In a village where a salad costs $38, there’s a place where the egg sandwich costs $6 and the real currency is information.

The Memory

It’s 7:15 in the morning and the parking lot is already full.

However, these aren’t Range Rovers and G-Wagons. Instead, you’ll find pickup trucks with ladder racks, work vans with company names stenciled on the side, and a few sedans that have seen better days. In other words, the vehicles of people who have somewhere to be by 8am.

When you push through the door, the sound hits you first—the clatter of plates, the hiss of the griddle, a dozen conversations happening at once, someone laughing at something someone else said. Meanwhile, the counter is packed, the booths are packed, and there’s a waitress moving through the chaos with a coffee pot in each hand, refilling cups without being asked because she already knows who needs it.

You find a stool and glance at the menu—laminated, the kind of laminated that’s been wiped down ten thousand times. But you don’t really need to read it. After all, everyone orders the same thing: eggs, bacon, toast, coffee. Or the egg sandwich. Or the pancakes. Either way, the food arrives fast because this isn’t a place where you linger. You eat, you pay, you get to work.

The Counter Conversations

The guy next to you is talking to the guy next to him about a job site in Bridgehampton. Foundation problems. The owner doesn’t want to hear it. Across the counter, meanwhile, two women are discussing someone’s divorce—the details precise, the judgment suspended but palpable. At a booth in the corner, three men in paint-splattered clothes are silent, eating fast, checking phones, running the math on how much they can get done before the heat gets bad.

This is East Hampton at 7:15 in the morning. Not the East Hampton of magazines and real estate listings, but rather the East Hampton that actually functions—the one that builds the houses, fixes the plumbing, keeps the hedges trimmed, and makes the whole gleaming apparatus possible.

Consequently, they all eat here. And they’ve been eating here since 1966.

The Truth

Sam’s Restaurant is a diner. Let’s just say it plainly, because the word “diner” has become complicated in ways it shouldn’t be.

It’s not a “diner-inspired concept.” Nor is it a “retro eatery with a modern twist.” Furthermore, it’s not a place that hired a designer to create “authentic diner vibes” using reclaimed materials and a carefully curated color palette.

It’s simply a diner. Booths and a counter. Eggs and coffee. Waitresses who call you “hon” and mean it. A griddle that’s been seasoned by sixty years of bacon grease. And, perhaps most importantly, prices that make sense.

Surviving Every Transformation

Sam’s opened in 1966—the same year the Beatles played Shea Stadium, the same year Star Trek premiered, the same year East Hampton was still a place where working people could afford to live. Since then, it’s survived every transformation: the art world influx of the ’70s, the Wall Street money of the ’80s, the hedge fund tsunami of the 2000s, the pandemic, the Zoom-town boom—all of it.

Here’s the remarkable thing, though: Sam’s hasn’t survived by adapting. On the contrary, it’s survived by refusing to adapt. The menu is essentially the same. The prices are, adjusted for inflation, roughly the same. And the clientele is, generationally, the same—the sons and daughters of the contractors and landscapers and fishermen who ate here in 1966 now eat here themselves, alongside their own sons and daughters.

Bourdain had a phrase for places like this. He called them “pre-gentrification artifacts”—places that existed before the money came and somehow kept existing after. Moreover, he understood that these places weren’t charming by accident. They were charming because they were real, and real had become so rare that it registered as exotic.

Sam’s, however, doesn’t know it’s exotic. Sam’s is just trying to get everyone fed before the workday starts.

The History

The story of Sam’s is, in essence, the story of East Hampton’s working class—which is to say, the story that rarely gets told.

In 1966, East Hampton was not yet the East Hampton of popular imagination. Yes, there were wealthy summer residents. And yes, there were artists and writers and the beginnings of the celebrity culture that would later define the place. But there was also a functioning town—fishermen, farmers, tradespeople, families who’d been here for generations and expected to stay for generations more.

A Place for Working People

These people needed a place to eat. Not a “dining experience.” Not “farm-to-table seasonal cuisine.” Rather, they needed a place where you could get eggs and coffee at 6:30 in the morning, pay a couple bucks, and get to work.

Sam’s became that place. Over the decades, it evolved into a kind of unofficial headquarters for East Hampton’s working community. Contractors met clients here. Deals got made over breakfast. Jobs got discussed, complained about, negotiated. In effect, the counter at Sam’s became a clearinghouse for information—who was building what, who was selling, who was hiring, who was trouble.

