Category Archives: Business News

By Susan Elise Campbell

A brand new company is tapping into the market for locally crafted beer at 11-13 Washington St. in Ballston Spa, a building owned by the Elliott Family, who are business owners and long-time residents of the community.

Speckled Pig Brewing Co. will be the first in the village to not only serve their own beer on tap, but also to craft their products on site, according to R.J. Elliott, who is managing the project for the brewery’s five owners.

“Nearly two years ago my parents and I purchased a rundown building that we had eyed for many years,” said Elliott, a business analyst and recent graduate of the New York University master’s program in industrial engineering.

The Elliott Family paid $180,000 for a building that the owner George Hannahs used at one time for a storefront beauty salon and for storage over the decades..

Randy Elliott, R.J.’s father, is a local contractor and his construction company is responsible for the build-out. His mother is  Kelly Delaney Elliott, a long-time real estate agent, owns her own brokerage, Elliott Property Services LLC in Ballston Spa.

While the three Elliotts own the building, the brewery has two other co-owners, Larry and Mary Jo Heid.

“I met Kelly while looking for property in Ballston Spa,” Larry Heid said. “I had  started a home brewery with my son five years ago and was at a stage in my life when I was looking for something different.”

The Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce announced that Saratoga County Restaurant Week: Save Our Locals Edition will run from Thursday, Feb. 17, to Thursday, Feb. 24 at various restaurants in the area.

“We saw an outpouring of community support with Save Our Locals $20.21, and we wanted to take the opportunity to continue the momentum by reminding our residents that saving our locals doesn’t end now that it’s 2022,” said Todd Shimkus, Chamber president.

Similar to years past, participating restaurants will offer special menus for the week, which patrons will have a chance to enjoy with both takeout and dine-in options. In Save Our Locals fashion, patrons can submit their receipts from participating restaurants throughout the week for a chance to win one of a variety of gift cards.

“Driscoll Foods is thrilled to sponsor Saratoga County’s Restaurant Week: Save Our Locals Edition,” said Steven Donnelly, division vice president, Driscoll Foods. “Our locally owned restaurants are an integral part of Saratoga’s thriving community, and we wish to do all we can to support them in what are still difficult times for the industry. I look forward to seeing the menus these talented chefs come up with and enjoying a great meal with family and friends.”

“Saratoga Eagle is a family-run business whose headquarters started right here in Saratoga Springs,” said John Rogan, general manager, Saratoga Eagle. “Saratoga County was built on small, family-owned, local businesses, and we want to make sure that tradition continues! It’s exciting to have the opportunity to be part of this event, and, as a sponsor, Saratoga Eagle is proud to contribute with Kona Brewing so we can spread liquid aloha and warm thoughts to everyone!”

The Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce has been spearheading the annual event for the last five years. Most recently, during the height of COVID-19, the Chamber reimagined Restaurant Week as Takeout Month, transforming the traditional event into a month-long opportunity for residents to support local restaurants across the county while also remaining socially distant and staying safe with take-out options.

By Paul Post

Athletes from across the country are converging on Gore Mountain this month, setting the stage for one of the world’s largest sports spectacles a year from now.

The Holeshot Cross Tour (held Feb. 5-11) and USASA Futures Tour ( held Feb. 11-18) give the nation’s top junior freestyle skiers and snowboarders a chance to earn points in their quest to race professionally.

“These are two types of events, ski cross and slope style, we’ll be hosting for next year’s World University Games as well as big air,” said Stephanie Backes, Gore Mountain marketing director. “It’s putting Gore on the map for this caliber of competition and exposing us to people from around the country who have never been here before. It definitely helps lodging and restaurant business.”

World University Games are surpassed in size only by the Olympics, with about 1,600 athletes from 50 nations expected for next year’s competition based in Lake Placid. But Gore will host all freestyle skiing and boarding events, further enhancing its already prominent role as an economic engine in Warren County’s winter tourism industry.

Gore hosted 217,000 guests last winter, up significantly from the 189,000 who visited in 2019/20. Backes attributed this to the COVID-19 pandemic that sparked a major rise in all types of outdoor activity as many other forms of entertainment weren’t available.

In addition, the pandemic gave people working from home more opportunities to take time off. Last year, Gore saw a huge rise in midweek, non-holiday period visits, which have leveled off a bit this winter, but are still higher than pre-COVID attendance.

Through Jan. 31, the state-owned center had welcomed 101,000 visitors this year, with more than two full months to go.

By Susan Elise Campbell

A new Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, a southern style chicken restaurant, opened in Halfmoon, the latest franchise to be launched by Liberty Restaurants Holdings of Albany LLC.

According to company president and CEO Laddi Singh, the Clifton Park area “has been one of our top markets since we opened our first franchised restaurant, a Burger King, in 2013.”

Singh and his brother Rana Kaknia have opened three franchises thus far in 2022, the most recent of which is the one located at 483 Route 146, Halfmoon.

