Walk into Sammy’s Bakery in Ginter Park on any given morning and you’ll find an array of Danish, pies and quiches. You’ll have your choice of muffins and pastries, not to mention breads, cakes and cookies. But make your choice quickly, because, like its proprietor and creative mastermind, Sammy’s Bakery is constantly evolving.

“We’re still working on our bakery’s persona,” says Sam Marques, between helping customers on a recent morning. “I have things I’d like to add to our repertoire. It’s a matter of customer appeal.”

Marques, a first-generation immigrant from Portugal, favors European-style baked goods. I’d like to “move away from muffins and crumb cakes and into things like éclairs and puff pastries. There’s a dearth of it…so it would be more of a niche for me.”

If anyone knows about different niches, it’s Marques. The tanned and rugged-looking 61-year-old is a renaissance man even by Leonardo da Vinci standards. Some of his former incarnations have included linguist for the U.S. Navy (he speaks English, Portuguese and Thai), actor and playwright, stand-up comedian, hotel worker, restaurateur, construction company owner and now pastry chef and baker. In every endeavor, maybe none more so than the current one, Marques has been guided by a willingness to take chances on his creativity.

At 23 he gave stand-up and acting a go in New York City. “I was told frequently, ‘Dude, you’re not standup. You’re a storyteller. You’re a raconteur.’”
Marques moved to Richmond in 1985 and continued with acting and comedy, but he began to focus more on storytelling. He’s written and performed two one-man plays, one of which, “Did God Call While I Was Out?” focuses on a central experience of his childhood.

“My parents announced at supper one night that they had gotten the call from God to be missionaries. And I’m going, ‘When did this happen? I’m here all the time. We pray at dinner. That would be a good time for God to speak. It wasn’t then.’”

The play traces those five years with his missionary parents. “I take liberties with organized religion, parenting, all kinds of stuff. It’s told through the eyes of a child.”

It was during those years that Marques discovered his love of a story well told.

“I’d be sitting and listening to sermons and preachers from Borneo and Madagascar and God knows where. And some of them were good storytellers. I’d watch and observe. How they got the audience involved, their voice, the musicality of it.”

Marques has performed his plays and storytelling routines in front of anyone interested—“church basements, civic groups, that bar upstairs across from Sticky Rice”—but performing was always just one of his many interests.

“It never got to the point where that was it and I got matching luggage,” he jokes. “It was just as well, perhaps. I like to dabble in my painting and drawing and writing. My son and I are talking about doing some sketches about retail because we have some characters wander in here.”

Sammy’s Bakery has been open just over a year, and Marques is largely self-taught as a chef and baker. He relies on his natural creativity to alter and improve recipes.

“I’m not a book learner. I learn by doing and watching,” he says. “I glom onto information and once I do it, it’s there.”

Sammy’s Bakery
4019 MacArthur Avenue
264.2063