Season's first 📸 party pics!
Julia Roberts in red? PLUS: 👏 Saratoga Report toasts 6 tireless years.
Dan De Federicis is celebrating six years of tirelessly publishing the Saratoga Report every single day.
Meanwhile, more than 55 million of our fellow Americans live in a news desert, with no access to local news.
Could that happen here?
Not on our watch.
— Abby
☀️ Special Monday morning edition! ☀️
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🍝 Join the 34 people who have already signed up for the April 8 Dinner Club: Every 6 signups means another reservation at a local restaurant. We just booked table 5. Who's filling table 6?

🥂 Celebrating 6 years of Saratoga Report
Abby: Congrats on six years! When did you know that this idea you had for a daily, all-Saratoga email was working?
Dan: A year or two into it, I was having coffee with Tom Law, who is one of the owners of the horse publication The Saratoga Special. He grew up here and divides his time between Saratoga and Burlington. I told Tom, “I want to replace the Saratogian,” and he replied, “I think you already did.”
Abby: There’s so much happening here; we can’t afford a decreasing news scene.
Dan: Yes, Saratoga needed a daily or at least something that took the place of a daily. I love Saratoga and I see it as giving back.
Abby: We see it that way, too.
Dan: Sonny Bonacio told me, “It’s the first thing I read every morning.”
Abby: I second that!
Keep reading!
Saratoga Report EXCLUSIVE: Viva Empanadas to Open New Saratoga Springs Location in Congress Plaza
🥂 HEADS UP
April Fool’s … in poetry
Join Saratoga’s poet laureate, Jay Rogoff, at Whitman Brewing Company on Wednesday for a hilarious poetry reading he’s calling “April Is the Foolest Month” — a twist on T. S. Eliot’s calling April “the cruelest month.” A dozen area poets will read their original works.
April 1, 7 p.m., Downstairs Lounge at Whitman Brewing Company
I know that guy
Someone’s having a party…on HBO’s The Gilded Age. And you could help it look that much more spectacular. Filming for Season 4 resumes in Troy in June, and they’re currently casting for “event guests.” Apply at backstage.com.
📸 IN PICTURES
Julia Roberts in red
It’s supposed to get up to 66 degrees today and I found party pics in my inbox — signs of spring, at last!
Beyoncé, Megan Thee Stallion, Verdi, Puccini — Opera Saratoga pulled out all the stops for its season kick-off Thursday night, an exquisite evening that celebrated opera in pop culture.
“Thank you for making my life-long dream come true,” General and Artistic director Mary Birnbaum told the crowd of about 100. Her completed wish? A riff-off, which featured “Sweet Caroline” … and Handel.
You should’ve been there.
Oh, and Julia Roberts wore a red dress to see La traviata in Pretty Woman. My kind of trivia night.






📰 IN BRIEF
Photos and vid of Saturday’s ‘No Kings’ rally downtown, in the Daily Gazette.
NYRA announces purse increasses for Belmont and the summer meet, reports Spectrum News.
‘How was your table?’
I’m so pumped for the April 8 launch of the Dispatch Dinner Club! And to gossip about it afterwards at the Coat Room…where the once-strangers who just dined at 6-tops all over town will convene for a nightcap. (It’s optional but half the fun!)
“How was your table?” will no doubt be the ice-breaker of the night.
If you haven’t had one of the stunning Coat Room cocktails, you’re in for a treat. I asked the hotspot’s head bartender, Tyler Osterhout, to describe the vibe: “Moody lighting, great cocktails, perfect ambiance.” See you there!
📌 ICYMI…
When the guy at the top steps in: high alert for real estate in Saratoga County
A Saratogian in ‘Time’ magazine
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Never corporate, always local.
— Abby



