My third weekend in Saratoga Springs was supposed to be dedicated to helping re-supply the Northville-Placid Trail thru-hikers at their halfway point, but multiple complications ended up with everyone on the trip leaving the trail that week, so my schedule instead shifted to getting up a bit early on Saturday, having breakfast in Saratoga Springs, and heading up to Lake George to transfer some of the leftover gear from the trip. I’d already experienced Country Corner Café the previous weekend, so I decided to check out the other breakfast diner near my friends’ condo: Shirley’s Diner.
Located on the west side of Saratoga Springs on West Ave, Shirley’s is a low-swept red brick building with some nice, bold neon signs proclaiming it to be Shirley’s. It’s definitely on the quieter end of town where the density of Saratoga Springs starts to thin out, but even with a 7:30am Saturday visit like mine, the place was already reasonably busy, and was hopping with activity by the time I left 40 minutes later. So it’s always a great sign when a place like this is busy.
The layout of Shirley’s is another of those classic “large diner” setups: on one side as you enter is a dining counter for small groups, and the rest of the joint is a large dining room with several rows of tables. While as a single diner I’d usually sit at a counter, it was a lot busier over on the dining room half, but still a lot of open tables so I decided that this would be one of those Saturday mornings where I’d read the newspaper over a relaxing breakfast. The menu at Shirley’s is your classic American diner fare, but with one notable addition: in addition to the standard pancakes, they offer up a good selection of crêpes. I usually go for a savory breakfast, but for some reason I was craving fruit that morning, so I settled on their Blueberry Lemon Drop Crêpes.
This dish was two crêpes, filled with lemon Bavarian cream and blueberry jam, topped with berries. The crêpes aren’t really the really-thin French-style crêpes, but more like the Quebecois style, sitting about halfway between the French crêpe and pancakes. But these were nicely cooked with a bit of a buttermilk tang, so I rather liked them. The lemon Bavarian cream was smooth with only mild vanilla and lemon notes, so this added to the dish without burying it in lemon. And then the berries on top were plentiful. Seriously, this was a lot of berries, a good half-pint. Since I was craving some fruit, his was very satisfying, and the entire dish nicely tied together.
Overall, I really liked Shirley’s. Friendly staff, good food, and a pretty wide menu. I’ll have to consider giving them a follow-up visit the next time I’m in town. Heck, it looks like the sort of joint that probably has a righteous turkey dinner…
