During our annual trip to Lake George, we usually end up going out for breakfast several times, exploring the area. One of our more regular destinations (one that somehow has managed to avoid a review to this point, probably due to lack of photos) is down in Queensbury: The Silo. The Silo is one of those roadside institutions that gives an old school aura, like farmland and its buildings were converted to a restaurant; That’s partly true: The Silo used to be a barn and, well, silo, but not in Glens Falls, but at a more rural location in Saratoga County, getting relocated here in the 1980s to make a restaurant and gift shop.
The net effect here is essentially “Like Cracker Barrel on steroids, but locally owned”. The Silo is at least as much gift shop as restaurant, and you do indeed enter and “exit through the gift shop”, but at least they’ve got some good, fresh-made cider donuts (which are the perfect snack if you find yourself with a long wait for a table, which is quite often on weekends, and is exactly what we did on our visit.
After a relatively short wait (around 20 minutes, mostly spent sitting on Adirondack chairs on the front porch), we found ourselves seated in a quieter corner and reviewing the menu. Silo is your classic, old-fashioned American breakfast-and-lunch joint, with a breakfast menu known for omelets, pancakes, Benedict, skillet, and other breakfast comfort-food staples, and a similar burger and sandwich menu for lunch. If you are looking for a good, solid, stick-to-your-ribs breakfast to tide you over to dinner, this is the place. Myself, I went for my regional gold standard for evaluating a place: an Irish Benedict with corned beef hash. This was a rather good version: a good crisp on the English muffins, some nicely-seared, house-made corned beef hash, nicely poached and a nice, creamy and tangy Hollandaise. Really, the Benedict itself was exactly what I hope for from this dish. Add in some home-fries (done what the Midwest calls Potatoes O’Brien, with green peppers and onions) were good, but not quite top tier. But certainly good enough to dab up the various bits of leftover Hollandaise that always result.
Meanwhile, Carol opted for the Classic Benedict. Basically the exact same dish as mine, but with nice, thick slabs and nicely-seared Canadian bacon in place of the CBH. Definitely a good version of the classic dish.
Overall, we like The Silo. We’re not alone, it’s the sort of place that we need to try to remember to hit on the quieter mornings of our annual Lake George trip, since a lot of other people obviously love the spot as well (it can often exceed an hour wait on Sundays, for example). But it’s some great food, friendly service, and hey, if you need a nice, fresh cider donut while you wait (or for dessert), you can get one hot out of the oil. What’s better than that?
