Easy as Pie

Photography by Wolf Matthewson

Sam’s Bakery is a perfect example of adapting to its surrounding community. When Saleem and Georgette Yamin first opened the Lebanese bakery in Fall River in 1961, they started out baking only pita bread. But once McDonald’s became popular and the family saw customers lining up for American-style burgers, they had the idea to add ground meat to their pies to make business more profitable, says their daughter, Dora Peterson, who is the co-owner and manager. And when Fall River’s Portuguese population became some of their most loyal customers, they began adding chourico to the pies, too. 

Ninety-six-year-old Georgette Yamin started Sam’s with her husband and continues to visit the family-run bakery. Photography by Wolf Matthewson

The bakery is run by Peterson, one of Saleem and Georgette’s seven children, including Grace, Sandra, Kathy, Nancy, Samya and Jon Paul (who passed away in 1999), and some of the children and grandchildren still help out, too. “Mother is ninety-six and still with us,” says Peterson with pride. 

She recounts how her parents arrived in Fall River in 1948. Her father was looking for work while her mother raised the children. He tried many things and eventually settled on opening a bakery to give the only Lebanese bakery in town a little competition. He learned to bake pita from an old man who was happy to teach him the craft in his basement, then enlisted a craftsman to build a brick oven, the same one they still use at the bakery today. 

“It started as a wood-burning brick oven, and eventually it went to gas and then gas-fired burners, and then to make it easier, instead of using the long wooden peel to bring everything in and out of the oven, we put in a conveyor system,” Peterson says. The dough is made first and must rest and rise before it is flattened. “You have to cut it, round it and flatten it,” she says. “After it’s flattened, it gets baked.”

Wooden trays hold twenty pies that are prefilled with cooked meat, raw vegetables and/or cheese and then baked for one minute on a rotating conveyor belt system. “It’s in and out of the oven in less than a minute,” she says. 

The bakery is open Tuesday through Sunday (closed Monday), starting at 5 a.m. every day except 7:30 a.m. on Thursdays, until 2 p.m. They have a full menu, including pita breads and closed, triangular pies in varieties such as menich [oregano and sesame seeds], meat, spinach, chourico and cheese, and open-faced pies, including feta cheese with tomato and onion, feta with spinach, tomato and onion, and feta with broccoli and onion and more.

They’ve continued to expand their offerings over the years. “We started out with just bread and then we realized there was more opportunity with other things, because the dough was already made, so that’s when we started with meat pies, spinach pies and menich,” Peterson says. “And now, along with the pies and the bread, we also sell cooked and prepared foods in the refrigerator, the hummus, tabouli, grape leaves and kibbeh. On our shelves, we have Arabic goods for people who want to cook.”

Making meat pies at Sam’s Bakery in Fall River involves mixing the dough, flattening it, then filling rounds with meat, spinach or chourico. Then it’s baked in the oven on a conveyor belt system. Photography by Wolf Matthewson

The best days to go are Tuesdays and Wednesdays to avoid long lines. “There’s no question, Saturday and Sunday are in a class by themselves, as far as busy,” she says. “The lunch hour is also busy. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the least busy, but if you have six customers at one point, they’re gone in ten minutes. So if it looks busy, just wait five or ten minutes and it will go quickly.” 256 Flint St., Fall River, Mass., 508-674-5422