Work ethic, heart drive businessman

2010-07-05T07:47:00.000-07:00

Sam Mustafa

By Bryce Donovan

The Post and Courier

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Sam Mustafa is a firm believer in second chances.

Maybe it's because when he was 19 and failing out of Southern Illinois University, his father didn't afford him that same luxury. The elder Mustafa gave his son two options: Come back home to Kuwait or support himself.

Photo by Wade Spees

The Post and Courier

Sam Mustafa sits in one of his two Market Street Saloon locations as bar staffers Reigni Putman (from left), Jenny Bachofner, Melissa Tankersley, Jordanne Layman, Rennee Shuler, Meghan Lacey and Megan Papageorge look on.

Provided

Mustafa with his mother, Wedad, in Jordan.

Provided

Mustafa and son Eli at Memorial Waterfront Park in Mount Pleasant.

About Sam

Age: 40.

Born: Kuwait.

Occupation: Owner, Toast! restaurant and Market Street Saloon (both the downtown and North Charleston locations); plans to open two more restaurants in the next year.

Family: Son, Eli; five brothers.

He chose the latter, and ever since, the 40-year-old Market Street Saloon owner has been living by the ideal that sometimes people need more than one shot to get things right.

"It's up to us as human beings to help make bad people good," he says.

That doesn't mean he necessarily disagrees with his father's tough love back in 1989. In fact, it was probably just the kick in the pants he needed to get his life on track. But Mustafa's well-intentioned kindness and willingness to assume the best in others hasn't always worked out the way he might have liked.

Take two

After making the decision to go it alone, Mustafa quickly realized that being on his own isn't as much fun as it's cracked up to be.

He had no money, no job and a grade-point average of 0.064. Things didn't look good for the oldest of six brothers. But the gregarious

6-foot-6-inch Mustafa was determined to get his life back on track, and he applied for a job at McDonald's. That experiment lasted three weeks. Next he tried Domino's Pizza. This time he made it five weeks. Finally, there was Pizza Hut. That gig lasted three months.

Though none of the jobs was exactly what Mustafa would call fun times, he did learn several valuable lessons, most notably: He hated working for somebody else.

During that five-month period, he saved up enough money to rent a tiny business space on the campus of Southern Illinois, where he opened a restaurant. He called it Sam's Cafe. One of the few employees he hired to work for him was an ex-con looking to get his life back on track. Mustafa thought the man deserved another shot, so he put him in charge of the kitchen.

Though the man began to flourish, the business did not. Mustafa was making so little that he could barely pay the rent each month. And that's when he decided to take a gamble.

A full-page ad in the weekly student newspaper was an easy way to generate more business, he thought. That was the good part. The bad: Those ads cost $800. Money he didn't have.

"I asked the girl who sold the ads," he says, " 'How long before you usually cash the check?' and she said, 'Two weeks.' "

With a devilish smile, Mustafa recounts writing the newspaper what he was certain was a bad check. But the day his full-page ad ran, he did $800 worth of business. The next, $800 more. After that, his restaurant really took off.

"That was the most money I had ever had in my life," he says, the pride still evident. "As it turns out, I was able to make good on that check after all."

And the troubled employee Mustafa hired? They ended up working together for several years before the man eventually left to run his own business.

First West, then East

After graduating from college with a 2.2 GPA (something he's relatively proud of considering the hole he had dug for himself) in May 1993, Mustafa started buying other small places around the SIU campus and opening more restaurants. Pizza places, pita joints, barbecue hangouts. Pretty soon, Mustafa began to earn a reputation for turning small spots into large successes.

"That boy was born to do business," says Mustafa's longtime friend and local businessman Robert Shahid. "Success came for him at an accelerated pace."

In December 1998, as somewhat of a personal reward, Mustafa and his then-girlfriend took a trip to Charleston, a place she had visited often as a child.

"I had never taken a vacation in my entire life," Mustafa recalls. "Almost immediately, Charleston sunk its teeth in. It was 64 degrees and the sun was shining all the time." Then he adds with a laugh, "Then we went back to Illinois a week later and it was 14 (degrees)."

It was a grip that would not turn him loose, so in 2000, Mustafa sold or leased all his Illinois restaurants and moved to the Holy City.

Family ties

Though it would seem that Mustafa finally had achieved the American dream, he wasn't wealthy. That's because after paying the bills each month, he would take whatever he had left and send it to his family in Kuwait. Among the many things that money went toward was the education of his five brothers.

"Sam did everything he could to send money to his family and help them out whenever possible," Shahid says. "He's a first-class guy."

Mustafa was determined to repeat his Illinois success here in Charleston, but quickly learned things were a little tougher than in the Midwest.

