Samy Sabil didn’t start out life thinking he’d wind up deeply, happily entrenched in a little town on eastern Long Island, doling out comforting, satiating staples to a community that would come to view him as a Southold staple himself. But then again, Sabil didn’t think he’d make it to his 13th birthday.
It was a core-shaking, life-altering experience, and it radically shaped his outlook on life in fundamental ways — in craving connection and community, managing to be simultaneously ever-calm and always on the move, thinking up new ideas and possibilities. And perhaps the most indelible result of that brush with death: Instead of thinking of every reason not to do the things that are challenging or even a little scary, Sabil’s move-forward mantra is always the same: “Why not?!”
It’s an ethos that led him from Morocco to Atlanta to Nashville to the North Fork and so many adventures in between. It’s what’s made him and his decade-strong North Fork Shack the kind of modern-minded eatery with an old-school soul that feels at once entirely fresh and somehow like it’s been part of the local fabric forever. What’s the secret sauce? In a word, Sabil.
IT’S THE CLIMB
Now in its 10th year, The North Fork Shack (41150 Route 48, Southold, 631-876-5566) has become a place where people come not just to soothe their hunger via Sabil and his crew’s creatively classic menu of sandwiches and then some, but to share their successes, shoot the breeze over a local beer and a tender pulled lamb pita or fried chicken sandwich, or hatch plans over avocado hummus. And that’s just how Sabil likes it.
The menu here is like looking at a scrapbook of Sabil’s life, with influences from his home country of Morocco, time spent living down South, treks to Hawaii and L.A. and, of course, the beautiful seaside, fresh-catch influence of eastern Long Island. Everything here is homemade; everything here is hauled in fresh and, as often as possible, locally, from the tuna and pickled seaweed in the poke bowl straight from Charlie Manwaring’s Southold Fish Market to the abundant Latham Farm-sourced veggies on your plate or sandwich.
Sabil is also constantly tinkering to make meals a little healthier, like sweetening sauces and syrups with dates — a staple in Morocco — instead of sugar, making life better and more nutrient-dense for both his loved ones and customers, something always at the front of his very, very active mind. All that life-affirming influence can inarguably be traced to Sabil’s brush with death.
At just 12 years old he was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare, aggressive form of pediatric cancer that affects one in every 4.4 million children worldwide. It’s the kind of thing that would make most people say ‘Why me?’ but had the exact opposite effect on Sabil.
“I had cancer and I wasn’t supposed to make it, but I did. So everything seems like gravy. I try not to really stress out. Worst-case scenario I put a sign on the door and say, ‘Sorry, we’ll be back tomorrow,’” he says. “I think the survival rate at the time — this was 1996 in Morocco — was like below 20 percent. But I was lucky with the kind of doctors [I had] and just had faith, pushed through and somehow made it.”
ALL ROADS LEAD TO THE NORTH FORK
Once he realized he would be around to do so, Sabil began to dream about seeing the world but didn’t know where to start. His hunger to explore was encouraged by his dad, who worked for Moroccan Airlines and had seen much of the globe himself.
“Growing up speaking French, it would have been easier to pick either Paris or Montreal. A lot of Moroccans I went to school with end up in one or the other, but for some reason it didn’t feel right,” Sabil says. “My dad recommended I go visit a friend of my uncle [who] lived in Atlanta at the time.”
He spent about a year in Georgia, learning English and the local culture. In 2002, he decided to give Nashville a try, striking out to start a small business there while taking online classes at night through Vanderbilt University. He was just 19 years old.
Sabil stayed in Music City for a couple years, but all the while he felt a pull to come to the Empire State.
“I don’t know if it’s an immigrant thing, but I just wanted New York,” he laughs. “Like, I always fantasized about New York and I’d always wanted to live in the city. So I made my way up, but after six months, I’m like, ‘This is not for me!’”
And then that ‘Why not?’ kicked in. Knowing absolutely no one and with no idea of what it would be like, Sabil hopped on a Jitney for a daytrip to the North Fork. And that was that. “I fell in love with it,” he says.
ROOM AT THE INN
That same day, Sabil heard about a buzzy little restaurant project called the North Fork Table & Inn owned by heavy-hitter New York chefs Gerry Hayden and Claudia Fleming and their partners Mike and Mary Mraz. Sabil decided to walk right in and apply for a job.
