valuable lessons, Snyder says.

“Opening that first one and taking that risk — opening that one has changed my life,” he tells CHS. “I’m very grateful for Capitol Hill.”

Sam’s Tavern Capitol Hill is located at 1024 E Pike. Learn more at samstavernseattle.com.

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