The Information Hub

This function, notably, has never changed. If you want to know what’s actually happening in East Hampton—not the press release version, not the real estate listing version, but the truth—you come to Sam’s at 7am and you listen.

One reviewer captured it perfectly: “Egg sandwiches and local gossip since 1966.”

That’s not a tagline. That’s a job description.

The Sociology

Pierre Bourdieu would have found Sam’s fascinating as a case study in what he called “social fields”—arenas where different forms of capital compete and interact.

In most of East Hampton, the dominant capital is economic. Money determines everything: where you can live, where you can eat, who pays attention to you, who doesn’t. As a result, the hierarchy is simple and brutal. You’re either wealthy enough to matter or you’re invisible.

Sam’s, however, inverts this entirely.

The Currency of Local Knowledge

Inside the diner, economic capital still exists—the guy in the work boots knows he’s got less money than the summer residents whose houses he’s building—but it’s not the primary currency. Instead, the primary currency is local knowledge.

Forget net worth. The real currency is knowing things—like which building inspector won’t make your life hell, which contractor actually shows up after cashing your check, what really went down with that property sale everyone’s whispering about. Who’s getting divorced. Who’s broke but hiding it. Who’s full of shit. This intelligence keeps the year-round community wired together, functioning, surviving.

The Counter-Hierarchy

The people who possess this knowledge are, not coincidentally, the people at the Sam’s counter at 7am. Not the summer residents, who don’t know anyone and don’t know anything. Not the weekenders, who barely know where they are. Rather, it’s the workers, the lifers, the people who’ve been coming to Sam’s since they were kids eating pancakes with their fathers.

Bourdieu would note that this creates a kind of counter-hierarchy. In the village, the contractor is invisible—just another guy in a truck. At Sam’s, by contrast, he’s a node in the information network. He knows things. He matters.

This is precisely why Sam’s feels different from the rest of East Hampton. Not because the food is different or the decor is different, but because the power structure is different. For an hour every morning, the workers are the center of gravity.

The Uncomfortable Part

Here’s what no one wants to say out loud: the people eating at Sam’s at 7am mostly can’t afford to live in East Hampton anymore.

They commute—from Springs, from Amagansett, from further west like Riverhead and Eastport, places where a working salary can still cover rent. They drive to East Hampton in the dark, eat breakfast at Sam’s, work ten or twelve hours building houses they could never buy, then drive home in the dark.

The Hidden Economy

This is the hidden economy of the Hamptons. The visible economy is real estate and restaurants and boutiques—the economy of spending. The hidden economy, on the other hand, is construction and landscaping and plumbing and electrical—the economy of labor. Although these two economies depend on each other absolutely, they occupy entirely different worlds.

Sam’s is, therefore, one of the few places where these worlds intersect. Not as equals—let’s not pretend—but at least as co-present. The summer resident who stops in for coffee is sitting next to the guy who’s about to spend eight hours renovating her pool house. Both are eating the same eggs, paying the same prices, sharing the same air.

Seeing the Labor

Bourdain would have focused on this dynamic. He had a sharp eye for the class dynamics that most food coverage ignores. Specifically, he’d have talked to the contractors at the counter, asked about their commutes, their wages, the economics of building rich people’s houses while struggling to keep your own.

He wouldn’t have sentimentalized it, though. He’d have just made you see it—the hands that build the Hamptons, eating breakfast in the dark, at a diner that’s one of the last places where they’re not invisible.

Sam’s can’t fix the housing crisis or the affordability crisis or any of the structural forces that have transformed East Hampton from a community into a commodity. What it can do—and does—is provide a place where the workers can sit down, eat something hot, talk to each other, and feel like they belong somewhere.

That matters. It’s not enough, but it matters.

The Code

Sam’s operates on rules that no one explains because everyone already knows them.

Early is better. The real Sam’s experience happens between 6:30 and 8am. After that, the character changes—the contractors have left for their job sites, and the tourists start trickling in. It’s still fine, but it’s not the same.

Counter or booth, your choice. That said, understand that the counter is where the action is. The counter is where you hear things. The booths, by contrast, are for families, for groups, for people who want conversations they don’t want overheard.

