Hello.

So you found us. Most people find us the same way, which is to say by accident. You come to Clearwater for the water, you hike out to the caves, you end up sunburnt and hungry on the beach at Pioneer Bay, and then you smell fries. That’s the whole story, really.

Sam’s has been at Pioneer Bay longer than most of the people who love it. The building is a converted bathhouse from the fifties with a kitchen bolted onto the back and a counter facing the sand. We haven’t changed much about it, and we don’t plan to. The roof is yellow because the roof has always been yellow.

We’re a seasonal place in a short season. That’s just what we are.

We open on the May long weekend. We close on the September long weekend. In between we are open every single day, from ten in the morning until whenever the beach empties out, which on a hot Saturday in July might mean ten at night. In the off-season the sign comes down, the chairs go into storage, and we go home.

We serve fries, burgers, hot dogs, and soft serve. We also serve poutine, which is the reason a lot of people drive up here on purpose. We use good ingredients and we cook them to order. We do not have a brunch menu. We do not do charcuterie. We are not trying to be a restaurant. We are trying to be a snack bar, which is a more specific and honest thing.

For the last few summers we’ve also had a small fleet of kayaks, paddleboards, canoes, and a handful of bikes. This came about because enough people were asking — if you’re spending the afternoon at the beach anyway, it turns out you’d like to paddle around for an hour. So we figured out how to do that, and now we do.

The lake is the real attraction. Clearwater is one of only a few lakes in the world with water this clear — you can see down forty feet on a calm day. It’s spring-fed, which means it’s cold, which means most people yell when they jump in. We like that sound.

Come by. Try the fries. Get a kayak out for an hour. Watch the sun go down from the dock. Stay for the weekend if you can, a week if you can manage it. We’ll be at the counter.