Canada deserves its
own burger brand.
Change starts small: one main street at a time.
Our story
A second inning,
played in Canada.
Rajni Patel was forty years old and running a retail business in Gujarat that employed thirty-five people. He handed it to his parents and came to Canada in 2006 to begin again. He worked in factories. His wife Reshma worked fast food. He calls this chapter of his life his second inning, and he has never spoken of it any other way.
In 2011 they opened a small sandwich shop in Guelph. It was honest work and it was hard going against the national names. So rather than compete on their terms, the family went looking for something Canadian. With a French-Canadian friend, Louis Menard, they travelled to Montreal to learn the food properly: the gravy, the curds, the smoked meat, the craft of it. They came home with a different menu, a different plan, and a new name over the door.
What happened next is the reason this booklet exists. Customers from Hespeler and Cambridge kept making the drive to Guelph, and kept asking the same question: when are you opening closer to us? The second Sam's Grill opened because a town asked for it. Every one since has followed the same rule.
How we got here
The family arrives in Canada and starts over from the beginning.
The first store opens in Guelph. Long days, thin margins, no shortcuts.
The turning point. A Canadian menu, learned at the source.
Restaurants across Ontario and Saskatchewan, most of them in small towns.
“Not fancy. Not gourmet.
Just real comfort food done right.”
In their words, not ours
What the towns
already say.
Every Sam's Grill is rated on Google by the people who live beside it. These are their numbers, published as they come.
“The owners and staff at Sam's Grill in Brockville always find a way to make a visit to a burger joint a memorable experience.”
Jason K. · Brockville
“This place is top tier. It tastes like Timmins poutine did 20 years ago.”
S. Villeneuve · South Porcupine
“The burgers are amazing. They're just like your own backyard burgers: homemade patties, fresh lettuce, tomatoes and onions.”
Kim O. · Swift Current
“Phenomenal food, incredibly friendly staff, and unbelievably good value for your dollar.”
The Ra & Zia Family · Brockville
“Some of the best and crispiest fries I've ever had from a fast-food restaurant.”
Melanie S. · South Porcupine
“Best burger and milkshake I had in a long time from a restaurant in Hearst.”
Vicky V. · Hearst
Read enough of them and a pattern appears: our people get named. James, Shruti, Darshil, and in Waterloo simply “Juti the owner, who told me everything is made fresh on site.” That is what an owner behind the counter looks like from the other side of it.
Voted for by the public, not by us
2021 · 2022 · 2023
CommunityVotes Platinum for Burgers, three consecutive years, awarded by public vote.
2022
Restaurant Guru: Recommended in Burlington, Best BBQ in Cambridge.
La Poutine Week
Certificate of Excellency, Best Poutine in Town, chosen by public vote.
The food
Made fresh, on site,
every day.
Our menu is Canadian comfort food, cooked the long way. Ontario ground beef, hand-pressed into patties. Potatoes from farmers near our stores, cut into fries in our own kitchens. Real cheese curds. Gravy learned in Montreal. Nothing arrives frozen in a box pretending to be homemade.
What people come back for
Hand-pressed burgers
Ontario beef, pressed by hand, cooked to order. Gluten-free buns at every location.
Twelve specialty poutines
From the classic to butter chicken, pulled pork and the Newfie. Curds, never shredded cheese.
Fresh-cut fries
Local potatoes, cut in our kitchens each morning. The item our reviews mention most.
Montreal smoked meat
Piled high on rye, the way we learned to do it at the source.
Donair and pita
Carved fresh, sauced properly. A quiet favourite that travels well.
Real milkshakes & cheesecake
Thick shakes made with real ice cream, and dessert worth staying for.
Part of the town
We don't arrive.
We join.
Opening day in a small Ontario town: the ribbon cut with local representatives, and the line that formed outside.
A tradition we keep every spring
Since 2016 our Good Friday fish and chips has been booked in advance by name and pickup time. The sheets fill up with the same families year after year. It is not a promotion. It is a standing appointment with the town.
We back the local teams
Minor sport sponsorships, hospital and children's health support, school fundraisers. When a town asks, the answer is usually yes, because a restaurant that only takes from a community does not belong in it.
We join Canada's food traditions
Sam's Grill has taken part in La Poutine Week and Le Burger Week since 2021, national celebrations of two dishes this country gave the world. Our towns compete, and sometimes our towns win.
Grand openings belong to everyone
We open with the doors wide, the local representatives invited, and the whole street welcome. Our first day in a town is a community event, not a soft launch.
When we get it wrong, we make it right
A Guelph customer once had items missing from a delivery order. She called. The store drove out the missing food itself, and then some. That is the standard, and our reviews are answered by a person, never a template.
