Saratoga bar and restaurant owners seem to be catching on to something Saratogians have been wanting for a while: late-night dining options.
First it was Herbie’s Burgers, which this June opened at Ice House but come late fall will operate out of the new Pint Sized location at 33 Phila Street. Then there’s Standard Fare, the restaurant by the owners of Bocage Champagne Bar that will open on August 15 and serve dinner until midnight during the week and 2am on weekends. And as of today, there’s T.G. Clancy’s Tavern & Fare, a lightly rebranded version of Clancy’s Tavern, the longtime Caroline Street watering hole that up until now never served food.
“I really want to have the kitchen open every hour we’re open for business,” says Griffin Clancy, who’s taken over the business from his father, Tom. “Margins are tough, but if you’re open and nobody else is, that’s when you can succeed.”
To create the food menu, Clancy and his team looked at what other businesses in town serve, and what they don’t serve. They ultimately came up with a menu featuring starters (one satisfied customer told me she had the buffalo chicken fries for lunch and they were delicious); smashburgers, sandwiches, and wraps; a pair of salads; and personal pizzas, which come in varieties such as H.H. Meat Lovers (pepperoni, sweet Italian sausage, ground beef, applewood-smoked bacon bits, and fiery hot honey) and Pizza Bianca Di Liz (a white pizza with mozzarella, burrata, applewood-smoked bacon, fig jam, arugula, and balsamic glaze).
“We tried a bunch of stuff and threw out a lot of stuff,” Clancy says. “We went through, like, 10 pizza doughs to find the right one. And we’ve got a really good one. It’s coming out thin and crispy, which everyone wants.”
The food prices, like the drink prices, are some of the most competitive in Downtown. A dozen wings will run you $17.95, the pizzas are $16 or $17, and a chicken bacon ranch wrap rings up at $13.95. “Obviously, the cost of food is crazy right now, but we’re going to keep our prices down as much as we can,” Clancy says. “My dad always says the working man has gotten us to this point. We’ve always been fair with prices. We’re still $5 for a domestic beer.”
Next week, Clancy plans to start offering food to go, and then via DoorDash the following week.
The new menu launch comes after a few months of renovations that not only added a kitchen at the back of the bar but also gave the entire establishment a facelift, inside and out. The exterior has been painted, the back bar is all-new, and the bathrooms have been redone.
“We want to be the same Clancy’s that we were, but offer a more widespread variety to get more customers through the door,” Clancy says. “The business has always done well, but it’s like, what do you want to do to take it to the next level? Because why are you in business if you’re not trying to be the absolute best?”
