Photo by Tim Rowland
Barry Pitkin is the owner of Trail Break restaurant and motel, in Schroon Lake.
SCHROON LAKE | Even when he was helping to build satellites in the charged Pentagon-centric world of northern Virginia, Barry Pitkin still liked to cook. So it’s not an entire surprise that he’s given up satellites for spatulas and left the traffic horrors of Northern Virginia for the tranquility of Schroon Lake, where this summer he opened the Trail Break restaurant and motel on the north end of town.
The name Pitkin, of course, resonates in Schroon Lake circles, and it was his great-great-uncle who founded the iconic downtown Pitkin’s Restaurant. And it was the Seagle Music Colony that attracted his mother, a singer from Louisiana, to the area where she met his father.
The Trail Break is a Schroon Lake institution as well, from when it was known as Drake’s. “Long-time residents still call it Drake’s, and they always will,” Pitkin said.
He was not able to keep the old name, because in its final years it had been leased out to restaurateurs who were unsuccessful, and the Drake’s name had a bad and probably unredeemable presence on internet review sites.
But Pitkin, who grew up in an oft-moving military family, remembers coming to Drake’s in the ’80s “when this was the nicest place in town.” Pitkin wants to recapture that glory.
Drake’s was a classic steak-and-seafood restaurant decorated in early American lobster trap, and it had been that way for a half-century. Pitkin redid the interior, giving it more of an Adirondack feel. “We wanted it to be a comfortable, warm, inviting place to come,” he said.
As he was tearing off a wall veneer he discovered a massive old storefront from when the building was an automobile dealership selling Fords and Overlands, a brand from the early 1900s. That marquee is now part of the Trail Break dining room decor.
Trail Break’s menu is fresh as well, reflecting more diverse tastes and the incorporation of fresh ingredients and unprocessed meals made from scratch. It stays true to Drake’s steak, seafood and pasta dishes, but adds vegetarian and vegan choices. Desserts are made from scratch, and there’s a full bar with a lengthy list of craft beers on tap. Adirondack visitors and residents are a diverse lot, and the menu reflects that. “We tried to come up with a wide menu selection that will appeal to a lot of people,” Pitken said.
Pitkin said he’s always been fascinated with cooking, from the time his mother — who was better at singing than cooking — signed up for classes and brought her pre-school boy along. In the Navy, Pitkin said he shared for a time an apartment with a roommate who was a sous chef and taught him how to make cream sauces and a good demi glace.
But his culinary skills were relegated to the back burner for much of his career, which was spent in electronics and software in the Washington suburbs, where the commute from Manassas, Virginia, to Germantown, Maryland, would take an hour and a half.
The Adirondacks were looking better and better. Pitkin said his wife, Teal, loved the area, and they started looking for a restaurant to buy. Pitkin had owned franchises where “everything is set” and creativity is limited. “It’s the difference between buying a Betty Crocker cake mix and making a cake from scratch,” he said. Now, there is nothing to stop him from adding an Adirondack touch to traditional dishes, such as a dash of maple syrup in a pecan pie.
He’s enjoyed the freedom and has incorporated some of his science background into the marketing, establishing a solid Google dining presence and installing a universal electric vehicle charger, which makes Trail Break a standout for diners with EVs.
Trail Break is also on a popular snowmobile circuit, which hints at another attraction — the restaurant will be open year-round in a region where many establishments shut their doors for the winter. Trail Break is open Monday through Thursday from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. ■
