Winter 2010 Edition
Dear friends, colleagues and neighbors,
This time of year sees many of us setting worthy goals for ourselves: eat less, exercise more, read more books, volunteer our time, double our advertising budgets and spend more on Our Towne Saratoga…
Okay, okay….so I’m getting carried away here…..
There’s just something so fresh, so clean and so “together”about the New Year; I can’t help but dream BIG in spite of all the “doom and gloom” we seem to hear about in the news lately…Think about it: we have so much to look forward to in the coming year, so many exciting things happening, so much to choose from, so much to be a part of…is the glass really half empty or is it really truly half full? Is the change in our economy and how it may be effecting us really such a bad thing or a great opportunity to reach out and live our lives in a way we just haven’t tried yet?
So, perhaps this should be our shared community resolution for the new year – that we will work a little harder on doing it differently because we can. At least, we promise to think about it…
Failing that, well, we can always eat less and exercise more,right?
Warmest and heartfelt wishes for an astounding New Year!
Angela McFarland
Owner and Publisher
December, 2009
Its the holiday season once again and “home for the holidays” takes on such an enormous feeling of warmth and joy. The next few weeks will be filled with the little things that makes us smile and hearts tug spontaneously.
Each year, we all celebrate, reflect, and become just a little softer and a little kinder. I like to think we all categorically reflect on Christmas past, believing in magic, gorging on cookies, ripping open presents on Christmas morning and talk ourselves out of the cynicism that tends to come with age.
Its another difficult year for many because of the recession, that’s no doubt. Some will struggle, some will feel overwhelmed and others will question what to believe. Depending on your spirituality, wouldn’t it seem that the many that may face challenges are the purest reflection of what the holiday season should mean? Joseph worried terribly, he and Mary made a journey to an unknown destination and capped it all off by birthing a child. Somehow, it was all okay. Hmph.
Do you believe? I want to and hope you do too. Enjoy the magic and mystery of the season thru your children’s eyes and with your adult experiences. This season is the most important time to pick your behavior in spite of your feelings. You may find YOURSELF on a journey to an unknown destination and who knows what celebration may lie in store.
As Andy Rooney once said, “One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don’t clean it up too quickly.”
Happy Holidays to you and yours,
Angela McFarland
Publisher
November 2009 Edition
I came across a quote some time agothat says: “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a presentand not giving it — William Arthur Ward” that has inspired me every Thanksgiving since I’ve seen it. It gets me thinking about just how many folks, right here in our community, volunteer their time and resources to enrich the place we all call home.
What has impacted me the most about these people is just how modest, humble and truly comfortable to serve behind the scenes they truly are.These are not folks who seek praise or recognition, these are not folks who look to “get” before “give” and most certainly, these are not folks with an attitude of “can’t or won’t” rather “can and will”.
So, a Happy Thanksgiving, and a cornucopia filled with gratitude is in order, to the countless individuals serving on our Fire Departments, our Emergency Corp squads, in our Community Centers,The Lions Club,The Rotary, the staff of the National Military Museum and Children’s Museum and the countless other non-profit and volunteer organizations in town.
We’d be remiss not to thank the folks serving in our local government as well as the folks who have recently run for elected positions.Thanks to each individual for making the choice to serve our communities and play an active role in improving our quality of life.
A bottomless thank you to our teachers, our special ed service providers, our church leaders who day in and day out find ways to go above and beyond what is expected for our kids, our seniors and our community as a whole.
To our veterans and current military personnel: Is there truly a Thanksgiving wish that could possibly be expressed that would run deep enough or sincerely enough?
Last but not least, a very personal and specific thank you to each and every merchant who has embraced Our Towne Saratoga as their choice for local advertising. We’re still carving our niche and it is their patronage and commitment to keep services and products local, that make each and every edition possible.
Enjoy the Thanksgiving Holiday!
Angela McFarland, Owner and Publisher
Feature Business: Saratoga Winery
Describe your business and how you got started? The Saratoga Winery and Tasting bar. We make our own selections of wine and offer daily tasting at our tasting bar. My husband, Rich, and I have been making wine with his uncle for several years. We’ve traveled to Pennsylvania to help with different aspects of wine making year after year. We started making wine in our cellar using Uncle Leigh’s blends and techniques, and realized that our friends really enjoyed our wine. Every time we would have guests over we would find ourselves dipping into the different barrels, testing the wines. My husband would always say, “Saratoga needs a Winery, and I think that our wines are worthy.” We started looking at properties and realizing our growing passion for the industry. We also realized the uphill battle ahead of us to bring our idea to a reality. In February 2008 my husband was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 30 and life itself came to a halt. Like any challenge that we have been faced with, we put our best foot forward and stayed positive. I won’t lie, we were scared as hell. When my husband woke up from his second surgery the first words out of his mouth were, “I just want to make wine.” That’s all I needed to hear to realize that life is short and this is a dream worth fighting for. When surgeries, hospitalizations and chemo came to an end, we switched into high gear and never looked back. Exactly one year to the month that Rich was told that he was cancer free, we opened our doors.
