S.J. Garcia’s is changing name, menu
(Credit: Steve Thurston, 2022)
S.J. Garcia's, named that for three decades or more, is now Jack Barry's American Pub.
S.J. Garcia’s in Lake George Village is no longer, after at least three decades with that moniker. The name has changed as part of a shift in the menu at 192 Canada Street in Lake George Village.
Owner Brett Lange is still in charge of what is now Jack Barry’s American Pub. The Lake George Village Planning board approved a new sign for the pub on Wednesday May 18.
Lange said he also owns Pablo’s Burrito Cantina a bit further north on Canada Street.
Customers are looking for more of a burrito joint than a sit-down, full-dinner Mexican restaurant like Garcia’s, Lange said after the planning board meeting.
Plus, staffing is a bit of an issue, he said. COVID has played a role, but so has the reliance on international workers who come to the area under the j-1 Visa program. And in any year, the restaurant has to train the full staff and have them up to speed quickly in order to make money during a short season.
“It’s hard to train a kid from Lithuania to cook Mexican in upstate New York,” he said, laughing.
The menu still has a bit of the Mexican flare such as a Reuben quesadilla. But pub food such as bangers and mash along with fish fries and salads will be the norm.
The name change is already registered on Google Maps.
Planning nixes the Fort William Henry progress bond
Kirsten Catellier, the president of Studio A Landscape Architecture and Engineering, presented the Lake George Village Planning Board with new, scaled-back plans for the Fort William Henry Resort in Lake George. The board met on Wednesday May 18.
The project for the property on the bluff overlooking Lake George originally included upgrades to the kitchen that serves the Tankard Taverne and the White Lion restaurant. They had proposed a “three season porch” that wraps around two dining venues. As well, they planned to expand their outdoor wedding space.
This drew the attention of village planning officials who applied a seldom-used requirement of a $75,000 performance bond on the project, an amount that the resort’s owner Kathy Muncil said was prohibitively expensive. The bond is meant to make sure the outdoors elements are completed to the standards set by the board during the planning process. Once the requirements are met, the resort would get the money back.
In the new iteration presented Wednesday, the patio has been cut in half. Gone is the outdoor wedding space and large tent. Walkways and lighting and have been reduced.
“The project scope got smaller, yes,” the village’s planner Dan Barusch wrote in an email to FoothillsBusinessDaily.com. “The patio was almost reduced in half and all of the other site improvements were removed. Due to those things the board did not feel the bond was necessary any longer.”
During the meeting, board Chair Carol Sullivan told the board the bond requirement had been lifted.