Popular North Sacramento restaurant is reopening. Here’s the mother-daughter duo behind it

Naz Begum spent her 16th birthday waiting tables in her first-ever shift at a diner. Twenty-two years later, she’s worked hundreds more shifts — enough to take over one of Sacramento’s most storied greasy spoons.

Begum and her mother Moon are reopening Sammy’s Restaurant, an 80-year-old fixture at 2021 Del Paso Blvd., within the next month pending city approval.

Moon Begum worked at Denny’s in the Bay Area and Sacramento for 30 years, bringing Naz into the fold in 2002. The younger Begum waited tables and eventually managed the chain diner’s Sacramento State University-adjacent location at 7900 College Town Drive from 2005-2022.

“Basically, I grew up at Denny’s. You don’t understand how many extended families I have. I have so many grandmas, grandpas,” Begum said. “They’ve seen me grow up. They’ve seen me run a store, they’ve seen both my pregnancies ... they’re my guests, but you’ve gotta treat them like family, and that’s what I’ve always done.”

Four veteran cooks with whom Naz worked at Denny’s will join her at Sammy’s, she said. She’s worked at Lil Joe’s, a similarly historic diner on Del Paso Boulevard, for the past six months while Sammy’s undergoes renovations.

Founded by Sammy Powell in 1944, Sammy’s menu stayed largely rooted in the past as the years went on, a senior-friendly place perhaps best known for its chicken-fried steak and sausage gravy. Previous owner Khalid Farhoud, who bought the restaurant in 1996, connected the Begums with his vendors for them to recreate those dishes.

There’ll be a rotating cast of international specials as well, from the Begum family’s Fijian roots to the Mexican, Chinese and Italian dishes they enjoy cooking.

Sammy’s never reopened after closing at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, and was damaged by a fire last July. The new owners will fix electrical issues and add some new paint to the walls, but will keep the same sense of old-fashioned hospitality Begum has cultivated throughout her entire career.

“I started (working in diners) the day I turned 16, and then I realized that this is something I want to do — like, you know, I don’t want to do anything else,” Begum said. “This is my passion. This is my calling. This is what I’m meant to do.”

What I’m Eating

You’ll want to eat and drink everything at The Hive Tasting Room & Kitchen. Call it a “honey-do list.”

The Woodland restaurant and shop is an ode to all things honey, from jars of royal jelly to a mead bar and savory-sweet food menu. Ishai Zeldner founded the family’s honey business under the name “Moon Shine Trading Co.” in 1979, and grew it from a home project to a Winters storefront to The Hive, a 20,000-square foot facility that produces Moon Shine honey and also sells other bee-adjacent products from around California.

Ishai’s son Josh Zeldner is The Hive’s “nectar director” these days, flanked by his sister Shoshi and mother Amina Harris. Chef Diego Wilk leads the food program, whipping up small plates for customers to enjoy on The Hive’s 2-acre grounds as bees buzz by Mexican Palo Verde trees’ yellow flowers.

The Napoletano flatbread ($20) may be the heartiest item on The Hive’s current menu. Four slices of oblong pizzetta were topped with roasted pear and portobello mushroom slices, half-melted Gorgonzola and Moon Shine’s California Black Button Sage honey, all of which were propped up nicely on a chewy crust.

Honey and cheese are natural bedfellows, a harmonious match that sang in The Hive’s whipped goat cheese and coriander honey dip ($15) with batard toast slices. Tangy, feathery and sprinkled with microgreens, the whipped Laura Chenel felt uplifted, not drowned, by a restrained drizzle of Moon Shine’s California Coriander honey, as with the truffled burrata caprese ($16) salad’s orange blossom honey and Séka Hills olive oil.

The Hive Tasting Room & Kitchen

Address: 1221 Harter Ave., Woodland.

Hours: 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, closed Sunday and Monday.

Phone: (530) 668-0660

Website: https://zspecialtyfood.com/the-hive-in-woodland-2/

Drinks: Got a need for mead? This is your place. Craft beer and wine also available.

Vegetarian options: More than half the menu is vegetarian, including a brie batard toast with honey-apricot-cherry spread, Mediterranean eggplant rolls and a chopped quinoa salad.

Noise level: Generally quiet outside of a Friday concert series.

Outdoor seating: Plentiful.

Openings & Closings

▪ Slow & Low, a new barbecue concept from LowBrau and Beast + Bounty founder Michael Hargis, will open June 1 at 9700 Railroad St. in Old Town Elk Grove. Look for down-home comforts such as pulled pork sandwiches, brisket and Texas-style chili.

▪ Pintworks will also have its grand opening June 1 at 116 N. 16th St. in Sacramento’s River District. A parking lot offshoot of Pipeworks rock climbing gym, the brewpub is open to all and specializes in sandwiches, small plates and Detroit-style pizza.

▪ Lollicup’s Roseville location closed May 23 at 1253 Pleasant Grove Blvd., leaving another in Sacramento’s Little Saigon neighborhood as the only remaining area store. The Southern California-based boba shop served casual Filipino and Japanese bites such as silogs and beef donburi, options still available at 6830 S. Stockton Blvd., Suite 250.