To make ends meet, he took a job managing an Arby's restaurant in North Charleston, then selling insurance. He even operated a liquor store for a short period of time. He did all those things just long enough to save the required amount of money to buy his first restaurant here in town: Toast.

It was there that he hired another man with a checkered past looking to get his life back on track. The man would serve as Mustafa's dishwasher for two years until one day he didn't show up for work. About a year later, the man returned, hoping to get his job back. Mustafa welcomed him back with open arms. It was a decision that later would put his life's motto to the test.

Broad daylight

One October afternoon as Mustafa was leaving Toast, he walked out of the building and ran into the guy he recently had rehired. Mustafa asked what he was doing, and the man replied, "I've just got something I need to do."

Mustafa didn't give it much thought and walked off to his car. As he turned on the ignition and began to put the car in gear there was a tap on the window. He looked out and saw the man standing there with a gun in his hand. He said to Mustafa: "Let's go for a ride."

"I'm looking around, not really sure what to do," Mustafa says. "At first I thought he was joking."

As the man went to get in the car, Mustafa tried to slam the door on his arm but before he could do that, the man got off a shot. The bullet entered Mustafa's chest on the left side and came to rest just centimeters from his spinal column. Confused and disoriented, he got our of his car and dropped to the ground. With his face on the pavement and the life draining from his body, he heard his car being driven off. And then everything went black.

For the next seven days, he underwent surgery after surgery to repair the extensive organ and tissue damage.

He recounts: "The doctor kept saying to me, 'You're so lucky. You're so lucky.' Somehow he missed all my major arteries when he shot me."

He taps his side and adds, "But the bullet's still in there."

Good karma

Despite that terrifying incident nearly three years ago, Mustafa says his faith in humankind has never wavered. In fact, when talking about the man who shot him, a man who may or may not end up serving jail time depending on the outcome of the trial, Mustafa says: "I wish him well. I really do."

Oddly enough, since that fateful day in 2007, things have started to fall into place for the 40-year-old divorcee. In 2008, he bought the Market Street Saloon and even opened another location in North Charleston. Today, he has a great relationship with his ex-wife and 10-year-old son, Eli. He's about to open two more restaurants in the next year. And one of his brothers is set to graduate from medical school later this month.

When a stranger recently hypothesized that Mustafa's penchant for helping out people with checkered pasts might have been the reason why he was shot, an old friend who knows him well said, "But Sam, that might also be why you lived."

Reach Bryce Donovan at 937-5938 or bdonovan@postandcourier.com.

Market Street Saloon expands to North Charleston

2010-06-30T11:12:00.000-07:00

By Denise K. James, Special to The Post and Courier

Thursday, May 20, 2010

I have to admit, country music and saloons aren't my thing. But every now and then, a savvy woman needs to open her mind and venture into new places.

The Market Street Saloon's location in North Chuck was better than I anticipated, with tasty food on its menu and a friendly bartender from Maryland named Jasmine Scheffel. She proved to me that a saloon can be fun, and she isn't afraid to get the atmosphere cranked up.

Q: How long has this location been open?

A: Since Halloween weekend.

Q: What's a perk of working here?

A: Dancing on the bar, of course! We have a bar and cocktail staff of all women, and we all dance. But you don't have to work here to dance. Any woman can do it.

Q: What's your bar background?

A: This is my first bartending job ever! I just switched over from active-duty Air Force to the reserves.

Q: Is it always country music playing?

A: We play country during the day mostly, and then at night we start switching it up -- you'll hear rock 'n' roll, hip-hop, even metal!

Q: Do you get any female customers? Is this bar woman friendly?

A: Definitely. We want the women to have fun and to come back! We've had the Charleston Southern women's basketball team in here before, and that's fun.

Q: What's the best item on your menu?

A: I go through phases. Right now, I love our wings. They're really good!

Q: What shot do you love serving?

A: The Saloon Kiss. It's raspberry vodka, peach schnapps and a splash each of sour mix and cranberry.

if you go

what: Market Street Saloon

where: 7690 Northwoods Blvd., North Charleston

phone: 576-4116

website: marketstreetsaloon.com

Q: What beers do you serve a lot of?

A: I'd say Guinness and Dogfish Ale and Fat Tire are popular beers. We also serve $1 Michelob Ultra, which people like.

Q: What other specials do you offer?

A: We have military Monday, where it's half off for military people to eat. We have lunch specials for $7.95 during the week. We do happy hour every day, even weekends.

Q: Have you ever had to deny someone a dance on the bar?

A: Oh, yes. People fall off sometimes.

Q: What's the grossest drink you've served?

A: Tequila and olive juice. Completely disgusting!

Q: What celebrity would you like to serve?