Are you known for anything special? When it comes to wine, our specialty is our Melomels. The definition of a Melomel wine is “wine made from fruit and honey.” We use grapes as our fruit and keep the entire fermentation process as natural as possible. We go straight to the farmers in the Finger Lakes to hand select our grapes and use honey from an apiary in Round Lake. The honey and pressed grape juice is married together in natural oak bourbon barrels that we have shipped straight from distilleries in Kentucky such as Jim Beam and Four Roses. Our Melomels ferment and age in these barrels for 18 months to 3 years depending on the wine that we are making. The only filtration that we use is a process called racking, were the wine is transferred from barrel to barrel, leaving the mash in the bottom. Not to be wasted; we make a wine out of the mash called Hillbilly Mountain Mash. We never add any sulfites or preservatives to our Melomels. Honey preserves the wine while adding health benefits and a nice touch of sweetness. Our Melomels are one of a kind and absolutely delicious.
What do you like most about your business? I like the fact that I can work with my husband in a low stress environment. Everyone comes to see us because they want to. They walk in happy, enjoy their experience and leave happy. In turn this makes us very happy. We are both passionate about the business, we love to make people smile, and we know that this is what we want to do for life. We laugh a lot, meet new people every day, and share our product that we have put so much time into with people who truly enjoy it.
What do you feel is your biggest challenge with your business? The most challenging task so far is that in the wine business the paper work, laws and deadlines are multiplied. We are not only manufacturing our own product for consumption but we are serving and selling alcohol. Reports need to be submitted with payment every two weeks, also quarterly and annual reports are due for state and federal, on top of the “standard” tax obligations. We decided to delegate the responsibility to one person who is educated in the area to ensure consistency. I guess that I am the lucky one who drew the shortest straw. However if this is the most challenging aspect to my business, I think I will survive.
What do you want the community to know about you? We are huge supporters of small local farms and businesses. We have a growing selection of local products that we get straight from area farms, bake shops, and home businesses. We want people to walk in our doors and find non commercialized specialty products, made from scratch, by hand and by real people in our community. Some of these products include Whalen’s horseradish products and cheese spreads, Willow Marsh flavored cheddars, Saratoga salsa, Saratoga Peanut butter, Saratoga Sweets, home roasted coffee and fresh baked pies from The Little Bakery in the Grove, Maple Syrup from my families farm, maple cream and candy, and Honey from Double A’s Bees.
Anything else: To sum up our business I would say that we are driven by passion that is easy to recognize when you walk in the door. We stand behind quality products made the old fashion way, and the hard working people in our community who supply these products. We plan to be here for a long time raising a family in a family run business, and setting a good example for our community and neighbors. And by the way, Rich is still cancer free and we are expecting our first child in February. Cheers!
Owner Name Rich and Tara Nimmo
Business Name: The Saratoga Winery
Address: 462 Route 29 West
Saratoga Springs, New York 12866
Phone: 518-584-WINE (9463)
Website: www.thesaratogawinery.com
October 2009 Edition
Autumn in Saratoga is truly an experience all its own. Its actually one of my favorite times of the year to spend at the Farmer’s Market enjoying the season’s choices, smells and colors.
Feature Business Owner Doc Gerber of LiveWell
Describe your business and how you got started?
After losing 95lbs in only 18 weeks on the Ideal Protein program, I established LiveWell ADK in order to offer this amazing lifestyle program to everyone. I changed my life in such a positive way that I needed to share my experience with my patients and the public at large. I am a doctor who talks the talk and walks the walk. I find the cause of the patients negative issues and repair them instead of just treating the symptoms.
Are you known for anything special?
Making positive changes in peoples’ lives and helping my patient’s to succeed with their weight loss goals. Listening to my patients fully and understanding exactly what is ailing them before we begin care. Treating each and every individual the way I would treat my own parents – professionalism, respect and honesty.
