Panza's moving to South Broadway location during redevelopment
By Steve Barnes, senior writer on February 12, 2019 at 12:57 PM
The new home of Panza's for the next two years is at 129 S. Broadway in Saratoga Springs. (Photo via Google Maps.)
Panza's Restaurant on Saratoga Lake, which is preparing for a still-unapproved project to raze its longtime home on Saratoga Lake and replace it with a new building and attached boutique hotel, will be relocating for at least two years to 129 S. Broadway in Saratoga Springs. The distinctive stone-sided, angled-roof restaurant building, empty for about a 15 years, in previous incarnations was home to Paradiso il Ristorante, Piccolo's, Road Kill Cafe and Tradewinds.
Tony Panza tells me he hopes to open the in-town Panza's in April. Panza's on the lake will be open for another six weeks, while cosmetic work and other improvements are done on the South Broadway site, and close after the transition. Panza tells me his team is still negotiating for approval of its Saratoga Lake redevelopment, and construction will likely stretch out far enough that a reopening may not happen until late 2020 or spring 2021. He tells me he has signed a two-year lease for 129 S. Broadway, with the possibility to option the building for purchase.
"I've got a feeling we're going to like it there, so we may keep it and have two locations," he says. (An earlier version of Panza's sat on the corner of Broadway and Washington Street downtown, where Starbucks now is.)
Panza estimates the capacity of the South Broadway building at more than 200, divided among a main dining room, grotto bar and a upper area he intends to make into a entertainment lounge.
The Panza family has a fond association with 129 S. Broadway, Panza tells me. In his younger years, he enjoyed dining there with his parents when it was the Tradewinds, and, around 1980, when Panza's father, Andrew, had surgery, the couple who ran the Tradewinds stepped in to help run Panza's Restaurant while Andrew was in the hospital and recuperating at home.
Steve Barnes