Map of San Francisco Style Sourdough Eatery
Two years ago, Brian Hamilton couldn't imagine being here, in Henderson, running a sandwich shop with his wife, Jane. Two years ago, he was a lecturer on engineering at Wakefield College in England, the only home he had known.
But much has happened in the meantime. Hamilton, owner of the newly opened San Francisco Sourdough Eatery on St. Rose Parkway, now works 80 hours a week instead of fewer than 40. He and Jane, along with their 5-year-old daughter, Kennedy, have settled on a new continent.
Sometimes, Hamilton said, he misses home, where two children from a previous marriage and all of his extended family still live, but the couple wanted to give Kennedy access to the opportunities available in America. He credits his wife with their early success here.
"If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be sitting here," Hamilton said, calling Jane the optimist to his pessimism.
"She's the one that drives it. She makes it work."
Jane Hamilton, 47, said she fell in love with Las Vegas 20-some years ago when she came, like many others, as a visitor to the Strip. Brian Hamilton, 54, said he'd never been to the United States, but was ready to make a move.
With all the paperwork complete and the deli up and running, Jane Hamilton said she couldn't be happier.
"I love every minute of this," she said. "I feel really at home here."
Two years ago, Jane Hamilton made a radical suggestion: Pick up their lives in England and move to America. Leaving England had always been a goal, she said. She never wanted to wonder, "What if?" at the end of her life.
After talking with some expatriates who had made a permanent move to the United States, the couple determined that pursuing a business venture seemed like the easiest way to earn a visa.
"It's the American dream, isn't it?" Brian Hamilton said with a laugh, adding on a more somber note that the Hamiltons had put "everything we have" into the venture -- including selling their house in Britain.
Las Vegas - which Jane Hamilton called "her favorite place" in the U.S. – was always their destination of choice. But the business model went through an evolution, going from a frame shop in Summerlin to their deli in Henderson after Brian Hamilton found the San Francisco Sourdough Eatery franchise online.
The company, which was founded in 1999, has fewer than 20 locations across the U.S., and the Hamiltons' is its newest. Brian Hamilton said after the CEO called the couple himself, he was sold.
It helped that the food was delicious.
The restaurant serves a variety of deli sandwiches, served on freshly baked sourdough bread intended to harken back to the original founders' roots in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Brian Hamilton said the venture is resonating well with valley residents and, so far, they’re happy. The job is filled with pressure but a warm reception from the neighborhood has made it easier.
"That's what's keeping me going. They've embraced us," he said. Jane Hamilton joked that their accents must have helped.
"I'm proud of what we've achieved, whether it succeeds or not," Brian Hamilton added. "But we just want it all to work. We want to stay here."
The San Francisco Sourdough Eatery is located at the corner of St. Rose and Paseo Verde parkways. It is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday.
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