Wheatfields closes on Broadway Saturday after 38 years

Wheatfields Restaurant & Bar at 440 Broadway will serve its last meals on Saturday, September 26, ending a 38-year run in downtown Saratoga Springs. Owners Tim and Colleen Holmes announced the closing on the restaurant’s Facebook page and website this week, and Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce president Todd Shimkus confirmed to The Daily Gazette that the business has been sold.

The restaurant opened in 1988, and the Holmeses bought the place in 2004, according to Saratoga TODAY. That makes 22 years under the current owners, a stretch that covered the downtown building boom, the pandemic shutdown and the record-length track seasons of the past two summers. Who bought the business, and what will open in the space, had not been announced as of Friday morning.

What is closing and what is not

The closing covers the Broadway restaurant only. Here is how the family’s other businesses shake out, according to the owners’ announcement.

• Wheatfields Restaurant & Bar at 440 Broadway closes after dinner service on Saturday, September 26.
• Wheatfields Bistro & Wine Bar at The Crossing, 54 Crossing Boulevard in Clifton Park, stays open under the same owners.
• BWP Your Local Bar & Grille, the family’s Beer Wine Pizza restaurant at 70 Weibel Avenue in Saratoga Springs, also stays open.
• Gift cards bought at the Broadway location will be honored at the Clifton Park bistro, the owners said.

In the announcement, the Holmeses thanked guests, staff, vendors and the community and wrote that “many of you became more than customers.” The note describes the closing as the end of a chapter rather than the end of the company, and points regulars toward the two remaining restaurants.

A pasta house that outlasted most of its neighbors

Wheatfields built its name on pasta made in the building. The restaurant’s own website says the kitchen has made fresh pasta since 1988 and turns out close to 20 shapes and flavors a day, and the current menu carries a “House-Made Pasta” section with dishes such as pesto radiatori, linguine with littleneck clams and a baked macaroni made with radiatori. The same site lists the address as 440 Broadway and the phone as (518) 587-0534.

The restaurant sits in the stretch of Broadway storefronts between Congress Park and City Hall that turns over more slowly than the rest of downtown. Thirty-eight years is a long tenure for a full-service restaurant anywhere, and it is unusual on Broadway, where rents and building sales have pushed out a number of long-running businesses over the past decade. The CBS6 report on the closing called the restaurant a downtown staple, which is about right.

The owners’ note does not say why they are closing, and none of the local reports this week had an answer either. The Holmeses opened the Clifton Park bistro in 2009, according to the company’s website, and added Beer Wine Pizza later, so the family now runs two restaurants outside downtown and none on Broadway. That is a change for a company whose name has been on a Broadway awning since the late 1980s. The Gazette reported that Shimkus confirmed a sale but that details were not available at press time. Our read: a sale of an operating restaurant at a busy Broadway address usually means a new concept in the space rather than an empty storefront, but nothing has been filed publicly yet, and we will report the new tenant when it is confirmed.

If you want one more meal

There is one more day. A few practical notes for anyone planning a last visit.

• The final service is Saturday, September 26. The restaurant has not said whether it will cut hours short that day, so a call ahead to (518) 587-0534 is a good idea.
• The restaurant’s website still lists a weekday happy hour from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday with 50 percent off bar drinks, which would make Friday, September 25 the last one.
• Reservations and online ordering for pickup and delivery are still running through the restaurant’s site as of Friday morning.
• Unused gift cards do not expire with the closing. Bring them to the Clifton Park bistro, which is about a 25-minute drive down the Northway from downtown.
• Parking is the usual downtown problem on a Saturday night. The Woodlawn Avenue garage and the Putnam Street lot are the nearest public parking to 440 Broadway.

Downtown dining keeps turning over

The closing lands in a week of change for Saratoga restaurants. Tāng Dumplings, a made-to-order dumpling restaurant, opened this month at 46 Marion Avenue in the Fresh Market Plaza, in the space that was a Smashburger, according to Saratoga TODAY. The restaurant is now in our directory as Tāng Dumplings, and we covered the opening plans in an earlier story alongside Kuma Ani, the ramen shop planned for Division Street in October.

The pattern is familiar. Broadway loses a long-running independent, while the openings show up in plazas and side streets where the rent is lower and the parking is easier. For diners, the practical effect is that the downtown pasta options thin out a bit after Saturday. Chianti Il Ristorante on Division Street and Forno Bistro on Phila Street remain the closest full-service Italian rooms to the Wheatfields block, and both are in our directory.

We will update this story if the buyer or the plans for 440 Broadway are announced. If you know what is going into the space, we would like to hear it.

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