On the The Road to Cooperstown and The Baseball Hall of Fame

Located in Upstate New York 220  miles from New York City is a small village called Cooperstown.  Well known as the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, it is really much more and well worth a visit even if you are not a baseball fan.  If you are a fan, of course, a visit is all but mandatory. There is something for just about everyone.

We spent two days in Cooperstown recently as a stopover on our way to Ithaca, New York for a graduation at Ithaca College (more on that trip on another post). The first day, after checking into our hotel, a Country Inns and Suites in nearby Milford, we asked the desk clerk for a recommendation for dinner that evening. Without hesitation, she suggested the Hawkeye Bar and Grill.  Located in the historic Otesaga Resort Hotel, www.Otesaga.com, (60 Lake Drive, Cooperstown, NY, 800-348-6222) the Hawkeye Bar serves lunch and dinner alongside Lake Otesaga.  You can eat either indoors in the very well-appointed dining room or outside on the terrace under umbrellas with views of the lake and the Leatherstocking golf course. Because it was a chilly evening, we opted to eat indoors.

The menu is for the most part traditional American fare.  I had a delicious Caesar salad to start. My wife had the salmon for her entree and I had the beef tenderloin.  Both were perfectly prepared to our requested doneness. Accompanying the meal was delicious homemade cranberry bread. When we asked our server for more, the waitress not only refilled our basket, she also gave us a doggy bag filled with the bread for a snack at our hotel later that evening.

After dinner we took a brief stroll around the Otesaga hotel and the grounds.  It has a true resort atmosphere and next time we are in Cooperstown, we will definitely return either to stay or again have dinner.

In upcoming posts we will discuss our visits to the Hall of Fame, the  Fenimore Art Museum and most intriguing of all, the Fly Creek Cider Mill. In addition, we will discuss the Dreamspark baseball tournament held in Cooperstown every summer.