Column as I See ‘Em July 2025 – Saratoga Report Publisher Dan DeFedericis shares his thoughts, concerns, hopes, and (hopefully) a little humor about the Saratoga region, horse racing and more

 

Our world is changing so quickly and so is the city of Saratoga Springs.  It almost feels like we are experiencing an exponential effect every few years here in the Spa City as far as changes, development etc.  Here’s are my rather random thoughts based on my recent observations:

 

• I mentioned in my last column that the Daily Gazette hired Tom Dimopoulos away from Saratoga Today.  And some point along the way, I believe late May, they also hired sports writer Drew Wemple.  He was a prolfic sports writer for the Saratogian and sure put out a lot of copy, so it says here the Gazette hit a double for sure with the hiring of both Wemple and Dimopoulos.

• Sticking with news publications, you may have noticed that Saratoga Report is picking up stories from The Dispatch.  This is a new online newspaper for Saratoga – and beyond it seems.  It was created recently by two media pros, Abby Tegnelia, who you might recognize as she was the CEO of Saratoga Living for a number of years up to 2024, and Steve Thurston, most recentily of the Post-Star and before that, his own Foothills Daily.  They are breaking some stories and also giving their take on other area news.  You can read their material, which is free for a short period longer, by signing up here.  Their subscription rate is modest so why not get some insightful local news from people that live here for a monthly rate less than you’d pay for something at Starbucks?

• I really like Treehouse Brewing, and am looking forward to sitting there with my family, including our dogs (yes plural), and enjoying some pizza and brew.  Trouble is, to listen to the cult following that hyped it up prior to its arrival from New England, you’d think one sip of their IPA and all your problems would instantly disappear and you’d swear off drinking any other brand of beer forever.  Not quite. But in all fairness, that’s simply this guy’s opinion.  My friend Nate is all on board the Treehouse Train and he wrote in a group text I am part of “Consider me a card-carrying cult member.  The beer is phenomenal.”  Duly noted.

• Bouncing around: This is old news but Adirondack Cigar, on Putnam Street across from the Library, closed earlier this year.  I am told some offices in the former Borders/Fingerpaint building will be occupied by the end of the month.  Finally I’m told (but haven’t confirmed) that the Burger Fi location will be filled by….another Burger Fi – in this case a different franchise owner.  OK.  I do miss an occasional shake from there.

• My friend went to Siro’s last Thursday night at the beginning of the Fourth of July weekend racing.  He said there were a few people inside but the backyard, which had a band, was absolutely dead.  I guess people aren’t ready (or aware?) for (of)  Siro’s in the first few days of July.

• Many of the older hotels that were on Broadway and South Broadway sayyyy, south of Congress Park, are either gone or not currently open for various reasons.  I’ll list them all here, going from north to south, and their current status:

  • Community Court Motel – currently being renovated, rooms not available.

  • Holiday Inn – Currently Operating

  • The Inn at Saratoga – Currently Operating

  • Stay Saratoga (FKA The Carriage House Inn) Currently Operating

  • St. Francis Motel – Vacant

  • The Springs Motel – Vacant and For Sale

  • St. Charles Motel – Currently undergoing renovations – read here.

  • Turf and Spa Motel – Demolished to make way for AC Marriott Hotel, which should open in next month or two.

  • Crystal Spa Motel and Grand Union Motel – not functioning as motels currently but the Grand Union Motel is currently the Code Blue Shelter.  One would have to think once Code Blue moves to its new location those forlorn buildings will be demolished to make way for some version of residential housing as has previously been proposed.

  • There are additional hotels, motels and inns continuing south on S. Broadway into Malta that are all currently operating.

• So PJ and Carolyn Davis officially announced what most already knew, that the beloved restaurant PJ’s BAR-B-QSA is indeed closed for good and that the property is under contract to be sold.  I really loved PJ’s and am sad, but at the same time I am happy PJ and Carolyn, who worked hard as school teachers and then restauranteurs for many decades, get to retire under their own terms and enjoy some time to themselves.  They were kind enough to give me the exclusive official announcement to post on Saratoga Report as we go back many years.  Happy Trails.

