Lake Placid — Dining, drinking, touring

[billhoward]

Here's what to do in Lake Placid for the ECAC weekend. I posted on this a year ago (below the rule) and here's a bit more for 2025:

To locate yourself (see map below): The Lake Placid Olympic Center / Herb Brooks Arena is at the south end of Lake Placid (pop. 2,500, 10,000 in summer) and there is pretty much one street, Main Street that runs north from the arena. To the east is Mirror Lake (Lake Placid is the big one, just beyond the north end of town). To the west of Main Street, the terrain slopes up quickly and by the time you're halfway up the sidestreets, it's residential.

There is plenty of free parking within a five-minute walk of the rink. There are guides (people) who'll show you where to go. It's not a long walk, really. If you need (all directions are relative to the rink):

• Best sports bar, Wiseguys. (See below; most have not changed in years.) Lots of TVs, okay food, I believe they have ESPN+. 1-1/2 blocks south (downhill) of the rink, on the corner.
  
• Best sandwiches. Big Mountain Deli. About 5 minutes north on the lake side. Closes around 3 pm.
  
• Best hotel ambience (so to speak). High Peaks Resort, the end of Main Street before it curves left and heads toward Saranac. They have a really nice outdoor patio one floor up but seem reluctant to open it in the afternoon even if it's sunny and warm in March.
  
• Best brew pub Lake Placid Brew Pub. Walk south (right on Main) to Mirror Lake Drive, the first left, then about 100 yards. Decent pub food, fabulous beer list, know for its Ubu Ale.
  
• Sunday or Saturday breakfast. Downtown Diner, about 3 blocks south of the rink. You may run into some hockey player parents or grandparents there.
  
• Nice dinner out (like if Cornell isn't playing Saturday). Lisa G's, 6125 Sentinel Rd, Lake Placid, NY 12946, about a 15-minute walk from the rink, you may want to drive. Around two decades now, still pretty good.
  
• Adirondackiana furniture, gifts, scented candles. Adirondack Decorative Arts & Crafts, about 2 locks up from the rink. Makes you feel like you're shopping for one of the Great Camps of the 1890s. Nice source for the hats that say ADK on the front except now (dumbing down of America) recent hats add the punch line on the side, "Adirondack Mountains, Lake Placid, NY."
  

I believe the rink still lets you walk out (get a hand stamp), go find a slice of pizza or burger nearby, then come back fro game 2. What the LP food stands lose in business, the townspeople make up, and it keeps them going.

There are plenty of other shops / restaurants in town, plus gifte shoppes in case you left your wife / GF / kids behind.
If you have time to kill in the daytime, follow any of the roads/streams out of town. You'll see some spectacular snow melt speeding up the streams.

About housing: There is always room in town or within 10-20 minutes, plus it's easier to find versus in 2000 before phone hotel-searches. Five minutes outside LP (or Saranac), much of the lodging is vintage 1970s motel, two aluminum chairs in front of each room, but it is a place to sleep.

Cornell U. has an outpost on the outskirts of Lake Placid, the Uihlein Sugar Maple Research Field Station,  518-523-9337 or maple@cornell.edu or 157 Bear Cub Ln, Lake Placid, NY 12946, call to  make sure they're open. Maple syrup may be a bit cheaper elsewhere, but this is Ivy League maple syrup.

If you drive west out of town through Saranac Lake and then west on Route 3, you'll find the Raquette (Lake) River Brewing, great big tasting and hanging-out room, food from hot trucks outside. At this point you are about a third of the way to St. Lawrence / Clarkson. There are also a couple brew pubs a half-mile to mile out of downtown on Route 73 South heading toward Keene / Keene valley.

A couple places use international staffing. This is not a political thing, but: Nobody gets rich, young international guest workers come in from countries like the ones Melania came from or Russia is bombarding. Service is not always in their lexicon. Still, you ought to tip well. Some of the kids are NYS teens / early adults who are just getting by in crappy cars and struggling to pay for community college tuition; their version of the American dream isn't as bright as ours. Help them out.  (I am still annoyed that in an LP pizzaria a couple summers back, we order a large pie, half pepperoni, half mushroom and our guest worker informed us, "Nyet, is not possible." )

Below I listed some restaurants Gwen and I like (her family dates to the 1800s in LP).



2024 post >>>

Here's what to do in Lake Placid this weekend with Cornell in the ECACs. Before you go: Bring a pair of snow brushes and extra windshield washer fluid. Will not reach 30 all weekend. Snowy Saturday, 5"-8", Lake Placid can handle it no problem.

