By Andrea Harwood Palmer
Business partners Jim Murphy, Erin Murphy and Connor Neal have started a mobile craft beverage service based in Glens Falls, serving the Capital Region and North Country including Saratoga County.
Craft on Wheels is a mobile bar company utilizing vintage vehicles to bring craft beers, ciders and wines to serve at special events like weddings, corporate functions, private parties, festivals, and the like.
By Christine Graf
When Rose Contadino relocated from Connecticut to Saratoga Springs, she was unable to find a store where she could purchase fresh pasta. As a result, she traveled to Arthur Avenue (Little Italy) in the Bronx twice a month to stock up on the Italian staple.
When explaining her willingness to travel so far in search of fresh pasta, Contadino said food has always been important to her. She grew up eating homemade pasta made by her parents, Italian immigrants who left Italy in search of a better life.
“As a child, pasta and food was pretty much our life,” she said. “Every Sunday was spent making pasta. My mother made everything homemade.”
Two years ago, Contadino decided to pursue what she described as a lifelong interest in cooking and the food industry. She began making fresh pasta in a shared-space commercial kitchen and started selling it at the Saratoga Farmer’s Market. She named her business Mangiamo which means “let’s eat” in Italian.
By Andrea Harwood Palmer
Hand-made tacos and made-to-order donuts can be found at a new business, Taquero, at 68 Putnam St. in Saratoga Springs.
Owners Corey Melancon, Ryan Reed and Brady Dillon collaborated with a local investor group to make their vision become reality.
The three Saratoga Springs natives have over 45 years of restaurant experience between them and met while working together in their parents’ restaurants in their youth.
By Andrea Harwood Palmer
After gaining a strong following in the Adirondack Region, Darling Doughnuts is opening a new location at 441 Broadway in downtown Saratoga Springs. Doors will open in March.
Owner Natascha Mansman entered the food scene in 2018. Previously operating out of the Temple Bethel kitchen in Glens Falls, she began eyeing a larger, more practical location.
“It was always my dream to be able to open a brick and mortar location for Darling Doughnuts, but I knew that on my own it would be very difficult to make that happen,” said Mansman.
Because she was renting a shared kitchen, all of Mansman’s equipment needed to be small enough to be moved out of the way after each batch. After her first six months in business, she purchased an additional mixer and fryer but was still selling out quickly at each event.
By Jill Nagy
Later this year, the former Jonesville Store in Clifton Park will become Classic Crust Brick and Mortar, a restaurant version of the pizza truck catering business known as Classic Crust.
For five years, the Classic Crust truck has delivered wood-fired pizza and beer to parties in the Capital District. The truck will continue to operate but between trips it will be parked at the permanent restaurant, which will be located at 989 Main St., about two miles west of Northway Exit 10.
If all goes well, the new restaurant will open in March, according to Julie Carioto, co-owner with her husband, Greg. She is also the chef.
By Jill Nagy
After more than 20 years in a rural spot on Route 20 west of Duanesburg, Brenda and Kevin Soucy opened a second custom framing shop in a busier location, 714 Saratoga Road (Route 50) in Burnt Hills.
The new shop, Truly Yours Custom Framing, opened in October. An official ribbon-cutting took place Dec. 3.
According to Soucy, some 20,000 cars a day pass by the Route 50 location.
Truly Yours will primarily be Brenda’s shop, while husband Kevin will be the mainstay at the Duanesburg shop, Country Outlet Framing.
“We kind of work as a team,” she said. She may cut the mats for a job in Burnt Hills and then drive out to Duanesburg to cut the frame and glass.
They also live in Duanesburg, right behind the Country Outlet shop.
The couple started out in business selling furniture and gifts as well as doing custom framing. Now, the business is strictly framing and some sales of art work.
By Andrea Palmer
Coffee, beer, food and ambiance. Those are the primary offerings of the new brewhouse located at 20 Lake Ave. in downtown Saratoga Springs, the former Saratogian newspaper building.
“I like to say that at the center of our mission and our culture is the experience,” said Will Crager, co-owner of Walt & Whitman and its brewing company.
“That involves everything you see and hear when you walk into our space. The music, the art on the wall, the lighting, the furniture, that’s really what drives our space. We are about innovation and creative design.”
By Andrea Palmer
Anders Mattson has opened a golf academy and year-round indoor studio. AndersMattsonGolf LLC and the Saratoga Golf Studio are located on Excelsior Ave in Saratoga Springs.
Mattson grew up in Queensbury and graduated from Queensbury High School. After graduating from Furman University in Greenville, S.C. with a business degree, he decided to move back to Upstate New York to be near family and friends. He began working at Saratoga National Golf Club and worked there for 18 years before branching out on his own.
By Christine Graf
New York City native Whitney Mulqueen has been working in the equine industry for her entire adult life. Two years ago, she relocated from northeastern Pennsylvania to Saratoga County.
“I came here to immerse myself in the horse industry—just not the racing part of it,” she said. “It ended up being the best decision I could have made in terms of career and doing what I really enjoy.”
After relocating, she was offering riding lessons through her teaching business, Celtic Crest Farm LLC. In July, she moved her business to a leased space in Ballston Spa and opened Rewind Equine Tack & Consignment at 76 Front St. in Ballston Spa.
By Jill Nagy
The Rosenblum family is about to open its newest and largest ValuSpace Personal Storage facility at 1607 Route 9 in Halfmoon.
The facility will have 900 storage units of various sizes, accessible at any time by the renters.
The property was under construction for seven months, according to Daniele Haase, assistant manager of the other two ValuSpace sites: Hoosick Road in Brunswick and Russell Road in Albany. She could not provide construction cost figures for Halfmoon but noted that the Albany facility, with 700 units, cost about $7 million to build.