Lake George Village's Year-Round Plan Starts With Insulation

"There are a lot of times you come into our dining room and people are wearing their winter coats because the building isn't insulated." Joe Mondella said that to the Glens Falls Business Journal in March 2026, about The Lagoon on Canada Street. The Lagoon has stayed open 12 months a year, seven days a week, through every winter since it opened.

That quote explains a lot about the village off-season. Winter in Lake George Village depends on a small number of places that keep their lights on. The 2026 investments are going into the parts of those places that only matter in January: walls, decks and facades.

A restaurant that stayed open in a building that was never winterized

Mondella, Mark French and John Grillo are equal partners in GNSD Enterprises LLC. They opened The Lagoon in 2018 inside the Village Mall, a 50-year-old retail complex on Canada Street, and leased the space from the Quirk family, who owned the property at the time. The restaurant started on a single level. Since then it has grown to take up six of the mall's 16 storefronts. The partners added a second kitchen, a patio on the lakeside level below, a pizza oven and a prep kitchen, and they remodeled the bar.

All of that went into a building they didn't own. Mondella told the Business Journal that the question eventually became whether they wanted to keep investing in a property that belonged to someone else. In early 2026 the partners bought the mall outright.

The Business Journal described The Lagoon as open year-round "even during the slow winter months when much of the village goes dormant." The new owners have put winterizing the entire building and expanding the lakeside deck first on the renovation list. In other words, the first phase is aimed at the cold-weather customers who have kept the restaurant open all along.

What the state money asks for

The purchase came at the same time as approval of New York State Downtown Revitalization Initiative funding. Mondella said a central aim of the DRI money is helping make Lake George a year-round destination. The funding comes with conditions: the partners must renovate the mall's facades on both the Canada Street side and the lake side, and they have to use the money within five years.

As of that March report, the timeline looked like this:

• First phase: winterization and the lakeside deck expansion, with a goal of finishing "by next winter"
• Full renovation: within one to three years, and the partners said they don't intend to let it run longer
• DRI deadline: the funding must be used within five years

No progress report on the work has been published since March. Treat the winter target as the owners' stated goal, not a finished project. The Lagoon's own operating pattern hasn't changed: open every day, all year.

The mall's ten street-level storefronts outside the restaurant can keep operating or be rented. Current tenants include gift and souvenir shops, a candy store and a jewelry store, and at least one tenant has been in the mall for 30 to 35 years. Mondella said the new owners want existing tenants to stay. When asked about adding outdoor-recreation retail such as hiking or fishing gear, he said the group is taking things one step at a time and starting with the restaurant and the lakeside improvements.

The other year-round addresses

A few more places in the village are documented as open year-round.

Charlie's Bar & Kitchen, 365 Canada St. The Lake George Regional Chamber lists Charlie's as open year-round for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Caffè Vero, 35 Montcalm St. This is a new address. In April, the Chamber's spring guide said Caffè Vero would open at a new Montcalm Street location this season. The cafe now lists its home as 35 Montcalm St., the former Lake George Hardware building, and serves coffee, house-made baked goods, donuts, bagels, breakfast and lunch sandwiches. Warren County Tourism tags the cafe "Year Round" and says it's open daily, with hours that vary by season. Check the posted hours before a weekday morning stop in February.

The best record of which village kitchens were open in deep winter is the January 2026 Lake George Stews & Brews on the Village calendar. The participating locations were Charlie's Bar & Kitchen, The Lagoon, Sans Souchi, High Peaks Distillery, TR's Restaurant, 163 Taproom, Jamo's Pub, Barnsider, Adirondack Brewery and The Score Sports Grille. That list shows who was serving on a January Saturday last season. For questions about the next edition, the Village calendar sends people to the Lake George Chamber at 518-668-5755.

Shepard Park, rebuilt and back in use

The village's other big 2026 investment sits at the foot of Canada Street. Early on Sunday, June 29, 2024, fire destroyed the 30-year-old amphitheater in Shepard Park. After two seasons on temporary staging, the park has a permanent Performance Stage again. It has a 46-foot rear window that folds up, performer facilities below the stage, audiovisual towers, Wi-Fi, lighting and sound. The project also rebuilt the venue's century-old stone steps.

The Village held the dedication and ribbon-cutting on Friday, July 17, 2026, and the stage hosted the park's free summer concert series. NCPR reported on July 20 that work on the stage's lower level was still unfinished, and officials expected finishing touches by the end of July. In October 2025, the New York Department of State also listed a Shepard Park Lakewalk and an accessible observation deck as funded DRI projects. That notice gave no completion date.

The park matters in the cold months too. Two of the village's November events are held at Shepard Park or its beach.

The calendar from now through the carnival

The dates below are confirmed for the 2026–27 season. The Village's own 2026 Calendar of Events was last updated Aug. 19, 2026, and says dates can change without advance notice.

The Polar Plunge registration page lists separate plunge times, including a Cool School Plunge, so check the times there before you go. For Lite Up the Village, Warren County Tourism labels its detailed schedule as the 2025 version, so don't plan around those times yet.

The Winter Carnival organizers said in April that the full 2027 schedule, activities and ticket details would be posted soon. For reference, the 2026 carnival ran every weekend from Feb. 7 to March 8 at Blais Park and the Lake George "Mystery Spot." Its single parade ran from Betty Little Boulevard to Marine Village, and Canada Street and Betty Little Boulevard closed for it.

Recurring events without 2027 dates yet

Several January-through-March events from the 2026 Village calendar haven't announced dates for next winter:

1. New Year's Day Polar Plunge at Shepard Park beach. On the 2026 calendar, Duffy's Tavern at 518-668-5323 was the event contact.
2. Lake George Stews & Brews, held Jan. 24, 2026, at the village restaurants listed above.
3. Funky Ice Fest at Adirondack Pub & Brewery. Its 10th year ran Jan. 23–24 and Jan. 30–31, 2026, and was extended to Feb. 6–7.
4. Adirondack Brewery Barrel Fest, held for the 14th time on March 14, 2026.

The Village says it adds events to its calendar and Facebook page as the Village Board approves them. The four events above should appear there once they're scheduled.

At Davies-Davies & Associates Real Estate LLC, we've followed Lake George Village through its winters since 1978, and we're glad to see money going into the places that keep Canada Street open in February. If you'd like to talk about how projects like the Village Mall renovation and the Shepard Park work affect property in and around the village, please contact us.