“At least 10 more Popeyes restaurants will follow in the upstate New York and Connecticut markets this year,” said Singh. “We are always open to exploring new opportunities if they make sense.”

The Saratoga area will be part of that.

“We want everyone to be able to try us out without having to drive too far, so this is just the beginning for us in and around Saratoga County,” Singh said.

LRH currently owns and operates 26 Popeyes, six Burger Kings, and five Arby’s, Singh said. “Through investment in top-notch operations, we have been able to expand at a rapid pace.”

Many more franchises are in various stages of planning. Singh said the company has signed a large-scale development agreement in upstate New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania to build more than 30 restaurants over the next few years.

Sunrise Management & Consulting in Latham has grown its multifamily apartment portfolio with the purchase of Halfmoon Garden Apartments in Clifton Park and Canfield Apartments in Gansevoort. 

The sale was brokered by Dean and Ryan Taylor of Continuum Commercial Realty, and SEFCU financed the transaction. 

Sunrise will manage the communities.

“Halfmoon Garden Apartments and Canfield Apartments are valuable assets that fit nicely into our portfolio,” said Jesse Holland, president of Sunrise Management & Consulting. “We were impressed with the way the longtime owners cared for the properties and wish them well in their retirement. We look forward to getting to know the residents.”

The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College has reopened  and will host a series of upcoming tours that are free and open to the public.

Tang guide tours, Sundays at 2 p.m. during the spring semester through May 1, provide visitors with an overview of the museum and what’s on view. The tours are given by Tang Guides, Skidmore College students and visitor services associates who are part of a program that introduces them to the Tang and the museum world, trains them how to be gallery ambassadors and tour guides, provides guidance in how to talk about art, and gives them valuable experiences interacting with visitors.

Curator’s tours feature the organizing curator or curators providing in-depth information of an exhibition. They are set for:

Thursday, Feb. 17, noon: assistant director of curatorial affairs and Malloy curator Rachel Seligman; assistant professor of art history Nancy Thebault, and students from the Scribner Seminar; “Outsiders? Folk and Self-Taught Artists in the United States” give a tour of On Their Own Terms. 

Thursday, March 24, noon: associate curator Rebecca McNamara give a tour of Radical Fiber: Threads Connecting Art and Science, which includes the community-created crochet coral reef Saratoga Springs Satellite Reef.

Thursday, April 14, noon: Dayton director Ian Berry gives a tour of Opener 34: Ruby Sky Stiler—New Patterns.

SkillsUSA has awarded a grant to the SkillsUSA chapter at the F. Donald Myers Education Center in Saratoga Springs, thanks to its longtime partnership with Lowe’s Home Improvement. 

SkillsUSA and Lowe’s have teamed up for 16 years to support career and technical education (CTE) classrooms across the nation. 

The new Lowe’s grants provide eligible SkillsUSA chapters with additional programming resources including tools and equipment and construction materials for students’ hands-on learning projects, officials said. The support can also be used for materials and supplies for local community service projects SkillsUSA chapters would like to conduct but need additional support to launch. 

Each eligible school applied for a grant up to $15,000. Schools are asked to focus on outcomes and the quantifiable impact data of their projects. The grants are intended for construction trades programs to prepare our future skilled workforce, as well as for lab improvements or community service. 

The grant obtained by the SkillsUSA chapter at the F. Donald Myers Education Center will be used to provide the HVAC lab with upgrades and state of the art industry equipment.

“This amazing opportunity through Lowe’s provides our SkillsUSA chapters with more resources to support CTE and hands-on learning. All SkillsUSA projects are student-led and center around the development of personal skills, workplace skills and technical skills grounded in academics through the SkillsUSA Framework, so every member has an opportunity for career success,” said SkillsUSA executive director Chelle Travis. “These grants remove financial barriers to excellence and ensure that SkillsUSA chapters have quality resources for the betterment of our CTE programs and projects.” 

By Paul Post

Only a week after opening, more than 75,000 tickets had already been sold to a major new winter attraction that officials hope can contrubute to transforming Lake George into true year-round tourist destination.

Visitors to Ice Castles—a 1.5-acre man-made sculpture with frozen 25-foot-high archways, tunnels and slides—are expected to spend more than $4 million for lodging, meals, fuel and similar services.

Located at Charles R. Wood Park’s Festival Commons, 17 West Brook Road, it coincides with this year’s 60th annual Lake George Winter Carnival, featuring a slate of fun activities each weekend in February.

“This is big, really big,” said long-time Mayor Robert Blais, who has worked  to promote winter tourism for many years. “All the businesses that have been open all these years, that have struggled through the winter and supported the Winter Carnival, I say thanks to them. Now you’re going to be rewarded. To the ones that don’t stay open and take advantage of it, I say, ‘You don’t know what you’re missing’.”

In addition to Utah, where Ice Castles is based, the company has similar attractions in Minnesota, Wisconsin and New Hampshire. This is its first time in upstate New York.