“I knocked at the door and Claudia opened it, and she had this big smile,” he says. “She called Mary over, and by the time I got home they called me and asked me if I wanted to come back the next day to train.”
He started bussing tables. Within a week, he was a waiter. Within a year, he was a manager.
“Mike really got me into wine. He was just not pretentious. He was approachable,” Sabil says. “I’ve learned so much from all of them, but especially Mike was like a big brother.”
Sabil got his sommelier certification from the Sommelier Society of America and began to deep dive into the endlessly fun world of flavors and combinations of them with wine and food. He also started making friends — in particular, a fellow waiter named Ryan Flatley.
Flatley, a North Fork native, and Sabil had an instant connection and started to dream about maybe starting a little catering business on the side. They started their side hustle in 2008, and by 2015 a little party here and there had turned into weddings and solid bookings all year long — and they needed a bigger kitchen than the one they were working out of. A fellow NoFo Table colleague rang up Sabil and let him know he owned a building on Sound Avenue and the current tenant, an old machine shop that had made a part for the aircraft company Cessna, was leaving. It was a great space, but… there was a lot of it.
“We realized we have so much space, and the health department was willing to approve a small restaurant up front, so we figured, why not?” Sabil says. “We’re here every day. Let’s do a restaurant.” On April 27, 2016, The North Fork Shack made its debut.
BACK AT THE SHACK
Ten years later, Flatley has stepped back from the business but he and Sabil remain very close and his influence is apparent, like in the floors they laid or in the names of the long communal dining tables built by their friend Johnny Dollar, each dubbed for something or someone meaningful to the duo — like Nilnod, the name of Flatley’s grandfather’s fishing boat (it’s his grandfather’s last name spelled backwards).
Most of the staff and cooks have been with Sabil for years on end. He cooks, too, but is quick to honor the skill of his work family. And then there are the kids of customers who’ve grown up chowing down at the Shack and then grab summer jobs there as they get older.
“We’ve been lucky because we make friends from our customers all the time, and we get to meet their kids when they’re like six, seven, eight, and next thing you know they’re 14 and the parents ask you, ‘Can they work?’” Sabil says. “And that’s every summer we get these kids. Then they go through high school, go to college, and then every time they’re here, they’ll come here.”
The main menu — hammered out between Flatley and Sabil a scant three days before they opened — has remained largely the same since, with a rotating seasonal specials menu also offered, allowing Sabil and the current staff to stretch their creativity and add in bits and pieces of their cultures, their favorite foods or just things they’re jazzed about. Some even wind up on the permanent board high above the main counter (like Sabil’s wife, Jade Duell, and her penchant for Hawaiian-style poke bowls).
But those regulars are hard to beat. The sweet meat and piquant kick of the shrimp ceviche with house-made chips; the textural joy of digging into the Shack’s take on a classic wedge salad with its sweet-tart bite of matchstick-sliced green apples, candied cashews, salty crumbled bacon and quenching crunch of local romaine lettuce; the gorgeous give of impossibly tender meat in the pita-nestled pulled lamb, the meat’s unique earthy flavor accented by briny house-pickled cucumbers and roasted peppers, a yogurt-based sauce spiked with harissa and paprika pulling it all together.
Everyone’s got their favorites, Sabil has learned.
“Every year we go through the process of elimination on what sticks and what doesn’t. But what’s on the board are things that, if we take them off, people get mad!” he laughs. “We have people that come once a week, get the same thing. Once we tried taking the fish off, and this lady just sent me a long email. It was very heartfelt.”
This fall, though, Sabil has added something new to the menu: Argentine grill nights, using a custom-made traditional apparatus to feed and entertain customers in the ample outside space at its myriad picnic tables, along with lawn games and sometimes kid-friendly movies. It’s a night out for families, he says.
“You know, we’re here to make people happy. I think everybody is kind. You just need to give them a way to show it. And we all just love food. I love food! It’s always been therapy for me,” Sabil says. “It is fun. It’s hard work. It’s taxing, but it is something that we all enjoy doing here. Even when it gets very stressful, it still has a little bit of joy in it.”