• From PJ’s to AJ’s.  PJ’s BAR-B-QSA isn’t the only longtime business in the Spa City due to (likely) close in the near future. AJ’s Dry Cleaner, on Lincoln Ave for as long as I can recall, has been for sale for a long time now and currently has a notification on the for sale sign that the property is under contract.  With the prices of Saratoga Real Estate these days, I can’t imagine the new owner will continue running a dry cleaning business there, but to be clear I don’t know the future status of AJ’s.  The owners told me about a year back that they would like to retire, so good for them – they worked hard for many years.  Like PJ’s, you hate to see these Mom & Pop’s go only to see the property replaced by condos or a completely different establishment, but it’s nice to see hard-working people wind down under their own terms and get a nice little nest egg on their way out the door.

• At some point when I wasn’t looking, 93.3 Lake FM, which was Star Saratoga Radio until it changed to Lake FM last September, became 93.3 Fun FM.  It retains its agreeable playlist of mostly 80s tunes, but despite its claim to be based in Saratoga Springs it feels like a lot of it is coming from elsewhere.  But that’s all irrelevant when you get to hear Paula Abdul and Roxette back-to-back on the drive to Stewart’s. Fun!  “Straight up now tell me
  Do you really want to love me forever oh, oh, oh
  Or am I caught in a hit-and-run?”

• Oh crazy Saratoga politics, you never disappoint.

• If anyone high up in the Federal Government is reading this, can we hold off on the tariff threats (and worse) towards our friends in Canada until after track season?  We happen to like those Canadian tourists, or at least their money, and all of these aggressive steps will, you know, tend to dampen their desire to drive across the border to bet on the ponies.

• Man that Bass Pro Shop being built down in Clifton Park, which seems to be placed just a few feet of the southbound lanes of the Northway, sure is getting closer to the finish line.  OK, I’m hitting the opening day sale and Santa’s bringing the kids fishing rods this Christmas whether they like it or not!  A new tackle box for Mommy too.

• I’m redundant on this issue but it just keeps getting worse.  The traffic on Rt. 50, Weibel Ave etc. near exit 15 is just awful and annoying. It’s not so much the traffic but the lights that I always seem to catch red and seem to take forever to cycle through.

• You need to be crafty – or just plain aggressive – to get a parking spot at the Triangle Diner.  But when you get 1,800 calories of skillet-fried breakfast goodness placed in front of you, it’s all so worth it!

• I shared my “1,800 calorie” comment on a text group I am part of and my friend Jeff quipped “1,800 calories is The Triangle’s diet special”.  Ha!

• Continuing on artery-clogging breakfasts, I had this point all written up how it would be great if a Saratoga restaurant served some sort of breakfast with spam in it.  Not that I necessarily like spam (You don’t want to see the sausage or the spam made)  but just because it’s a quintissential American product and the basis for a classic Monty Python skit.  So, don’t ya know, The Counter at 5 Points serves a breakfast sandwich with spam – actually seared spam – on it.  Good for them.  Extra points if they come out and sing “Spa-a-a-a-a-a-a-am, Spa-a-a-a-a-a-a-am, Spa-a-a-a-a-a-a-am, Spa-a-a-a-a-a-a-am Lovely Spam! Wonderful Spam!  Lovely Spam! Wonderful Spam….”

• And staying with that location, I stopped in for coffee and a snack at The Counter at Five Points with my friend Bruce last week.  I like everything that the new proprietors are doing – especially the music – and you should check it out too.  Saratoga Living posted a fun article on the new establishment last week.

• Let me say this without qualifiers:  There is just way too much racing at Saratoga this year, and the track has been lightly attended by many counts.  Sure, it’s way more than would have been at Aqueduct, but there are more people at your average Stewart’s than there are at Aqueduct on a race day – so it’s hardly a valid metric.  I get that it makes perfect business sense, at least in the short run, for NYRA to load up on Saratoga dates.  But I worry as many of you do that too much Saratoga racing takes the magic away.  Don’t kill that golden goose NYRA!

• And while I’m talking about Saratoga’s three (yes three) track seasons,  whatever happened to the ferris wheel that was supposed to be part of the Fourth of July Racing Festival?  I forgot all about that, and apparently so did NYRA.

