Lake Placid

Lake Placid is the home of 2 Winter Olympics, 1932 and 1980, and the High Peaks of the Adirondack Mountains; and now our occasional home away from home. We visited lake Placid for Labor Day weekend for 2 nights and 3 days. This was a great trip and we are already planning a trip back for Thanksgiving weekend.

Let me start with our hotel. We stayed at Art Devlin's Olympic Motor Inn, http://www.artdevlins.com/, which is on the south end of Main Street but still within walking distance to much of the village. I am going to start with the bad -- there are no hooks in the bathroom to hang a robe or wet towel. Now the rest -- We were impressed from the moment we pulled into the parking lot. The motel grounds are very well maintained and landscaped. Check in was easy and quick. The words "oh, my god" actually came out of both our mouths upon entering the room. The first thing you see upon entering the room is a wall of windows where the sliding glass door is that open onto a private balcony and what you view out of the wall of windows is absolutely magnificent. There was a great view of the mountain and we could see the ski jumps from the 1980 Olympics. The room itself was very spacious, clean and newly updated. We had a king bed and small couch, chair an coffee table. The room was so comfortable that my husband who normally only sleeps about 5 or 6 hours a night slept for 11 hours. When we checked out we made reservations for Thanksgiving weekend in the same room!!

Restaurants:

Gordo's (for menu only www.lakeplacidmenus.com/gordos_menu.pdf) -- This is a new eatery in Lake Placid. This is a good place for lunch, but it is small with very limited seating. Consider this more of a "fast food" type place. They serve tacos, burritos, quesadillas, etc. I had a special combo of a small soup and two tacos. The soup was pumpkin chirizo; it was hearty and flavorful. The tacos were made to order with unlimited toppings. My husband had an huge burrito and soup. We hope they do well and would definitely stop in again for lunch.

Wiseguys (http://www.wiseguyslp.com/) -- This is a sports bar on a street just off the south end of Main Street, only a few blocks from our hotel. The website is not at all a good indicator of the restaurant. The menu is typically bar type food, burgers, sandwiches, nachos, etc. I had a great club style aandwhich called the Stakler, the turkey had great flavor and there was plenty of bacon and how could anything be bad with bacon. My husband had a burger and he loved it. It had great burger flavor without being overwhelmed by the taste of the toppings. Service was friendly and attentive, portions were doggy bag sized. The prices were reasonable for the area and for the portion sizes. We are looking forward to going back at Thanksgiving to take in a football game and enjoy the great food.

Lake Placid Pub and Brewery (http://www.ubuale.com/) First I must say this, if you go to Tripadvisor you will see several negative reviews, and to those people I have this as a remark, Lake Placid Pub and Brewery is a pub and BREWERY. Translated this is a bar that happens to sell great pub food, it is NOT a restaurant that makes their own beer on the side. The restaurant is upstairs and only has about 20 tables for seating (note: there is an outdoor seating area for times of good weather), you can sit at the bar and eat, but there is not alot of seating there either. Given this and the fact this is a place where people linger to enjoy their drinks, chat, and relax; there may not be a long line of people waiting for a table but wait times might be an hour, which was the case when we went. We got lucky and found two seats at the bar and had dinner there. The food was very tasty and fresh. The veggies in our quesadillas tasted like they were picked and delivered that morning. The bbq pulled pork on our nachos was had great flavor. Oh yeah, the beer is not bad either! Well worth a visit just remember, be prepared to wait.