FeedMe518

Locally Acclaimed Catering Company Creates Globally Influenced Fine Dining

By Nellie Ackerman-Vellano, Feed Me 518™

While Daley’s On Yates may still seem new to some, this family owned business is built on a foundation of over forty years of hospitality experience.

Founded by The Old Daley Inn owners, Gena Coletti, Jim Pettit, and Marty Keary, this trio has been business partners for over 20 years. Along with their General Manager, Michael Anthony, and with their mixologist, Sue Ross, the owners and their executive team worked together and were all an integral part in creating Daley's on Yates.

Stephanie Pettit, Director of Business Development said, "Jim and I, along with my sister Sue and brother in law, Michael Anthony, traveled together and made it a point to visit NYC and Boston quite a bit to check out the dining scene and see what would translate well in the Capital Region. After a long year and a half build out, Daley’s On Yates was opened."

Daley’s opened in 2018 in an old taxi company building in downtown Schenectady. I've personally dined at Daley's a few times since they first opened, and I have consistently had a fabulous dining experience every time.

Daley's General Manager, Michael Anthony stated, "We wanted guests to feel good when they walked through our doors, but most importantly, we wanted them to feel the warmth and comfort of a great meal. Refined comfort food with global influences is the root of our menu."

What will you feel when you come to Daley's On Yates? You will feel welcomed in such a way that you will believe the owners and staff were personally expecting you and prepared the entire evening’s dining experience in the restaurant just for you. It will feel that way because they did.

Daley's On Yates exists to give each guest a unique and comfortable dining experience that makes them want to put their phones away and enjoy the company they are with as they share an incredible dining experience with creative foods that are approachable to almost any palette. The Grilled Octopus is a dish that I immediately fell in love with visually. The fact that it's also incredibly delicious as well may have made this one of my favorite food experiences. The warm German style Pebble Potato Salad served as a bed for the Sous Vide prepared octopus on which to lie.

I could eat the Moroccan Tenderloin Kabobs starter as a meal, as it's very filling for an appetizer for one person. This is a delicious, tender, juicy beef drizzled with cilantro chili sauce. You won't regret ordering this dish that's accompanied with their homemade Mint Raita Sauce. The Quinao Tabbouleh salad is also made in-house and brings this entire dish together. Each item is a beautiful compliment to the other. I plan to go back and order this to have for lunch.

The Flash Fried Calamari is a creative and flavorful dish, and one of my favorites that I've had in the 518. This dish was above and beyond what you'd expect for a calamari appetizer. What makes this dish stand out and different from the others, are the crispy kalettes, hot peppadews, and sambal mixed in. The calamari by itself would have been a delicious appetizer, as it was battered lightly and cooked perfectly. Calamari lovers take note, this is the place to come to satiate yourself.

The Wild Icelandic Lamb Loin was incredibly tender and slices like warm butter. The flavors in this dish are outstanding, and I loved the mixed side of roasted cauliflower, pancetta ragout, sultanana, marcona almonds, and shaved brussels on green tahini sauce. Imagine a scalloped cooked as perfectly as it could be. That's their Pan Seared Scallops dish. I have so many good feelings about this entree. I love scallops, and I was extremely pleased that this was presented to me, as it was a phenomenal entree. The scallops rested on top of herb roasted fingerling potatoes, and were topped with parsnip cCrisps. All of it swimming in an amazing lobster sherry butter sauce that really should be served by the bowlful.

The 14oz Prime NY Strip Steak is a generous cut of meat, and it’s seasoned nicely. If you are a meat and potatoes person, I implore you to dine here. Daley’s On Yates, 10 Yates St, Schenectady, NY daleysonyates.com

Happy Eating!

Nellie Ackerman-Vellano, Feed Me 518™ Instagram: @FeedMe518 FB: www.facebook.com/FeedMe518 Website: www.FeedMe518.com

A Signature is Always Unique And So is Saratoga Signature Interiors and the Steel Magnolia Behind It

by Rona Mann photos by Stephanie Sittnick

You know from the get-go that the woman behind the business is as unique as the business itself.

Nancy Smith has been the powerhouse behind Saratoga Signature Interiors since its inception in the Capital District in 1992, yet she is a quiet, refined powerhouse. Not boisterous, but fiercely determined. Not pushy, but quietly forceful. She is without a doubt a steel magnolia having originally come to the northeast from Georgia by way of California, eventually migrating to Saratoga in 1980.

“I have a Southern sense of home, a West Coast sense of style, and a Northeast sense of business,” she says quietly with a delightful hint of a southern lilt in both her manner and her speech. Speak with Smith only a few minutes, and it is easy to see why Saratoga Signature Interiors is both unique and very special indeed.