Don’t be slow. Sam’s is not a place to linger, so people are eating and leaving. If you’re going to sit at the counter staring at your phone for forty-five minutes after you’ve finished your eggs, you’re doing it wrong.

Tip in cash. The waitresses work hard, they remember everyone, and they deserve better than whatever they’re getting paid.

Listen more than you talk. This is especially important if you’re not from here. The information flowing through Sam’s is valuable, but it’s not for outsiders. You can overhear, certainly, but you don’t get to participate until you’ve put in time.

Don’t take pictures. This is not content. These are people starting their workdays, and they don’t need to be documented by someone’s lifestyle brand.

What to Order

The egg sandwich. This is the signature—egg, cheese, your choice of meat, on a roll. It features perfect construction and perfect proportions. In fact, it’s the kind of sandwich that makes you wonder why anyone needs to improve on the form.

Eggs, any style. Served with bacon or sausage, home fries, and toast, this is the foundation of a working breakfast. Nothing fancy, because nothing needs to be fancy.

The pancakes. Fluffy and substantial, these are the kind of pancakes that actually fill you up. They’re good with butter and syrup, so don’t overthink it.

Coffee. Hot, strong, and unlimited refills. The waitress will keep it coming without you asking, which is how civilization is supposed to work.

The specials. There’s usually something on the board—a soup, a sandwich, something that changes with the day. Ask about it and trust the kitchen.

What It Costs

Almost nothing. You can eat a full breakfast at Sam’s—eggs, meat, potatoes, toast, coffee—for under $15. In a village where a “casual” lunch regularly exceeds $50 per person, this is practically a revolutionary act.

Prices as a Statement

Sam’s prices are a statement, whether they intend them to be or not. They say: Working people deserve to eat. They say: Breakfast shouldn’t require a financial calculation. And they say: This place is for everyone, not just the people with money.

One reviewer wrote: “When in the Hamptons and you’d like to stay on budget, please don’t forget to visit Sam’s. If you don’t want to pay the regular $36-$40 for a plate of pasta, this place is simple but the food is awesome.”

That’s the whole ballgame. Awesome food. Simple service. Prices that respect your intelligence. In the Hamptons, this is radical.

The Point

Don Draper sold the Kodak Carousel by showing slides of his own family—his wife, his children, moments of apparent happiness that we know, from watching the show, were performances covering dysfunction. “This device isn’t a spaceship,” he said. “It’s a time machine.”

The trick was real, yet the emotion was manufactured. That’s advertising.

The Opposite of Manufactured

Sam’s Restaurant is the opposite. There’s no trick and there’s no pitch. There’s just a diner that’s been serving breakfast since 1966, to people who need breakfast so they can go to work, in a town that increasingly has no room for people who work.

The nostalgia here isn’t manufactured—it’s geological. Layer upon layer, it’s built into the place over sixty years of mornings, sixty years of eggs and coffee and conversations about jobs and families and money troubles and everything else that real people talk about in real places.

Bourdain spent his career looking for authenticity, and he was always suspicious of the word. “Authentic” had become a marketing term, a way to sell the simulation of realness to people hungry for something they couldn’t name. But every once in a while, he’d find a place that was actually the thing itself—not performing authenticity, just being what it was.

Where the Real East Hampton Convenes

Sam’s is what it is. A diner at the end of a village that’s become something unrecognizable. A place where the working people still have a place. A counter where information flows, where deals happen, where the real East Hampton—the East Hampton that functions, that labors, that keeps the whole machine running—convenes every morning before dawn.

The gossip never leaves the counter. That’s the rule. What’s said at Sam’s stays at Sam’s—the deals, the complaints, the jokes, the grief. All of it stays inside these walls, circulating among the people who’ve earned the right to hear it.

Earning Your Place

You can’t buy your way into this network, nor can you shortcut it with money or connections or the right address. You can only earn it the old-fashioned way: by showing up, by being useful, by becoming someone that the counter knows and trusts.

That takes years. Decades. A lifetime, maybe.

Or you can just come for breakfast. The eggs are good, the coffee’s hot, and the price is right.

Some of us will never be insiders. But the door’s open, the stool’s empty, and there’s always room for someone who’s hungry.

Sam’s Restaurant 36 Newtown Lane, East Hampton (631) 324-5900 Open daily, 7am–3pm Cash and cards accepted No reservations. No pretense. No secrets leave the counter.