Meaty makeover

Double switch: Six months after Joe Marty’s Bar & Grille (1500 Broadway) reopened in December 2015, Michael Sampino started calling the owners twice a month every month until they sold it to him.

But when he took over in January, he found the customer service and food quality was “completely lacking” and that some employees engaged in “unethical practices” such as over pouring and under charging for drinks, Sampino said. (The former owner, Devon Atlee, called this Sampino’s “opinion”—one he didn’t share. “I tell myself very strongly that nothing like that happened,” Atlee said.)

“So I shut down,” Sampino said. “It had to be cleaned, reorganized and remodeled. I fired 34 people, interviewed 196, hired [47], retrained them in 14 days and reopened. New menu. New image. I learned: Don’t half-ass anything.”

Sampino, of Sampino’s Towne Foods (1607 F Street), wanted Joe Marty’s for two reasons: to become “a staple of Land Park” and to cater to the customers who, over his Midtown market’s 12 years of operation, complained about not being able to have his family’s Italian cooking for dinner.

On the revamped menu, Sampino highlighted the chicken Parmesan, meatball sandwich and homemade ravioli in portions he said he’s “hardly ever seen a person finish.” One of those family-style-sized entrees—plus soup, salad and garlic bread—will run you about $17.

“We’re making what my grandmother, my grandfather, my father and my wife’s family have been putting on their tables for generations,” he said. “They’re all things I proudly put my name behind.”

But he won’t put his name behind Joe Marty’s famous broasted chicken. Put your pitchforks down. He’s got a good reason. He’d have to buy brine from the Broaster Co., pay it royalties and “on top of it, everybody who used to make the broasted chicken is dead,” he added. “So we 86’d the broasted chicken.”

Now, Joe Marty’s will operate closer to how it did just after Sacramento gave the spot to its namesake, the legendary baseball player. When Marty ran the place, he partnered with El Chico, a pizza shop run by a local Italian family.

“So we’re essentially creating the same concept he wanted,” Sampino said. “And I’m honored to be in Joe Marty’s.”