fbpx

The Siro’s Dining Room Will Not Open for the 2020 Saratoga Racing Season (Updated)

The restaurant's owner tells 'Saratoga Living' that the restaurant is, however, planning on opening its outdoor area in some capacity.

Siro's
For more than seven decades, Siro's has been the place to go after a day at Saratoga Race Course. This year, it will remain closed on its 75th anniversary.

One of the fixtures of the historic Saratoga Race Course season is going to be doing things a little differently this year. Siro’s, the historic restaurant and bar where upper-crust racing fans often congregate following the races, will not be opening its dining room this year, says the restaurant’s General Manager and Maître d’ Michael Stone. However, according to Siro’s Owner Scott Solomon, there are plans in the works to open the restaurant’s popular outdoor area.

The news comes after the New York Racing Association (NYRA) announced back in April that racing would likely happen at Saratoga, but without fans in attendance this season, due to the COVID-19 crisis. (A NYRA rep told Saratoga Living that its decision is based solely on Governor Andrew Cuomo’s mandate regarding “attractive nuisances” and crowd-size restrictions during the pandemic.)

“Social distancing, incorporated with the lack of fans, is just not going to enable us to be economically viable to open,” Stone says of the Siro’s dining room. “I’m sure we’re not the only ones—we’re all in uncharted waters.” Siro’s, which last year opened for the first time under new ownership, relies entirely on track clientele to fill its seats, only opening for the duration the track season before shutting down after Closing Day. Having first opened its doors in 1945, the restaurant would have been celebrating its 75th anniversary this year.

Stone wouldn’t comment on the status of this year’s Newton Plaza Siro’s Cup, an annual fundraiser for Albany’s Center for Disability Services held at the restaurant on the eve of Saratoga Race Course’s Opening Day. “To be perfectly honest, we’re still undecided,” says Anne Schneider Costigan, the Center for Disability Services senior vice president for communications and development. “We’re a little up in the air on what we’re going to be doing. I may have more information in a couple of weeks.”

An earlier version of this story reported that Siro’s would remain closed for the 2020 season. The restaurant’s ownership has since amended its initial statement.

Natalie Moore

Natalie Moore is the director of content at Saratoga Living and Capital Region Living.

ABOUT US

Welcome to Saratoga Living, the premier lifestyle media company in Saratoga Springs and the heart of New York’s Capital Region.

Saratoga Living magazine publishes six times a year. saratogaliving.com relaunched on February 8, 2018. Like our page on Facebook, and follow us on Instagram and Twitter.

The Voux magazine theme

THE CITY. THE CULTURE. THE LIFE.

FOLLOW US ON

 

For Saratoga Living‘s Submission Guidelines,
click here.

CONTACT US

All editorial queries should be directed to:
[email protected]; or sent to 6 Butler Place, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866.

Saratoga Living assumes no responsibility for unsolicited submissions.

For advertising inquiries, contact: [email protected].

For magazine subscriptions and to purchase back issues, contact:
[email protected].

For all other inquiries, call us at 518-294-4390.