First, a bit of background. “I don’t like to think of Saratoga Signature Interiors as a furniture store,” Smith begins. “It is a store of interior design.” Indeed, a walk throughout the 6000 square foot space will quickly convince the visitor that they are not in a cavernous furniture emporium with sofa after sofa, chair after chair. Rather, Saratoga Signature Interiors is a store of ideas, of imagination, and of a marriage and complete collaboration between its valued customers and their highly trained and talented designers.

Smith, who has a degree in interior design, grew up in the Atlanta area “where people never resell their homes,” she laughed. “That’s their home forever.” But Nancy’s fate took on a peripatetic twist as she married a Navy flier, and they were stationed for a time in Alameda, California. Following this time on the West coast, she crisscrossed the country once again and moved back to Georgia where she started an interior design business with her sister. Her husband, now out of the service, worked for Nabisco, where one day it was announced in 1980 he was being transferred...to Buffalo. “My mother said that was grounds for divorce!” Nancy laughed, “but we wound up loving it.”

Several years later, Nancy received an offer from Stickley in Albany, and the family moved yet again, this time to the Capital District.

Although she loved working for Stickley, Smith still longed to have her own business, so in 1992 she opened a shop on Broadway when she moved to Saratoga Springs. The location didn’t prove to have the appeal she wanted, so she then moved to Franklin Square. That wasn’t the right fit either, but in 2003 Saratoga Signature Interiors came alive in its current location on Church Street. “It is just perfect for us! exclaimed Nancy, who knew she was now in her “forever home,” like they have in the South.

From the beginning, she longed to be noticed, to let people know she was there. “I wanted to say to the local people, ‘Oh, come look at me!’” Trying to find exactly the right way to do that, she bought six lawn jockeys, painted them herself, and set them out in front of the

shop. Suddenly people were more than “looking” at her, they were coming in, anxious to buy the pieces. “It wasn’t just in the summer or during racing season either,” Smith remarked. “They wanted them for weddings, they wanted them for the holidays, to this day they continue to want them.” Enter her talented designer, Dan Czech, a graduate of The Parsons School of Design, who not only creates and stages all the vignettes throughout Saratoga Signature Interiors, but also designs all the displays, decorates the store magnificently for the holidays, and hand paints all of the lawn jockeys. “Dan is so talented,” Nancy exclaims. “The 40 inch jockeys fashioned of 100% aluminum are all from the same mold, but he manages to have each face take on a different look. In addition to the traditional lawn jockey, he also does baseball players, hockey players, and we sell so many, it has become a major part of our business.” So major in fact that requests for the jockeys come to Saratoga Signature Interiors from all over the country, and when the warm weather comes and Nancy puts them out front, everyone in town knows summers on the way! Dan’s hard work results in a beautifully laid out store where the traditional, contemporary, and transitional furniture is beautifully and purposefully set in vignettes throughout. The settings are constantly changing, and all are complemented with occasional pieces such as side tables, mirrors, lamps, and accessories, so customers can truly get a feel for how something will look in their home. Always, the customer’s needs and wants come first. “Our first consultation is generally a one hour consultation in their home, and it is complimentary,” Nancy says. “If they like what we have to offer, if they establish a budget, and we’re able to come up with a workable plan, then we begin a relationship; and if they shop with us, there is no extra charge for our service.” Always Smith holds dear to the loyalty and consistency of her customers who continue to come back, sometimes years later, when they are ready for a new custom-designed piece or a whole new look for their home. Nancy builds her customer base on this and never takes this special relationship for granted, saying, “I have always liked and held true to that old saying, Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, and the other is gold.” It is important to note here that whether the visitor to the store is an old friend or a new one, what a customer sees on the floor at

Saratoga Signature Interiors is far from their only choices. “We sell good furniture, but we have access to literally thousands of things. A customer can mix and match colors, textures, designs, the possibilities are endless. However, Nancy, and especially her son, Colby, who designs and manages all the social media for the store, believe in being honest, even while sometimes walking on egg shells with a customer of “eclectic” taste and style.

“We’re not afraid to tell people if we think something is wrong or won’t work. If they really want to put a patterned sofa over a purple striped rug, that’s their business, but we gently try to point out why ultimately they may not like the end result,” Nancy says.

She gives a little laugh, then pauses and says in that thoroughly engaging Southern way, “Gotta have a sense of humor!”

Go visit Nancy, Dan, and the great staff and say hello to the jockeys at: Saratoga Signature Interiors, (518)581-0023 82 Church Street, Saratoga Springs. www.saratogasignature.com

INSTINCTIVELY DIFFERENT>>