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SARATOGA SPRINGS — On a patio banner outside the Parting Glass Irish Pub are images of Saratoga Springs’ latest celebrity resident, Dave Portnoy. Each snapshot shows one of his visits.
Owner Joan Desadora, 82, regrettably missed a few visits.
“I asked him to just shoot me a text, because I can’t be there 20 hours a day and I was missing them,” said Desadora. “Finally I was sitting out there with a coffee when he drove up and said, ‘at last.'”
The pot-stirring 46-year-old influencer and founder of controversial pop-culture blog Barstool Sports is a beloved character at the Parting Glass. It’s clear why: he helped save the pub, along with dozens of other businesses, during the COVID-19 pandemic by offering monthly grants through his company’s charity fund.
Desadora had never heard of Portnoy before applying for the high-dollar sum.
“He’s a really down-to-earth guy,” said Desadora. “You got to get past his slang. He’s a little rough.”
Portnoy once said that Saratoga is his second-favorite place in the world, behind Nantucket. The Swampscott, Massachusetts native visited Saratoga Springs regularly with his father as a young boy. While he visited other venues, for Portnoy, the Spa City track wasn’t like anything else.
“I’ve been coming here basically my whole life,” Portnoy said in a recent interview with horse racing reporter Jonathon Kinchen.
Flash forward to now and Portnoy has become increasingly engrained in Spa City life. He has a horse, WonderGirl Carly, and plans to demolish and redevelop a Fifth Avenue home abutting the Oklahoma Training Track. Social media is filled with selfies of the bewhiskered man around the city.
Former Public Safety Commissioner Robin Dalton spotted him while she and her school-age daughter were driving to Target. Upon stopping to take a photo, they chatted about sports and pizza.
Portnoy’s pizza reviews – always conversational in tone, and sometimes brutally honest – are one of his signature features online.
“I think it’s really funny because a lot of his content is obviously meant for a certain demographic, but you had a 41-year-old woman and her 10-year-old daughter, both huge fans,” Dalton said.
Of course, the chance spotting a high-profile figure in Saratoga Springs is far from a snowball’s chance in … Saratoga in August. Here’s a shortlist of known trackgoers: Kevin Dillon, Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, Bill Parcells, Shaun White and Mike Francesa. And the list of big-name investors in the horse-racing industry is plentiful, including Saudi royalty.
Bits and pieces of the region are beloved by the rich and famous. Jeff Goldblum and Danny Glover have patronized Jack’s Diner in Albany. Jack Nicholson has been known to have bread from Perreca’s in Schenectady shipped to California. Rachael Ray lives in the Lake George area, not far from her upbringing.
But Portnoy is presently one of the most visible and controversial national figures to incorporate intensive Capital Region trotting into his brand. He hops from restaurant to restaurant, reviewing and rating cheesy grub — mostly pizza.
He has one rule: “One bite, everybody knows the rules,” he says at the start of every review.
“Dave Portnoy reviews my cousin’s place, [Morrette’s] — a Schenectady institution!!!!” said state Sen. James Tedisco, R-Glenville, in a social media post.
Some establishments are even urging Portnoy to rate their food, like Lake George-based Full Moon Bar & Grill.
“Dave Portnoy you need to come north while at the Saratoga track and try some of the best pizza around!! You won’t be disappointed!! Come to the best place on Earth…The Moon!” the restaurant wrote in a Facebook post last week.
Walt & Whitman Brewing Company owner Kathy Crager said in an email that Portnoy’s appearance testing the Saratoga establishment’s signature Detroit-style pizza has since attracted more patrons to the establishment. She hopes he stops by again to try out their “baconeggncheese” sandwich with jalapeno sauce.
Paesan’s Pizza has credited Portnoy with turning the Capital Region brand into a national name. Owner Frank Scavio has utmost respect for the influencer.
“My kids would call him Uncle Dave,” said Sciavo.
While struggling during the pandemic, Paesan’s sent Portnoy two frozen pizzas to his New York City home. The entertainment mogul tried it. Sales went up $100,000 almost instantly, eventually prompting the seller to give back $5,000 in matching funds to the $40 million-plus Barstool fund.
