‘It was not comfortable at first.’
Veering off track: Abby Tegnelia (me!), Noel McLaren and Zac Denham at Stirrup Saratoga.
From the editor
Hey, Dispatchers!
Raise your hand if you’ve been here awhile?
You guys might remember when there was no AI-busting note from the editor, or any hot pink “with Abby Tegnelia” scripts. I was happy to be just “The Dispatch.”
But this modern era of local news has a different set of rules that I quickly learned were meant to be broken anyways — no matter how uncomfortable it made me. And (naturally) Noel and Zac of Off Track Saratoga wanted to hear all about every last awkward minute.
Let’s get to it.
— Abby
In this issue:
🎙️ I get personal — and explain my obsession with newsletters
🐴 “It’s kind of crazy that there has never been a Ralph Lauren store here. There’s not a brand that fits a town better.”
🎁 Perfect gifts for track/history buffs
🍕 Beloved pizzeria closes after 40 years
🎙️ PODCASTING
I don’t like to talk in first person, but I’m learning that I have to put myself in it just a little bit more, so people know I’m not AI — everything in here is curated by a journalist.
I might forget words — and make up some new ones along the way — but I never turn down an opportunity to embrace my public speaking fears and talk about the importance of local journalism.
And now that I run my own emerging local media company? Just try to pry the mic from my hot little hands. Enter the new episode of Off Track Saratoga.
We discuss:
The role local newsletters play in beating “news deserts”
AI
The one important issue that is 100% non-partisan
AI
Paywalls and why the Dispatch will always remain free to read — even if it means I continue to do the work of 100 people
AI, AI, AI, AI
🐴 FASHION SCOOP
We filmed the episode in Stirrup Saratoga, and owner Matt Acevedo let drop some major scoop: His curated thrift store (think Ralph Lauren … and more Ralph Lauren) is going to soon offer a private shopping experience.
“As soon as the website's finished being built,” he promises on the ep. “We’ll close the store down for 30 minutes, an hour, obviously with a minimum spend. Tell us a little bit of what your colors are, your sizes — and we can pull some things.”
Quick poll 👇
Do you want to learn how to play mahjong?
Dispatch and beer koozies
These new racing red beer koozies are a must-have for the track — and beyond. And guess what? The collection also features a magnet about the New York DISPATCH.
I shrieked.
“It was a NYC-based weekly paper published back in 1863,” says Annie Johnson, editor of the Turf History Times. “I love the history of the track during the ‘John Morrissey Years.’”
There are also postcards and the aforementioned koozies — both the one pictured right and “Saratoga Summer.”
Shop at Dark Horse Mercantile or order online at Annie’s Turf History Times Etsy shop.
Seeing red (and white): This beer koozie/can cooler showing the iconic red and white canopy is an “homage to the infamous former paddock bar tent.”
🍕 SAYING GOODBYE
Pope’s Pizza is closing its doors after 40 years in Saratoga. “From our start on Broadway to our current location on Washington Street, we couldn’t have done it without you,” the company announced on Facebook. “With all good things, this journey has come to an end. We’re ready to take a step back and focus on family— the thing that started this all.”
📰 IN BRIEF
Monday night’s Fasig-Tipton saw gross sales of $54,395,000, putting it in position to again cross the $100 million mark. Leading the pack? A $3,200,000 Nyquist colt. Tonight concludes the storied horse sales.
Glens Falls stars in a New York Times piece on the state of independent local journalism — that covers only print, despite the paper’s getting ready to launch its first local newsletter in the Twin Cities.
Saratoga’s Bill Mott feeling ‘relief’ after Sovereignty’s big Whitney win, writes NYRA.
Maxine Granito keeps trying to break up with coffee
Have you ever fled a career only to have it chase you, woo you, and talk you into staying? That’s what keeps happening to Maxine Granito every time she tries to ditch the caffeine biz.
“I got my start working in Seattle,” she says, explaining that when she came back to Ballston Spa, she ended up managing Wolferts Roost for a time, but then love and coffee, once again, came calling — and she married Martin Michele, founder of Wired Coffee Roasters.
“I wrote the winning bid to get our second location in Saratoga Spa Park, and it seemed great,” she says. But then COVID … and a baby, a second pregnancy, 12 hours a day of coffee making, serving, mopping. Did I mention COVID?
Long story short, Maxine decided to break up with coffee for good. But then, she got roped into cranking out coffee for a three-day conference on invasive insects.
“Twenty-five hundred people guzzling coffee for three days,” she recalls, fondly. “It was actually so much fun. And I figured if I can do that …”
Since then, Maxine’s relationship with coffee has had strict boundaries. She launched Mobile Bevvies officially in 2025, and now she runs the coffee show, pre-batching drinks before the day begins, sourcing locally made ingredients (holla local Maple Syrup and Saratoga Tea & Honey), and serving up healthier, non-dairy options whenever possible.
“My goal is efficiency and making a great drink,” she says. “For my boba for example, it would be much easier for me to buy pre-boiled tapioca pearls, but it’s better if I boil it myself and add beet juice for color instead of food dye. I don’t want anything artificial.”
Maxine is fluent, in other words, in the mom language of creating drinks everyone will love, and mom will not feel bad about buying them.
Find Mobile Bevvies around Saratoga County, and stationed at the Ballston Spa Farmers Market, and headed for Troy’s this winter.
🥳 GRAND OPENINGS
Photo provided by the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce
Saratoga has a new (locally-owned and -operated!) car rental company: Spa City Car Rental (360 Maple Ave.). For more info, visit spacitycarrentalsaratoga.com.
Photo provided by the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce
Wilton welcomes Saratoga Regional Health Center (612 Maple Ave.), a collaborative healthcare destination offering orthopedic, ENT, facial plastic surgery, ophthalmology, gastroenterology, cardiology, laboratory and primary care services under one roof.
Local, real, never corporate (it’s just me!). I cannot do this without you.
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