DENVER • One spring morning in 1936, after years of trying to track him down, federal agents finally delivered an illegal immigrant to a courtroom.
He was a Greek man named Efstathios Armatas. For more than a decade he’d gone by Sam Andrews. That’s how the judge that day knew him: Sam of Sam’s No. 3 and other beloved diners that spotted downtown.
“The judge looks up and says, Sam, what are you doing here?” says Sam’s son, Spero Armatas. “And he says, Well, Judge, I have a story to tell you.”
It was a story of a boy who came to America in 1910 to work on the railroad, to live in a boxcar and send money back home to his poor village; of a boy who was made a man by the war that brought him back to Greece; of a man desperate to return to America despite immigration laws against him. In 1924, the story goes, Armatas jumped ship near the New York Harbor and swam toward a new destiny.
The near future would see him pouring red chili and flipping burgers and hot dogs and working day and night for adoring customers in Denver. That included the judge who faced him that morning in 1936.
“The judge told the FBI guys, You guys can leave, I’m gonna release Sam into my custody,” Spero says. “After that, you couldn’t find a better American than my dad.”
And today, many around town say you can’t find a better American diner than Sam’s No. 3.
Yes, nearly 100 years later, the name lives on.
That’s thanks to Spero, 84, whose sons lovingly call him the “unsilent partner” in the business. The three boys — Sam, Alex and Patrick — run the restaurant downtown, close to their grandfather’s original spot, along with the Sam’s No. 3 in Glendale.
Their dad’s eateries went by other names through the ’70s and ’80s. After working in them through childhood, the brothers in 1998 resurrected Sam’s No. 3 in Aurora. They expanded to the downtown and Glendale spots in 2003 and 2013, respectively.
In one of the early days in Aurora, a passing car came to a screeching halt, Patrick recalls.
“Flips a U-ey, smoke coming out of the tires, whips into the parking lot,” he says. “This old man basically runs inside and goes, Is this the original Sam’s No. 3 downtown?”
Patrick introduced himself as the grandson of Sam and provided the man a bowl of familiar chili. “I swear to God, this guy starts crying,” Patrick says. “You don’t realize you’re in the fabric of the community until stuff like that happens.”
It was a sad day last year when the brothers announced closing the Aurora restaurant. It was time to walk away from a lease, the owning brothers said.
The closure was like a death in the family, Patrick says. “It was horrible,” says older brother Sam.
It was far from the first moment of adversity in the long history of Sam’s No. 3. Again, the brothers would see it through — keeping their grandfather’s vision alive.
Much has changed from Sam Armatas’ original shop, including the preference from red to green chili. The brothers report the two locations pouring 24 gallons a day — popularly atop huge breakfast burritos. Also popular: the bloody marys, representing the modern, boozy brunch concept Sam Armatas probably never imagined.
“And yes, that original little menu turned into this 16-page hot mess,” reads the brief history on today’s menu.
One flips between breakfast burritos, eggs Benedict, omelets, pancakes, burgers, hot dogs, sandwiches, soups, salads, steaks, chicken, gyros and other Greek and Mexican specialties. “Something for everyone,” the brothers like to say. Emphasis on “everyone.”
Anyone and everyone could be found across the 19 stools of the original Sam’s, Spero remembers. He remembers ladies of the night and gangsters. “And people from the city and county, bankers would come in, attorneys would come in. All walks of life would come in.”
As they do now downtown — sharp-dressed executives mixed with theater characters down the street mixed with construction crews mixed with college kids curing hangovers.
Another aspect is unchanged from the days of Sam Armatas: “the little things,” says another one of the owning brothers, Alex.
Little things, like the choice of local eggs, for fear of eggs from afar losing moisture over high-altitude travel to Denver. Little things, like the certain cheese that melts best. Like the coffee the brothers order out of the little mountain town of Minturn. Little things, like properly wiping tables.
“You see people go in the middle of the mess and kind of move it around,” Alex says. “You’re always like, Nope, this thing’s gotta be a zig-zag.”
He might call it a curse or a blessing from his immigrant grandfather. Even late in life the man wore a white, collared shirt and slacks free of wrinkles, as he always did in those years while fearing deportation.
“He basically developed insomnia, because he was always afraid of being caught,” Alex says. “I remember him always being awake and always watching every detail.”
From the New York Harbor in 1924, Sam Armatas made his way to a steel mill in Joliet, Ill.
“There happened to be a guy down the street who owned a diner, and my dad used to go in all the time,” Spero says.
The owner asked the young man to work for him, making the case this way, Spero says: “’Are you ever gonna own that factory?’ My dad said of course not. And the guy said, ‘Well, you can own one of these, but you gotta learn how to run it.’”
Sam learned as much as he could in the diner — until it was time to run again, Spero says. “Immigration was looking for him. So he skipped town and comes to Denver.”
He and a friend, another man named Sam, opened the first Sam’s at 1757 Curtis Street, followed by No. 2 at 1642 Larimer Street, followed by No. 3 at 1527 Curtis Street. Around the turn of the Great Depression, the business partnership dissolved and left Armatas with Sam’s No. 3.
Born in 1940, Spero would hear the stories of those years later while washing dishes for his dad.
“People kept telling me how my dad fed them during the Depression when they had nothing to eat,” he says. “When they had the money, they could come back and pay.”
It meant working harder, the son learned. “He would work 18-hour days seven days a week, just to keep the business going,” Spero says.
The hard work and goodwill paid off in a courtroom in 1936. The judge/customer that morning relieved years of anxiety for Sam Armatas.
And from there, the man from Greece — that boy who came with nothing, who slept in a boxcar by the railroad, who swam before he ran for his dreams — could chase another dream: leaving something for his family to come.
Says one of the business-owning grandkids, Sam: “He wanted his grandchildren to have a future because of the work he put in.”
He is pictured on the walls at Sam’s No. 3, always in view of the owning brothers.
Spero’s granddaughter is a server here representing the fourth generation, and he looks on proud. As does her father, Sam.
And still, dreams prevail.
“I don’t have grandchildren yet,” Sam says, “but I’m constantly thinking about, What legacy am I gonna leave them?”
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