Angelo Mazzone, owner of Mazzone Hospitality and Prime Restaurant at Saratoga National Golf Club, cuts the ribbon on The Village at Prime. Next to him is Heather O'Neil and Antonio Dixon.
Seven SolarFi pods opened over the weekend at The Village at Prime, offering patrons solar-powered private dining opportunities — complete with unique decorations, HEPA air filters and USB charging ports.
"People are looking for special dining experiences, even during the pandemic,” Heather O’Neil, general manager of Prime at Saratoga National, said in a media release. “The Village at Prime is a way for people to enjoy a special night out, while staying safe and practicing social distancing.”
Arranged on a patio outside the main restaurant, the pods, designed like greenhouses, are meant to feel like a village, replete with decorated Christmas trees and a communal fire pit outside. Each has a small heater and lights; they sit on short platforms, not directly on the patio, so they have a bit of insulation from the ground, O'Neil said. They can fit parties of two to six.
O'Neil said the pods have over 100 reservations so far, and Christmas Eve and New Years Eve are booked.
Although they are designed to run on solar power, the lack of sun this far north makes that a bit more difficult, so the smaller pods can run on solar, but others also receive battery-pack power or extension cords from the main building.
While the pods provide the privacy and protection the COVID-19 pandemic has forced, they were first developed for more practical reasons, said SolarFi creative director Antonio Dixon. He was recently named to the 2021 Forbes Magazine’s Next 1000 list. The company is based in Troy but has projects all over the country.
When traveling in rural Africa, he saw women fueling generators with gas carried by motorbike from miles away — not the most reliant source of income for poor mothers trying to earn income for their families.
“The original idea was to help people in rural areas in Africa that didn’t have electricity,” said Dixon. “Why use a generator? You have the sun!”
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and drastically impacted business, Dixon saw an opportunity. “We wanted to use technology to have an impact on people, especially small businesses, so I started to work with restaurant chains.”
SolarFi provides outdoor pods at NYC’s Eataly and New York Fashion week, as well as other restaurants throughout the country. The company also offers “business in a box” for use at stadiums, markets and other public spaces.
“We create a cool environment for people to be able to dine or conduct business outside and, worse comes to worse, they learn about solar and are educated about climate change,” Dixon said.
"Imagine this in a snow storm," with snow falling all around the glowing, clear buildings, said Todd Shimkus, the president of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce. The chamber hosted the ribbon cutting event on Dec. 21.
SolarFi has plans to extend its entertainment-driven products into glamping (glamorous camping) and writer retreats. But the company’s products also have great potential in humanitarian efforts, Dixon said, including offering space for telemedicine centers in Rwanda and providing homeless people a safe and healthy environment.
While SolarFi’s products are popular outside this region, the Troy-based company has struggled to capture a local market. Teaming with Mazzone Hospitality, owner of Prime at Saratoga National and prominent throughout the Capital Region, is a strategic move for Dixon.
“I think a lot of people don’t want to be first,” he said. "Sometimes you have to prove things other places before people take you seriously. We are honored to partner with the leading hospitality group in upstate New York.”
Dixon sees many opportunities to use the pods, from small artists' spaces to individual offices. He said he has been talking to one local business about setting up the pods in a local park and offering them as co-working spaces, or "offices in the woods."