Roamers Cafe & Bar
2634 Main StreetThe second day of the Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships was a pretty long one for us. B finished up the one event he started Monday night and he had both segments of his second event in the afternoon. L also had the first segment of one of her events and a practice for her third event.
J and L walked around at lunch time but I stayed and hung out at the arena. To be honest, I was curious to watch some of the younger ice dance pairs. My kids both do solo ice dance so I’ve never really seen how the younger kids do pairs patterns.
I didn’t really feel like walking anywhere for lunch when I got done with that. I walked out of the 1980 Rink and in to the main upstairs lobby area. I saw that the cafe was open and figured now was as good of a time as any to to grab a burger from there.
Roamers Cafe & Bar is inside The Olympic Center in downtown Lake Placid. It’s in the part of the building the connects the 1980 Herb Brooks Arena to the 1932 Jack Shea Arena. The main part of the cafe is kind of more like a concession stand it butts up to the 1980 rink. There are a couple of windows along the space that doubles as the kitchen. One of them is a pick up window while the one closest to the door that leads to the balcony outside is the order window.
Read more…Ere’s Pizza
2439 Main Street, Unit 3B and I left The Olympic Center in Lake Placid to get dinner after his first night of competition at the Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships but we ran in to a hiccup. The restaurant we were heading towards closed just as we were walking up the street.
He was fine with ice cream for dinner so I took him over Emma’s Lake Placid Creamery. He got ice cream and we headed back to the Olympic Center to watch some of his teammates in the Junior division.
I watched for a while but the longer I sat there, the hungrier I got. I didn’t want to go to a sit down restaurant that late because everything was pretty packed. B said he would actually eat a pizza but he didn’t want just one slice like L had been getting him from a slice place downtown (blog on that place coming soon).
There are quite a few pizza places near downtown Lake Placid but I only found one with the most important feature.
I will do almost anything to avoid calling in a pizza order. It happens occasionally but there was nothing that really jumped out as me as that made me want it bad enough to that. So the place with online ordering got my business.
Ere’s Pizza was that place. It’s located on Main Street kind of on the north end of downtown Lake Placid north of Hayes Street. The restaurant is mostly below street level. It shares a building with The Haus boutique hotel and Saratoga Olive Oil Company. The pizza restaurant is down is underneath the olive oil shop with it’s entrance leading out to a small green space and public band shell right on the edge of Mirror Lake. There are a couple of long balconies that run the length of the building for outdoor dining that make up part of the aesthetic of the building.
Read more…Emma’s Lake Placid Creamery
2507 Main StreetWhat’s a vacation without ice cream….right?
It’s kind of a nightly occurrence in a resort town Lake Placid.
We were in town for the Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships at The Olympic Center. We’re calling this “our vacation” this year because it was a family trip to a town that most people would vacation in. Yeah, we spent a lot of time at the rink but we also had a little bit of relaxing time outside of the historic venue.
The first kid to compete was B on Monday night. He only had the first half of his event. The second part of it was the next morning. Once he was done and changed, he wanted to go get something to eat then get back to watch some friends in the event that was happening after his.
He and I left The Olympic Center and started walking north to find someplace we could quickly grab a burger. There is a spot just a few blocks away but they were putting up the closing sign as we walked up…at 7 PM….in a resort town with literally hundreds of people walking the streets at night.
He didn’t want pizza again and any other place would have required us to sit down for a meal. He also wasn’t interested in that. He asked if he could just have ice cream for dinner. I figured what the hell. It is vacation, right?
We headed over to Emma’s Lake Placid Creamery on Main Street and Grace Way in downtown Lake Placid. This ice cream shop is absolutely the place to be on a summer night in downtown Lake Placid. It’s a retro 1950’s style ice cream shop that quite regularly has lines down the street waiting to get in. When we got there around 7:30 PM on Monday night, the line was two storefronts down Main Street but it moves pretty quickly so we got in line.
Read more…Soulshine Bagel
2526 Main StreetThere were several places in Lake Placid that J and L couldn’t want to bring “the boys” to but breakfast was the big one.
We were in Lake Placid for the week for the Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships at The Olympic Center. This year, it was a family trip. Last year, J and L decided to go kind of last minute. I couldn’t get the week of and they had just taken B to a competition in Dallas. He wasn’t going to do very well and since it was an expensive competition, they decided to leave him home with me.
This year, B is more than competitive, he’s one of the best skaters in his level in the country. L is too. I planned for a year to have the vacation time available so we all packed up and headed to the Adirondacks for the week.
Monday was the first day of competition but it didn’t start until 5 PM. L had a practice skate around 1 PM and we wanted to walk around downtown Lake Placid for a while.
When we got out of bed, L was kind of pushing us out the door of our hotel because she couldn’t wait to get to her favorite bagel place.
