BACKROADS • DECEMBER 2021
Page 14
Thisilldous Eatery presents
GREAT ALL AMERICAN DINER RUN COOPERSTOWN DINER
136 1/2 MAIN ST, COOPERSTOWN, NY 13326 607-282-4367 • COOPERSTOWNDINER.COM We have all heard of the big-time restaurants. Many of us have been to a few. Americas in New York City was massive, as was their menu. But bigger is not always better. This month we’d like to take a ride up to that baseball mecca called Cooperstown and bring you to a diner that is SO small – they have only half an address. It SO small they are on the Delish Magazine’s Top 12 List of Tiniest Restaurants in the World. It is SO small my 900Z could almost block the entire width of the restaurant. Let’s ride to the Cooperstown Diner. But first a bit of history on this now baseball famous town. The village, located about 4 hours north of New York City, was founded in 1786 by William Cooper. Technically the name was original “Village of Otsego” and then changed to honor him in 1812. Otsego remains the name of the county where Cooperstown resides, and the lake on which it sits. A little know factoid on Otsego Lake. This is the start of the Susquehanna River, the longest river on the east coast as it flows 444 miles to the Chesapeake Bay. It was also the longest river in the early 21st-century continental United States without commercial boat traffic. But, let’s stay up by Ostego Lake and Cooperstown. The natural setting of Cooperstown is breathtaking. Add to that the charm of Main Street and its local businesses, Cooperstown is a beautiful place to visit. But most know it for the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame was established in 1939 by Stephen Carlton Clark, an heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune. Clark sought to bring tourists to a city hurt by the Great Depression, which reduced the local tourist trade, and Prohibition, which devastated the local hops industry. Clark constructed
tasty places to take your bike
