Big Slide Brewery & Public House is decidedly not “Adirondack-y.” Bolted sheets of hammered zinc cover the walls by the concrete-topped bar. The dining room is flanked by a sleek open kitchen and shiny silver beer tanks. Overhead, a spaghetti tangle of black wires dangles a couple dozen Edison lightbulbs. Down-tempo electronic music pulses quietly. Even the wooden strips on the bar, mimicking the silhouette of the Adirondack’s Great Range, are subtle.
By 5:30 p.m. on a foggy Sunday in December, the Stony Creek Inn was already half-full, the hot dishes crowding the covered pool table and Dot Bartell flitting from one knot of friends to another, eyes and smile radiating more warmth than the woodstove.
Dominick Riccio, on the other end of the phone line, remembered the comment card. The critical one my hiking partner and I had submitted to the suggestion box at Johns Brook Lodge, the one that described his pot pie as bland, a little heavy, with flavorless mashed potatoes that overwhelmed the forgettable crust. This was starting to get, as the kids say, awkward. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of Riccio, who last year served as the Johns Brook Lodge hut master, running the backcountry bunkhouse’s day-to-day operations. Not because he’s 22 years old, fit enough to carry a 120-pound pack three miles uphill, and certainly strong enough to do you physical harm. Quite the opposite. You don’t want to upset Riccio because he’s the most good-natured, earnest, literally rosy-cheeked host you could ask for, a guy justifiably proud of his culinary abilities, including the lodge’s delicious fresh-baked bread and, of course, the homemade ice cream. Yes, ice cream.
Want to know the most extraordinary place to stay in the Adirondacks? It’s got nothing to do with thread counts or executive chefs or spa treatments. It’s got everything to do with mind-blowing scenery and accessibility to some of the finest hiking in the park, the...
Mary Pat Ormsby had always dreamed of reviving the Stagecoach Inn. She grew up just blocks away, and has fond childhood memories of playing games of hide-and-seek in the house and tromping through the woods just behind it. She and her brother caught fish in the...
The short list
Every month or so a sandwich board in front of Upper Jay Upholstery advertises “music tonight 8 pm.” That’s all it takes. By nightfall people spill out of the boxy, three-story building—a former Model T–factory—at the corner of Route 9N and Springfield Road.
MOST OF US, at one time or another, have adopted a quirky old building—one that we pass every day, twice a day, keeping tabs on its condition, wondering about its past, fantasizing about its possibilities. Just a coat of paint and flowers, maybe, or structural repair...
"Aloha," says Jimmy Faatauvaa, emcee and frontman of the Waikiki Supper Club house band at the Tiki Resort, in Lake George. “A-LOOO-ha!” he repeats, before launching into lounge-style renditions of “Stand by Me” and “My Little Grass Shack in Kealakekua.” This is the...
Lost hikers, splintered bones and wildfires—a forest ranger reflects on more than two decades of coming to the rescue. Plus the oldest tavern in the Adirondacks, a trip through James Bond’s Lake George, and new energy in Schroon Lake.
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