With less than 24 hours notice, hundreds came out to Shiloh Temple International Ministries to honor the memory of Sammy McDowell with a community barbeque and a balloon release. 

The gathering was a testament to McDowell’s spirit, which touched the lives of so many in Minneapolis and beyond. The balloon release was timed for 6:30 p.m. CST so communities in Chicago, Dallas, Arizona, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, North Carolina and Arizona, could release balloons at the same time.

McDowell, the beloved owner of Sammy’s Avenue Eatery at 1101 West Broadway Ave. in Minneapolis died unexpectedly Sunday. He opened the cafe in 2012, which was the subject of an episode of YouTube Series Small Business Revolution in 2021. His cafe has been a beacon to many looking for a safe gathering place, including in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, when the eatery became a hub and meeting place for community activists. 

As demand for Sammy’s much loved sandwiches rose, McDowell had been expanding. Just last year, he expanded into a space in Golden Thyme in St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood. 

Looking around at community members gathered at his church Tuesday, Bishop Richard D. Howell, Jr. said McDowell “would love this.” His reach across communities was wide and people and God were his true passion, the pastor said. 

“He’d probably be somewhere cooking right now,” Howell said. “He’d probably be cooking hamburgers, something like that, because that’s the kind of person he was. Just to see this community, that’s what he was all about.” 

His impact on the corridor

Ward 5 Council Member Jeremiah Ellison met McDowell long before Ellison served in office. They met when Ellison was in his early 20s when he had an art studio above Juxtaposition Arts. As was the case for so many north Minneapolis and West Broadway area residents, Ellison would head down to Sammy’s Eatery on a regular basis. 

“He could have fostered a space where it was get in and get out, right? He didn’t foster that space. He fostered a space where people can hang out, where he was gonna hire youth – Black youth and queer youth,” Ellison said. “Sammy was not going to tell you what to do or how to act, but he was going to provide a safe space for you to experiment and grow and be yourself and mature.” 

Ellison emphasized that McDowell and Sammy’s Avenue Eatery disproved many narratives about what it is like to run a business on the West Broadway corridor.

“I remember when people were saying, ‘Well, businesses can’t come here because we don’t have the workforce, we don’t have a talented enough workforce.’ He was hiring people locally, and then just training them up to the top,” Ellison said. “ I think that, in every way that people described the market failure of the corridor, he went and disproved that – he hired locally, paid well, and trained people.”

DeVon Nolen, market and outreach manager for the West Broadway Farmers Market also spoke about how McDowell embodied the spirit of north Minneapolis business. She first got to know McDowell while working at the West Broadway Business Area Coalition where she later served on the coalition’s board. 

“Sammy was 10 toes down, that’s what we’d say. Sammy was 10 toes down,” Nolen said. “There’s commerce happening here in north Minneapolis. That’s the story that doesn’t always get told here, about the businesses that we do have that do well because they have a high level of intentionality.”

His employees 

“I met Sammy when I was working for a nonprofit and my contract didn’t get renewed. I was trying to figure out what to do,” Joel Martinez said at the balloon release. 

It was 2014 and Martinez found himself at Sammy’s Avenue Eatery two days in a row. The first day, a new eatery employee never showed up for work. The second day Martinez came in, McDowell was by himself. 

“I opened my laptop and (McDowell) goes, ‘You, register,’ and that was the beginning,” Martinez said with a laugh.

Eight months later, Martinez was still working with McDowell in the early years of Sammy’s Avenue Eatery. Eventually, he helped train new staff, including youth. 

McDowell was known for helping people get “second chance” jobs at the cafe. But he also helped teenagers get their first job experience. Teaching youth often meant going “back to the basics,” Martinez said, like reminding them to wash their hands, teaching basic customer service, and emphasizing the importance of showing up on time to work. 

McDowell also employed Martinez’s mother Bertha Martinez, who, during the balloon release, proudly showed a picture of herself working at Sammy’s Avenue Eatery.

Bertha Martinez had been retired when McDowell asked her to come on part time. Both came from a customer service background. Though Bertha Martinez does not speak much English, she and McDowell understood each other through food. 

“They just clicked together,” Joel Martinez said of the relationship between his mother and McDowell. 

Sandwiches were Sammy’s vehicle to build community 

After the balloons were released, Robbin Brown walked up to McDowell’s sister, Shaawn-Dai McDowell, and gave her a big hug. The two reminisced about their youth. Brown said McDowell adopted her into his family. Brown worked with Sammy for a time at KFC where McDowell had risen to manager at age 16. 

“We would always get together. We’d always eat. We’d share and we’d always talk about the lord,” said Brown. “He’s definitely going to be missed. This is just a fraction of people who knew him. The funeral is going to be, woh.”

When Sammy McDowell walked into a room, you knew it, said pastor Andre Dukes, assistant pastor at Shiloh Temple International Ministries. He had an attitude of possibility and a big smile. 

“You knew when he came into a room, there was going to be a calm, because that was his presence. Sammy was always calm. He never got angry, visibly. He may have been angry internally, but he always showed a peaceful, calm front. He was always loving and encouraging.” 

But he would challenge people too, Dukes said. He would not be angry or judgemental, but McDowell would challenge people to be better. 

“He would challenge us to really pay attention to what mattered the most and to not get distracted by all of the things that were going on around us, but to really focus on life, focus on love, focus on God,” said Dukes. 

So many of those who knew McDowell said the same thing: He’d give you the shirt off his back. 

“When I first met Sammy, he was singing in the choir,” Dukes reminisced. That was more than 20 years ago. The pastor said McDowell was a phenomenal artist. As he grew, his art became sandwiches, but all throughout, his passion remained in unifying people. 

“And even though he had a passion for making sandwiches, sandwiches were really just a vehicle to build community,” Dukes said.

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