Soulshine Bagel is on Main Street in downtown Lake Placid. The small bagel shop is on the south end of downtown next to the Grand Adirondack Hotel. The shop is one of many businesses on the bottom floor of a three level building that spans about a half a block. Soulshine is in the spot furthest north and it’s a very narrow building that, like a lot of places in downtown Lake Placid, becomes very crowded very quickly.
Read more…Wyatt’s
2525 Main StreetLet’s get back to some actual restaurant blog posts, eh?
I still have a lot from our trip to Lake Placid so you aren’t safe from those yet but from here on out, it’s only going to be about food.
We were in Lake Placid for the Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships at The Olympic Center. The competition didn’t start until Monday evening but L had a practice Sunday night. She doesn’t usually do practice sessions at competitions but she wanted to get a couple of skates in at the higher elevation before she started her competition on Tuesday morning.
She was done around 6:00 PM and we were all starting to get hungry again. We hadn’t eaten since we had breakfast at a Friendly’s in Liverpool, NY near Syracuse around 10:00 AM.
None of us really wanted to sit in a restaurant and eat. We were kind of looking for something quick. Not only was the ice dance competition happening at The Olympic Center but the Lake Placid Summit Classic lacrosse tournament was happening at the same time at three different sites in the area. Over 200 teams were in the area which made downtown Lake Placid incredibly busy and drove up wait times at restaurants all throughout downtown.
J and L had an idea though. They found a place last year that they knew would be pretty quick and would have something for all of us to eat.
Wyatt’s is a unique little spot in the heart of downtown Lake Placid. The tex-mex restaurant is actually a walk up window inside the Alpine Mall which is part of the Golden Arrow Lakeside Resort. You can see a window in to the kitchen for the restaurant from Main Street but you actually have to go in to the mall to find the ordering location. It looks like maybe at one time you could go to the restaurant from the street but that’s not the case anymore.
Read more…The Olympic Center
2634 Main StreetThis is going to be a long one…and another one that’s pretty light on food.
As we have traveled around the Midwest and to other parts of the country over the last several years, I have been including the ice rinks we go to as part of this blog. It’s also not unusual for me to write posts about the stadiums we visit although those usually include information on concessions and what we eat.
We did eat at this arena but I’m going glance over it here and make it a separate blog posts a few posts down the line which I will then link back here when it’s done.
All of that lead up to tell you I’ve been able to cross one of my bucket list arenas off the list. It’s not biggest or fanciest but it does have a huge place in sports history and I’m so excited my kids got to skate there.
The Olympic Center in Lake Placid, NY is the centerpiece to both the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympic Games that were held in the small upstate new village. The massive three rink ice complex was built in two stages. The original building was built for the 1932 games. The newer part of the arena was built for the 1980 games. The complex sits on the corner of Main Street and Cummings Road across from Lake Placid High School and the speed skating oval which is part of the complex (we’ll get to that). The main entrance to the building is through “Miracle Plaza” which is accessible off Main Street through a circle drive. It’s the first of many times you’ll see the word “Miracle” throughout the complex.
Read more…Olympic Jumping Complex
5486 Cascade RoadWe made it to Lake Placid.
We took a little family vacation/figure skating competition trip to Upstate New York last week. We went through Canada and stopped at Niagara Falls along the way as well as a great little brewery in downtown Niagara.
We could have made the entire trip in one day but it was much cheaper to get a hotel near Syracuse for Saturday night then drive the rest of the way on Sunday. The first time one of our kids stepped on the ice was in the evening on Sunday so we didn’t need to be there super early.
We got up Sunday morning and had breakfast at a Friendly’s in Liverpool, NY before continuing the drive north to Lake Placid. It was about a three hour drive with a little extra time built in for bathroom stops.
We got to town about 2:00 and J called our hotel to see if we could get in. We weren’t staying in one of the nice hotels downtown. J found an old roadside motel on the way in to town that was pretty cheap. It wasn’t the nicest looking in town and didn’t have the best amenities but many, did they have some comfortable beds. I don’t know if any of us had ever slept that well in a hotel for five nights before.
The hotel gave J the access code for the room and we moved our stuff in for the week. Once we were done with that, J and L really wanted to take B and I to one of the Olympic Legacy Sites that they loved last year.
The Olympic Jumping Complex is just south of the village of Lake Placid inside the Town of North Elba (Towns kind of function like Townships in Michigan. The Village of Lake Placid is within the Town of North Elba). The complex is on Cascade Road just north of River Road. I’ll get to it in a bit but you can see the ski jump tower for miles around it. It’s really, really hard to miss.
When you get to the complex, you come to a large parking lot that is used during events. Drive past that and head down to the lower parking lot. You’ll be in front of Intervales Base Lodge where you start your tour of the complex.
