Sammy's Woodfired Pizza — Restaurant in Los Angeles

Arriving after a long flight into LAX is never a pleasant experience, especially all the hassle of clearing customs and re-checking bags when you are only there for a short stopover, there could be a lot of improvements to this process. Eventually arriving at the gate in T4 for the next leg of the journey, I was keen to sit down and have some food.

It was here I found Sammy’s Woodfired Pizza. The place is named after their pizzas but they are about the size of a dinner plate, and didn’t look great, and were all around $25 US dollars.

The menu states there is a: “Concessions Recovery Fee: A 6% surcharge will be added to the subtotal on all checks; this charge helps offset the extraordinary labor, benefit, and operating costs at LAX. This fee is not a gratuity and will be retained by the company.”

Being from Australia I am not sure what is “extraordinary” - but it seemed like a complaint by the business about where they had chosen to do their business. I am familiar with the concept of tipping in the US, and the menu also states that “For your convenience, a 20% gratuity will be added to all checks of $75 or more.” The belief around tipping is that it ensures that the servers are friendly and always attentive. That wasn’t my experience here.

I was by myself and only ordered the cheeseburger and a couple of drinks, but the staff seemed more exhausted than I did after my 14 hour flight, the longest interaction I had with staff was when one came and told me to move my bag off the seat next to me, only to seat a large group who came over and all dumped their bags on the seats and right on top of where I was sitting. Cool. It’s good to know your place in the world.

From the tired looking pizzas, to the tired experience and the business seemingly being in the wrong place for the owners, the whole vibe of the space felt not too unlike the jetlag I had.

The good news is that the Cheeseburger wasn’t too bad and the chips were hot and fresh. I actually enjoyed the burger, and that matters.

The Cheeseburger was $26.99 (over $50 Australian) and was Wagyu Beef - it is a double patty, with cheddar, lettuce, tomato, onion, thousand island on a brioche bun, served with crispy fries.

It seems an odd choice, on the one hand Wagyu is famous for its intense intramuscular fat (marbling), which melts as it cooks, creating a juicy, rich, buttery flavour. But the structure of Wagyu predominantly comes from the marbled texture of specific muscle cuts - and much of the cost and value is in the cut, so grinding it up can make it lose some of what makes it special.

If you own and run a business and need to mention the extraordinary operating costs imposed, then bragging about paying a premium for minced beef when most great burgers are made with far cheaper blends (e.g. chuck, brisket, short rib) seems strange.

A well-balanced 80/20 ground chuck blend will probably do great, or could even be better for less cost.

With my two drinks, I easily went over the $75, so I paid the 20% and the 6% and paid more for a burger than I ever have in my life.

But let’s be honest, you are eating here because you don’t have other options, so if you decide to eat here, or like extortion, just suck it up and pay the ransom and be happy that you get to leave.

I would definitely recommend getting the Cheeseburger as everything else I saw while I was there looked sad, including my own reflection, the menu, the pizzas, the staff and the other customers...

At 6am on November 4th my wife and I decided to get breakfast at Sammy’s wood fire pizza in LAX airport terminal 4. I know it sounds weird we’d be eating at a pizza restaurant at 6 am but their breakfast menu peaked our interest.

When we were escorted to our seat by the hostess there was one table occupied with 4 people. The rest of the restaurant was empty. While being sat at a smaller 2 person table I asked the hostess if we could have the larger corner table since we both had duffel bags and backpacks. The hostess said we couldn’t sit there because If a larger group came in they would need to be seated there. We understood and instead she sat us as a booth style table for 4. It had a bench seat where we sat and we had space to put our bags in the other two seats.

Another group of travelers (3 people) came in and were being sat at the corner table we requested. The manager came over and told the hostess they could not be sat there they needed to be sat in the space we were now occupying. The group of 3 refused to make us get up so they could sit there and sat themselves in the corner booth.

The manager came over and told us we must move from our seats and told the group of 3 they must sit where we were. Again, in the entire restaurant there were a total of 9 people (the group of 4 that were there when we arrived, the group of 3 and the two of us). There were at least 20 open tables with plenty of seating.

We gathered our items and walked out. My wife told the manager that because of her the restaurant would not be receiving a dime from us.

We ended up going to a restaurant called Campanile to eat breakfast. Shortly after being seated we were surprised to see the group of 3 from the previous restaurant walk in. They informed us that they didn’t feel right eating there after seeing how we were treated.

Ultimately, Sammy’s let $216.00 walk out of the door because the manger insisted on 5 out of 9 patrons sit where she instructed instead of where they’d be most comfortable. The reason I know the full amount of the money lost is because my wife and I decided to pay the tab of the 3 patrons that walked out behind us. Come to find out one of them was celebrating her 50th birthday that day and that’s how her day started. We were happy to hear our token of appreciation to them also covered her breakfast and a few mimosas on her 50th birthday. The icing on the cake for me is that she was traveling to my hometown of New Orleans which made me so much happier for her and...

I stopped at this LAX location, for breakfast, after a couple of days in the LA area. Avoid this location...horrible service, food is bland and plain and I was charged improperly (double what I should have been).

I was given a “breakfast menu” that included breakfast pizzas, by the hostess...who didn’t seat me, but handed me a menu and told me to sit wherever. I was one of maybe three customers in the entire restaurant, so waiting for over five minutes to order coffee was a bit much. After ordering coffee, I attempted to order a breakfast pizza and I was quickly told they don’t serve pizza right now, so pick something else. So, I order a breakfast burrito, which later came out bland and less flavorful than a McDonald’s $1 breakfast burrito.

I ran out of coffee well into my meal and asked the waitress, Ruth, for a refill. I watched as she talked with another waitress, leaned on the counter and seated people before asking her again for more coffee.

I asked for the check, again waiting a long time as the waitress took her time. When the check finally came, I immediately handed her my card, since I had a flight to catch and the delays had been long enough. I have push notifications on my phone for my credit card and I got an alert for over $52 for my meal. Knowing this was incorrect, Ruth returned to my table and handed me multiple receipts for the proper amount (half of the charge) and was the incorrect charge, which I quickly pointed out. She said she would take care of it and walked away with my card. She returned a moment later with the same lesser receipt, but this time the $52 receipt was gone. She handed it to me, offered no apology or explanation and walked off. I’m now disputing the charge with my credit card company.

From the extremely poor customer service, to the bland food to the fraudulent charge on my card...this was by far the worst experience I’ve ever had at an...