I was a fan of Sam and his restaurants, but unlike Roy Yamaguchi, I don't think Sam spent enough time maintaining quality and preserving his "brand" Sam had a lot of initial cache with his original place outside of Kona (I loved it) and I was happy with BLC when it first opened, but I, like others, saw it decline over the years. That seems to be a trend with Sam's restaurants. The current Kona restaurant is run by his sister, I believe. I don't think Sam is much into the day-to-day operations these days.