The New Jersey-based comfort food restaurant and catering company, Taylor Sam’s, recently signed a lease and got the keys for its first out-of-state outpost, located at 312 3rd St South in St. Petersburg, with plans to open in late winter or early spring 2023, according to co-owner Dawn Spivak.
“Bringing Taylor Sam’s to St Pete has been a long-time dream,” Spivak tells What Now Tampa. “This restaurant is a monumental stepping stone in our family business. Made by family, run by family, and becoming family with DTSP is our ultimate goal.”
Spivak says that with a projected opening date of late February, “the design of this restaurant will complement our existing NJ location with a modern flair,” adding, “Our daughter Karah will be running this location so a piece of our heart is forever in our St Pete store.”
Much of the opening schedule will be contingent on the amount of work that needs to be done to the building, which formerly housed the quick-service restaurant, Simple Greek.
“We are going to completely gut it,” Spivak tells What Now Tampa. “We have a restaurant in New Jersey that we’ve had for about 10 years – same name, same concept – so we’re going to kind of replicate the same visual from up here, and bring it down there.”
Billed as “home cookin’,” Taylor Sam’s is perhaps best known for its breakfast menu, with signature items such as the Vicious Biscuit – a homemade cheddar jalapeño biscuit with pimiento cheese, fried cauliflower, egg, and a hot honey glaze, as well as the Hashtag Delicious made of shredded house-braised corned beef, caramelized onions, and sweet peppers served alongside home fries, two sunny-side eggs, and rye toast – a creation that Executive Chef and co-owner Scott Spivak recently told local media outlet St. Pete Rising is “probably my favorite right now.”
Despite the fact that Taylor Sam’s new Florida outpost does not signal a concerted expansion effort, as Scott Spivak explained to St. Pete Rising, it is a testament to the fact that, according to the restaurant’s website, “As proud parents of a growing phenomenon in authentic homestyle cooking, it was evident that Chef Scott and his wife Dawn could not keep this diamond in the rough confined to such a small space.”
Of course, that sentence speaks to Taylor Sam’s relocation to a larger building back in 2020, however, with St. Pete on the horizon, such a sentiment has never rung truer.