• Continuing on with NYRA tracks, when they open the new Belmont next year, what is the over/under on how many hours it will be before they announce the end of Aqueduct as we know it?  And to those of you that are not horse racing fans, understand that issue is not just a horse racing concern – it’s a Saratoga Springs concern as well.  When the NYRA circuit goes down from three tracks to two (note that’s when not if), there will be many dates (perhaps weeks?) added to the Saratoga meet faster than you can say “daily double”.  What will that look like?  One would have to believe racing will start at least as early as fourth of July weekend, like it does this year.  Will is start even sooner?  Will they split it up and have two Saratoga meets?  Again –  they will only have two tracks to work with.  I would like to see NYRA go into September, perhaps Fridays/Saturdays and Sundays.  Why?  Well, it’s beautiful here in September but more importantly, horse racing needs younger fans and I’d have to believe September racing would bring plenty of the region’s 55,000 college students out to play…and bet…and come back to visit in the summers after they graduate – creating a bench, if you will, of future customers.  Just too much damn gray in this sport and the industry in general and NYRA specifically has to do better attracting younger fans.  I think that having Saratoga Racing in September and drawing in some college kids could be a step in the right direction to achieve that goal.

• It’s not just bottled water and potato chips that benefits from the Saratoga name in the retail world.  While searching Google recently I tripped across the “Saratoga Executive Section by Bush Furniture“.   Nothing says “Victorian charm” like ready-to-assemble home and office furniture.

• More evidence these articles mentioning Saratoga in their “Best downtowns” and “most walkable cities” pieces etc. are often AI crap:  This recently published list of “Top 10 Spots to Retire in Upstate New York” of course included Saratoga Springs and referred to Broadway as “Broadway Street”.  A human, or at least a human that’s ever visited The Spa City, would never have written that.

• Certain NYRA horse barns at both Aqueduct and Saratoga have been closed in recent weeks due to horses having a disease called “strangles”.  The internet tells me that strangles is caused by “….respiratory distress that horses can experience due to swollen lymph nodes, which can constrict the airway….”  So in other words, it’s like the horse is being strangled – hence the name.  Good lord, that sounds positively horrible.

• The Ballston Ave Chipotle is coming along…kind of slowly.  I’m not sure if it’s in the final stretch, but it’s perhaps entering the far turn.  Even after the construction is complete they still have to hire, train, stock etc.  – so I’ll guess a September opening.  How about a Spam burrito bowl?

• So Blues Traveler played in Saratoga in 2024 at the free Belmont concert, as did Gin Blossoms in 2025.  The Spin Doctors are scheduled to play a benefit conert at Therapeutic Horses of Saratoga this September. Now I see all three of these bands are on tour together. Is this an uncanny coincidence, or is there some sort of connection between the promoter and Saratoga?  I am not suggesting anything inappropriate occurred here, I just couldn’t help notice the commonality.

• And the festivities continue into mid summer – in a major league sort of way – after not one but two high school baseball teams here in Saratoga Springs won state championships.  The Saratoga Springs High School team, which  won the class AAA championship last month, will be honored in a pregame ceremony July 29th in Yankee Stadium before the game against Tampa Bay Rays.  And  exactly 2 weeks later, on August 12, Saratoga Central Catholic’s baseball Class C Championship team will be honored by the Bronx Bombers prior to their game that evening against the Minnesota Twins.  I don’t have a link to purchase tickets to the July game against Tampa, but here is a link from Spa Catholic to purchase tickets to the August 12 game where the Saints will be honored.

• One of the best Saratoga turf writers out there is someone not many of you know.  My friend Bill Gotimer Jr. is a wealth of information about horse racing, its history, its Saratoga history and more.  He’s got the facts, he’s got the gossip, and just like the late Paul Harvey, he usually has the rest of the story.  But  most importantly Bill has the gift of being a storyteller.  He writes a weekly column in Saratoga Today and in his first column of the season July 3rd he had a great quote from his grandmother that I would think almost everyone reading this will appreciate.  I will post Bill’s entire final paragraph, which contains his Grandmother’s quote, below.

Bill Gotimer Jr. in his July 3rd column in Saratoga Today:  In many ways, Saratoga is timeless – the more things change, the more they stay the same. A constant in an otherwise changing world. Each year I end my first column by quoting my grandmother – Gertrude Donovan Gotimer – an astute handicapper in her own right, who often said, “If you are lucky enough to be in Saratoga, you are lucky enough!” It’s a sentiment that seems apt each year and so it is again.

 

Take care folks and I hope you are all having a terrific summer.  Gertrude’s sage remark is worth repeating here:  “If you are lucky enough to be in Saratoga, you are lucky enough!”

 

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