Samantha's offers 'New South' dining

Nation's Restaurant News, Nov 3, 1986 by Alan Liddle

DuVall has owned and operated 15 restaurants since he gave up the advertising business in 1967 to open The Front Room, a San Francisco pizza joint. however, the promotional skills he learned in his first career are not going to waste.

A recent Maryland Soft Shell Crab Festival at Samantha's boosted daily sales by as much as 10%, DuVall said. For $14.95, customers could choose to have their "softies" prepared in one of six regional styles, ranging from smoked and served with green tomato relish to sauteed and accompanied by a lime-chive sauce.

DuVall scored big with Cajun and Creole food in 1981, when he and his partners opened the Elite Cafe in San Francisco, which he claims was the first restaurant west of the rockies to serve blackened redfish. He has since sold his interest in the still-popular restaurant.

In addition to Samantha's, the 46-year-old DuVall watches over the successful Cajun-Creole Ritz Cafe in Los Angeles, which he owns in partnership with Carolyn Chandler. He is also developing a new Caribbean concept to open in that city in January.

DESPITE THE continued success of the Elite and an impressive $3.9 million in annual sales for the Los Angeles Ritz Cafe, DuVall expressed a belief that most of the Cajun and Creole restaurants that popped up during the past few years are too narrowly defined and are in trouble.

His gloomy prediction for Cajun and Creole Restaurants that are late into the market was no doubt fueled by his own struggle to make profitable a New York Ritz Cafe, which he opened last year and sold last month. "I think people have had enough of the [strictly] Cajun thing," he said. "It [Southern cooking] can't be a gimmick anymore; it has to settle down and be substantial."