What do you like most about your business?
Helping my patients and clients make positive, healthy changes in their lives. Enjoying my patients’ success and appreciating the part that I played in it. When I arrive at the office it is always a new journey for me, between having new patients, seeing the positive results with existing patients and learning from my patients. I go home at night and rest knowing that my patients are well taken care of and getting the positive results they are looking for.
What do you feel is your biggest challenge with your business?
I feel that the biggest challenge in my business is squashing the diet myths that have hurt people in the past. Diets are made to fail. Just look at the first three letters, quite negative. If you think about it, a “diet” is with you for your whole life. Whatever you put into your mouth, whether it’s tofu or twinkies, water or soda, that’s your diet. My program is looked at as a life changing experience which people have not achieved in the past. Changing society’s outlook on this can be challenging with some but even more, doubters become believers.
What do you want the community to know about you?
I want the community to know that I truly care about my patients both personally and professionally, and want them to attain the goals they set for themselves. I give my patients the tools to succeed. My staff coaches them on their journey to success and well being. I personally just don’t know the program; I live it day in and day out. This is very special to the community, for them to see me before and now … what a statement.
Owner Name: Dr. Jonathan C. Gerber
Business Name: LiveWell Saratoga
Address: 78B Church Street
Saratoga Springs, New York 12866
Phone: 518-306-5322
Website: www.LiveWellADK.com
Facebook: Gerber LiveWell
September 2009 BACK TO SCHOOL
Owner and Publisher
Our Towne Saratoga
(518)956-0195 mobile/text
Summer 2009 Edition
LOL…you don’t need me to tell you its “Summer in Saratoga“.
Its truly fascinating to me to watch the neighborhood energizes and transform, to prepare and service, the pending onslaught of tourism while maintaining the neighborhood culture that unites residents all year round. Its “hope” mixed with adrenaline that I am most drawn to: the small business owners that get on the roller-coaster of Saratoga economics, hoping for a great tourist season, fearing what will happen without it, and still want to go on the ride anyway. Love those folks!
Now looking at Saratoga thru the eyes of a business owner, versus a neighboring resident, I’ve spent time really discovering more and more about assumed tourist-y things that are actually pretty terrific year round venues. We hear so much about the racing and summer entertainment season that its been a delightful journey to really LOOK at all of the venues, the museums, the walking tours, the green spaces that we, as residents, can take advantage of all year long. Makes me wonder why we ship our kids to the outside for field trips…
And can I say: the Saratoga Springs Public Library has the most incredible selection of activities, events and education that I’ve yet to see rivaled in other community libraries. Who’d have thought the public library could be such a “hub” of personal enrichment and family entertainment beyond borrowing a book to read? To top it off, almost every single solitary activity and event is free, free, free…in today’s troubled times, you just can’t beat that!
I know of local families that like to avoid the Saratoga season for whatever reason and I say embrace it….be your own tourist and really take the time to get out and explore the town with a visitor point-of-view. Its fun, its refreshing and a fabulous way to teach your children about where they live and the heritage that surrounds them all year long. You’ll be glad you did.
See you in September!
OuterZone Family Entertainment
Describe your business and how you got started?
We are known for our state of the art laser tag arena in which I give most of the credit to my brother. He is an excellent artist and all the ideas and artistry comes from him. His imagination is outstanding and constantly going. Our arena is 5000 square foot which boasts a maze of columns, tunnels and 150 hiding places, a multi level ramp. strobes, laser light show and sound effects. It has a 5000-watt stereo system sending waves of excitement through the haze that enhances every laser beam shot from the players’ phaser guns. We are known as A Challenge Beyond … For the Serious Laser Tag Player.
The best thing about my business is the fact that I have my family right here besides me helping me with the planning and decisions that are needed to run a successful business.
That we are now a multi venue operation now that caters to the whole family young and old. We have a new dance club for teens that has an awesome laser lite show live music and it is a fun and safe place for your teen to get together with their classmates on Friday and Saturday nites for grade 6th 7th and 8th graders. We now serve our own food and make our own pizzas. Times 8-11pm for the dance. We are also booking Sweet 16 and Private Dance Parties, Bounce Parties, Laser Tag Parties and more. We also cater to Church Groups, Summer Camp Day Cares, Youth Groups, etc.
Owner Name: Gordon Duell
Business Name: Outer Zone Family Entertainment
Address: 82 Congress Street Plaza, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
Phone: 587-8243 (TAG3)
Dehn’s Florist