Read more…Friendly’s (Liverpool)
3837 NY-31The drive to Lake Placid continues.
We left early Saturday morning to start the drive to upstate New York for a figure skating competition. We made a quick stop for lunch at Taps Brewhouse in Niagara Falls, ON then headed over to the falls to check that out before heading back in to the US.
We made it as far as Syracuse before stopping for the night. When we ate lunch in Niagara Falls, I asked they kids if they wanted brewery or diner for lunch. They both chose brewery because I said I had an idea for diner later that night.
When we got to the hotel, J and B weren’t really hungry so we didn’t go out for a big meal. L and I got sandwiches from Sammy’s NYC Deli & Grill in North Syracuse and we made plans to hit a diner for breakfast on the way out of town the next morning.
The diner that I had in mind is part of a large chain the northeast. It’s not something we can find back home in Michigan so I gave myself a pass on eating at a chain restaurant.
Friendly’s is an almost 100 year chain of family restaurants with just over 100 locations all along the east coast. We chose the Friendly’s in Liverpool, NY on New York 31 in a highly commercialized area just to the west of the New York 481 interchange. The restaurant is on the end of a shopping plaza in front of a Target. It was a little hard to find coming from the east because the building faces west. We didn’t actually see it until the GPS pulled us right up in front of the store.
Read more…Sammy’s NYC Deli & Grill
601 S. Main StreetOur trip to Lake Placid was always intended to take two days. We could have done the 11 hour drive in one day. I’ve done that plenty of times on my own, but we didn’t want to feel rushed or exhausted.
We made a stop for lunch at Taps Brewhouse in Niagara Falls, ON then did a quick stop by the actual falls themself. We made our way over the Rainbow Bridge (which was a really cool bridge) back in to the US then still had about a three hour drive to Syracuse.
When J and L did the drive to Lake Placid on their own last year, they made it all the way to Watertown, NY which is about an hour closer to the final destination. I found a really cheap Comfort Inn with two queen beds in Liverpool, NY just outside of Syracuse so that’s where we decided to stop for the night.
Earlier in the day, I gave the kids a choice. Did they want to stop for lunch at a brewery or a diner. To my surprise, they chose the brewery thinking we would hit the diner for dinner. The problem was, no one was really hungry when we got to our hotel.
L was though. She didn’t want to admit it but she asked if we were going to the diner. I said no because mom and B weren’t hungry. We’d do the diner for breakfast the next morning.
I told her I could find something else for her and I though. She was pretty non-committal but I did some looking around for a deli. I know she likes a good grilled cheese so I figured if I could find something quick and easy like that, she would admit to me she was hungry.
I ended up finding Sammy’s NYC Deli & Grill on South Main Street in North Syracuse. The small deli that has been in the North Syracuse neighborhood for about a year sits on the corner of Main and Melrose Drive in the southwest corner of the village. The owner comes to Syracuse after working in family deli’s in New York City for years. This building was actually a physical therapists office before being turned in to a New York City style bodega sandwich shop.
Read more…Taps Brewhouse
4680 Queen StreetIt’s road trip time!
If you’re one of those people that get mad that I write blog posts from our travels, you’re going to hate the next dozen or so blog posts.
I’ve been looking forward to this trip for over a year.
Last year, J and L decided at the last minute to drive to Lake Placid, NY for the Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships. I wasn’t able to take the time off last year at the last minute so B and I stayed home.
We made plans to go back this year, all of us, so I planned my PTO around this trip.
The competition started Monday night but we got up bright an early Saturday morning to start the trip. The plan was to make a stop at Niagra Falls on the Canadian side then get as far as Syracuse before finishing the trip Sunday morning.
We left the house around 6 AM and made the trip through Ontario. We got to Niagara Falls around lunchtime and before heading to the main attraction, we decided we should probably get lunch first.
I had a couple of options for lunch because I really didn’t want to be in the touristy areas of the city on a Saturday in July. After a lot of Google searching, I found a really good looking brewery in downtown Niagara Falls or a kitchy diner. I gave the kids the choice of brewery or diner and to my surprise, they both chose brewery.
Taps Brewhouse is on the corner of Queen Street and Valley Way in downtown Niagara Falls, Ontario. The brewery is kind of in the back half of an old brick building whose main corner tenant is Sharleez Bridal. The brewery actually faces more of Valley Way. The building was some sort of giant liquidation warehouse back in the aughts and the space now occupied by the brewery was some kind of loading dock. The brewhouse/music venue actually kind of revitalized the Queen Street area in Niagara falls when it opened in 2009. In addition to the large inside of the brewhouse, there is a large patio outside in the parking lot and a stage for live music. It looked like there was something going on outside on this day but we couldn’t figure out what it was and we didn’t want to sit outside anyway.
Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 