A place a family can still afford
Generous portions at prices a small town can live with. In a place where choices are few, being somewhere a family can eat together on an ordinary Tuesday matters more than being fashionable.
“I had the pleasure of dining at Sam's Grill on grand opening day and I was completely blown away.”
A neighbour in Hearst, Ontario
Why we write to towns
Built on Canada's
main streets.
To us, Canada's small towns are the heart of the country. Sam's Grill has grown along their main streets, in communities like Hearst, Cochrane, Kirkland Lake and Port Elgin, where we live as neighbours first. Ours is not the ambition of a brand. It is a commitment to Canada, economic, social and cultural, made in the conviction that change starts small. We are not looking for markets. We are looking for partners.
What we build together
Local family ownership
Our restaurants belong to the local families who stand behind their counters, so what a town gives never leaves it.
Our own commitment too
Where we open our own doors, we invest our own capital, sharing in the fortunes of every community we join.
New neighbours, welcomed properly
Some of our owners make Canada home through provincial and federal immigration pathways, settle in the towns they serve, and lead their restaurants in person.
Jobs across the country
We hire from coast to coast and promote from within: from first shift to management and beyond.
Life for local property
We buy and lease locally, and take particular pride in returning older storefronts to life.
A livelihood families can count on
A proven, straightforward model, so the families who own a Sam's Grill can build a life upon it.
Built AI-first
Modern infrastructure,
small-town heart.
Behind the counter we are all fresh ingredients and friendly faces. Behind the scenes we run the kind of infrastructure a town would not expect from a restaurant on its main street.
A mini website for every town
Every location keeps its own local site, with menus, news and offers, so a town is never treated as a branch office.
Apply local, from anywhere
Our application platform carries talent from anywhere in the world to the doorstep of the Sam's Grill in your town.
Privacy the Canadian way
Consent-based analytics built to respect Canadian privacy law, including Quebec's requirements, from the ground up.
Smart operations
AI runs quietly through our marketing, hiring and operations, keeping every location healthy and competitive.
Programs that bring people back
Gift cards and loyalty rewards, with campaigns composed for each town rather than copied across the map.
Ordering, however people prefer
In store, by phone, online or by delivery, with the systems behind each store chosen to suit the town it serves.
A small town should not have to settle
for a smaller standard.
What we stand for
Our commitment
to every town.
Economically
Local jobs, local ownership, local suppliers wherever possible, so prosperity stays where it is made.
Socially
We show up for the towns that host us, from school teams and fundraisers to the proper welcome of new neighbours.
Culturally
Every restaurant takes its character from its town, for no two communities are alike, and neither are we.
In all things we abide by and respect the laws of this country, including in how we welcome owners and operators who make Canada home through provincial and federal immigration pathways.
The promises we make when we open
We give back where we earn
Our commitment in every town we enter: sponsor local sport and community events, and direct a share of what the store earns to local causes.
We hire from the town first
Crew, cooks and managers drawn from the community, with training and a path upward for anyone who wants one.
We answer to the people we serve
Every review is read and answered by a person. When we get something wrong we say so, and we make it right.
We serve the town in its own language
In Hearst we speak and post in French and English together, because a community should be met the way it lives.
We make room at the table
Gluten-free buns and vegetarian options at every location, and a full allergen list kept current, because nobody should be the one who cannot come along.
We stay
A Sam's Grill is a long lease, a fitted kitchen and a family's living. We are not a pop-up, and we do not open a town to test it.
First we eat.
Then we do everything else.
Painted on the wall of a Sam's Grill dining room
Talking to us
If your town is thinking
about it, so are we.
There is nothing to sign and nothing to decide. A conversation is enough to begin, and the most useful thing a community can offer us is its own knowledge of itself.
Who we would love to hear from
Councils and economic development offices
Tell us what your community needs and what it is protecting. We would rather fit a town than change one.
Chambers of commerce
Introduce us to the businesses already holding your main street together. We would like to be among them, not above them.
Realtors, landlords and property owners
If you hold a space for sale or lease, or a storefront that deserves a second chapter, we would like to see it.
Families thinking about ownership
If you have wanted to run something of your own in the town you already love, this is the conversation to start.
Growers, bakers and local suppliers
We buy close to home wherever we can. If you supply food in your region, we would like to know your name before we arrive, not after.
Teams, schools and community groups
Tell us what your town rallies around. Those are the things we would want to stand behind from our first season onward.
Change starts small.
Let's grow Canada together.
Get in touch
Send us a message
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Proudly Canadian · Serving since 2011