Paesan’s frozen pizza was rated a 7.1 out of 10 and their pick-up pizza rated a 7.5. Locally, ratings can go as high as Nove Italian Restaurant in Wilton (8.6) and as low as Schenectady’s 151 Bar & Restaurant (1.2).
“Come for everything else: the drinks, wings, sliders. Get the pizza off the menu,” Portnoy said in a video after leaving 151 in Schenectady.
Anything is helpful, Scavio said.
“Even if he gives you a low score, you’re still going to do well,” Scavio said. “You’re still gonna get a ton of [people], you’re going to be on the local news,” Scaivo said.
Could Portnoy’s presence have a regional economic impact? On a macro level, that’s difficult to quantify, said Todd Shimkus, president of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce.
“We have a lot of folks that come to the community that are social media influencers and he has to be right among the top in terms of his worldwide following,” said Shimkus. “My God, they are absolutely our demographic [because] they’ve got disposable income to gamble, they love to take risks and love sports, so it’s going to have some positive benefit.”
Portnoy didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story.
Barstool Sports started in 2003 as a crass, four-page print publication circulated across the Boston metropolitan area. Over time, the brand branched out into digital media and entertainment, gaining a nationwide following — particularly among young men and partygoers.
In 2012, a fight broke out at a Barstool Blackout Tour rave in Albany’s Washington Avenue Armory, resulting in three police officers injured and seven people arrested. City officials blamed the venue for allegedly hosting a nightclub-style event, but Armory management blamed Barstool for letting in patrons all at once.
“Not our fault,” Portnoy recalled in a video eight years later. “It was the venue’s fault.”
The Blackout Tour was a laser and electronic dance music show hosted across the country. Promoters were repeatedly accused of encouraging intoxication, creating an unsafe environment for women and setting the scene for disorderly conduct.
Barstool’s content has been frequently deemed offensive by progressive critics. Among controversial moments, Portnoy once suggested that an ESPN reporter “sex it up and be slutty,” called a rape joke funny, compared Colin Kaepernick to an ISIS terrorist, sang along to a song featuring a racial expletive, and joked about blackface.
Saratoga BLM leader Lexis Figuereo doesn’t welcome Portnoy to the Spa City.
“I think he chose Saratoga for a reason,” said Figuereo, who has frequently criticized the city as racist. “It’s a place where people who have those ideals and express those ideals out publicly are actually welcomed.”
Portnoy has also been accused of sexual abuse. The self-described “uncancellable” man has repeatedly denied such allegations and even mounted a since-dropped defamation case against media outlet Business Insider for breaking the story.
National headlines earlier this year honed in what has been a rollercoaster year for Portnoy’s empire. Barstool was bought out in February by gambling behemoth Penn Entertainment for $388 million. It didn’t last long. As Penn publicly pursued a new agreement to rebrand its online betting app from Barstool Sportsbook to ESPN Bet, Barstool was sold back to Portnoy for $1 in June, according to federal filings.
Under the agreement, Penn would have the rights to 50% of the proceeds if Portnoy decides to sell Barstool. The founder has pledged that he will not sell the company again.
While Portnoy’s current net worth is unclear, as of 2019 he said it hovered around $100 million.
His home at 70 Fifth Ave. in Saratoga Springs was bought for $1.4 million by self-run Miami-based firm SmokeShowCity LLC. on Feb. 17. Records show that in 2023, the total assessed value is $337,649 and the full market value is $613,907.
On Aug. 28, the city Zoning Board of Appeals approved SmokeShowCity’s request to demolish the ranch and build a four-bedroom house in its place. Construction plans were rendered by Saratoga Springs-based architectural firm Balzar & Tuck.
Portnoy is not the only celebrity with a property on the block. Famed grillmaster Bobby Flay bought a house on Fifth Avenue for $1.7 million in 2021 and recently put the 3,087-square-foot space back on the market for $3.2 million.
Tyler A. McNeil can be reached at 518-395-3047 or [email protected]. Follow him on Facebook at Tyler A. McNeil, Daily Gazette or X @TylerAMcNeil.
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