For visitors, Lake Placid is effectively one street wide, a half mile long: Main Street, the greenish line. (the map points north.) The LP Olympic Center and 7700 seat Herb Brooks Arena marks the southern end of downtown, the yellow circle. Just below the circle is the Olympic speed skating oval and LP HS. Where it says "~parking," that's about where you'll be pushed to park, it's not that far, I don't believe they charge, everybody is friendly because Nobody Gets Rich Working in Lake Placid. Don't yell at them and tip well. Gwen's family has been there since circa 1850 and one relative said the only good jobs in ADK are teacher, snow plow operator and now prison guard.

Most every place to eat is casual and the food is okay. I recommend (walking directions are relative to the rink):
* Best sports bar that holds a crowd, Wise Guys, Main and School Street, just south of the rink/speed skating oval. Lots of TVs in case you want to watch basketball. I've seen the refs there after the game. Be nice.
* Best breakfast, Downtown Diner, ran into Andy Iles' family there a decade ago. 2-3 blocks south of where the skating oval ends.
* Best brew pub, Lake Placid Brew Pub. Walk south 2/3 of the way toward the end of the skating oval, left at the Mobile station onto Mirror Lake Drive, walk one block plus, just before the Hampton Inn. Pretty decent food.
* Best sandwich shop, Big Mountain Deli & Creperie, 2475 Main St, about halfway up Main Street on the right (Mirror Lake) side. Go for lunch or breakfast; closes 3 pm.
* Best sandwich shop (need a car), Saranac Sourdough, 2126 Saranac Ave # 1. At the top of Mains Street, curve left onto Saranac Ave., 6/10 mile on the left. 'til 2 pm, noon Sundays. Run by people who are kin to the alt / sixties / Moosewood-of-Ithaca style, but they do serve sandwiches with meat. Love the place.
* Best (only) big hotel sports bar / pub, Dancing Bears at the High Peaks Resort (nee Hilton for the 1980 Games). Friendly, food is okay to good, holds a lot of people, service was variable last summer (harder to get guest worker visas last couple years) and understaffed at times.
* Live music: Smoke Signals and Zig Zags Pub, both halfway up Main street on the lake side.

A lot of restaurants have changed hands in the past decade, new ones take their place, more Asian fare now. I've never had a terrible meal in LP, relative to price.

If for some reason you need winter gear (like it's colder than you think, or you forgot gloves), EMS on Main Street has people who know their stuff.

As of two years ago, LP Rink let you get a hand stamp and walk out between games, get a drink and burger, see some of the basketball tournament, wander back in. I don't believe MSG lets you do that; instead they put up the facial recognition cams.

Need something else to do? There are a couple small distilleries to tour and taste. Our favorite is Gristmiller Distillers in Keene, 20 minutes southwest of LP on Route 73. Plus small breweries

[Jim Hyla]

There are plenty of other shops / restaurants in town, plus gifte shoppes in case you left your wife / GF / kids behind.

So you're really trying to tell me that if your wife/GF is with you, you don't need to go to the gift shop.::uhoh::

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

Just an FYI, Wiseguys is not a place to go after the late game unless all you want or french fries or other deep-fried crap. I went there after we won last year, and that's all they offered.

[billhoward]

Jeff, I believe Wiseguys, like some other places in LP, have had staffing shortages. A lot of people in the Adirondacks in need of more income, some of them are not seeing the value in driving, say, 30+ minutes to LP and then 30+ minutes getting home after midnight, and they say, screw it, I'm not going to do this kind of work. That happened to us and I can't recall if it was the Thursday before the ECACs last year, or in May when we came up to open our summer camp ("camp" equals anything from open lean-to to a 10-bedroom place on Lake Placid) and all we could get was appetizers around 10 pm.

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

Jeff, I believe Wiseguys, like some other places in LP, have had staffing shortages. A lot of people in the Adirondacks in need of more income, some of them are not seeing the value in driving, say, 30+ minutes to LP and then 30+ minutes getting home after midnight, and they say, screw it, I'm not going to do this kind of work. That happened to us and I can't recall if it was the Thursday before the ECACs last year, or in May when we came up to open our summer camp ("camp" equals anything from open lean-to to a 10-bedroom place on Lake Placid) and all we could get was appetizers around 10 pm.

I can believe that.  Hopefully the situation has changed.

[BlueSky]

Love Lake Placid very much.

Post victory on Friday and not really interested in watching the nightcap? Dinner at the Interlaken, or drinks at the rustic, classic bar. The Stage Coach Inn is also one the best meals you can find anywhere. There is a new brew pub over in Saranac.  The the Grand ADK Hotel has an active bar scene and lots of Cornell folks tip a few there. ZigZags is a hoot pre and post game. Smoke Signals always gets a good crowd for dinner. A beloved Coach was seen at the dancing Bear bar post championship last year, just an FYI.

[Trotsky]

Smoke Signals always gets a good crowd for dinner.

Gotta time it right.  Has an extreme boom/bust cycle of busy-ness.

[617BigRed]

Okay guys gonna drive up from Boston on Saturday, where wanna meet up pregame? Will be fun to meet some from this board in person!