Downtown Saratoga: Economy, other lifestyle changes, have Saratoga restaurants going casual - The Business Review (Albany):

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But casual attitudes are eating their way intothis trendy, compacr community of 28,000. Just ask Joe Nikki Roche, Ridge Qua, or other owners of the Spa City’w approximately 100 restaurants. A disastrous economh hasn’t deterred at least a half-dozen new restaurante from opening inthe city’s downtown in the last threr months. Turns out there’s a littler less glitz on the plates, Almost all of the menus for the city’s newest restaurantas are mid-priced. DeVivo says it’s a sign of the “The higher-end establishments aren’t quitw as popular as they usedto be,” says the seriao restaurateur. He speaks from experience.
In May, he opened a wood-fired pizza and pasta restaurant at 237Unionm Ave. For a decade before that—until both his profit marginb and customer basestarted shrinking—he ownee and operated Maestro’s, a high-endr Italian restaurant on Broadway. He sold Maestro’s in 2006. “It’s a very competitivee market. It’s tough for people to pay an exorbitanty amount of money for entreesthese days,” DeVivo It’s a money but it’s also about lifestylew Even existing restaurants are scaling back prices. Ridge Qua, co-ownef of the upscale Sperry’s on Caroline Street, says the shift to casuak is more a matter of lifestylethan money.
Qua’s customerse are opting for lighter fare, and he recently added more appetizers to accommodatestheir requests. He estimates that about 60 percent ofthe city’s restaurants were higher-endd five years ago, compared with 30 percent “People want to eat healthier—and they want smalle portions. It’s also lifestyle. They’red looking for casual,” said Qua, who has co-owner Sperry’s for 28 years. Two years ago, the venue investedd $25,000 in an outdoor patio to cate to ayounger crowd. Sperry’s per-persomn check now averages $21 or $22, down from $25 a couple yearw ago.
That squeezes profit margins, but the restauranrt has been able to maintainn annual revenueof $1.3 million even during recen t tough times. Nikki Roche and her husband Niall Roche converted anotherupscalre spot, the former O’Callaghan’s Restaurant on Phila to a pub. They plan a June 19 opening forIrisjh Times, a traditional Irish pub that will servew mid-priced fare. The couple self-funded the restaurant and are completing “significant” renovations, Nikk i Roche says. They jumped into the project in spitee of thebad economy. “At the end of the day, this is what we do for a Why runsomebody else’s when we can run it for ourselves?
” says the forme New York City history teacher. Niall Roche attendeds hotel/restaurant school in his home countryin Shannon, Ireland, then spent yeards managing bars and restaurants in New York Gabino Vazquez and his brother, Estebab Vazquez, planned to open El Mexicano this week at the formerd Chianti’s building on South Broadwagy at the edge of downtown. They paid $160,000p for improvements to the 2,600-square-foot building and assumption of theexistinhg lease, according to Tim O’Rourke of . The deal closed March 5. The Vazquez brothers openedf El Mexicano in Hudson Fallse nearly threeyears ago.
They didn’t need a bank loan because they savedr money from that business to pay for the new Gabino Vazquez is doing most of therenovationss himself.