This week, we want to introduce you to two more people behind Salt City Club.
Kendra and Nick Pascale are lifelong Syracusans, career food-and-beverage people, and — for the record — our in-laws: Kendra is Cary's sister.
Kendra has been in the food-and-beverage world since high school and owns Pascale's Wine & Liquors in Fayetteville. Nick has been in the family restaurant and liquor businesses since high school and runs day-to-day at the Fayetteville and Liverpool wine and liquor stores.
Pascale’s Wine & Liquors located in Towne Center at Fayetteville
Between them, they spend a lot of time exploring the food and beverage scene around Central New York and know most of the people in the business — they're the kind of locals who know what to order at the new restaurant before anyone writes about it, which shop has the bottle you're looking for, and where to eat in a town that doesn't get enough credit for its food scene.
That's what they're bringing to Salt City Club — expertise on the food-and-drink side and life-long networks of people and places in the community.
The Spotlight this week is a feature on the Fayetteville shop. We're telling you this up front so you read it for what it is: an honest look at one of the better wine and liquor shops in Central New York, written the way we'd write about any great CNY business.
Here's what's on our radar this week:
TL;DR:
The Lineup: John Legend at the Landmark tonight, Crawfish Festival in Clinton Square Saturday, Mets home series all week, Feats of Clay at the Everson Friday.
Live Music: Loren & LJ Barrigar at The 443 (Thu), Brandon Santini at The 443 (Fri), The Nicksons at The Fitz (Fri, free), Harmonic Dirt at The Fitz (Sat, free), Noisy Boys at Beak & Skiff (Sun, free).
The Tab: The Kebab Place Seafood & Halal — Indo-Mediterranean at Shop City, fresh seafood from NYC, coconut milk marinades.
The Spotlight: Inside Pascale's Wine & Liquors in Fayetteville — the barrel program, NYS producers worth knowing, and the Sunday-dinner pick under $40.
The Build: The 47-unit University Ave student tower got scaled to 30 one-bedrooms.
The Block: Eastwood — a 105-year-old red oak gets a sendoff, a Wagyu cheesesteak at Chadwick's, and more from James Street.
The Scoreboard: Crunch series tied 1-1, Game 3 home Friday. Mets six-game home series vs. IronPigs all week.
…and more!
THE LINEUP
Events this week — what's on, where, and how to get in.
Featured Event
John Legend — An Evening of Songs & Stories Landmark Theatre, 362 S. Salina St. Tuesday, April 28, 8 PM. Tickets
Tonight's the night. Legend is doing an intimate "songs and stories" format — the songs you know, with the backstories on how they got written. The Landmark is the right room for it. Tickets still available as of this writing.
Photo: @syrlandmark
This Week
Snail Trails (guided nature walk) — Beaver Lake Nature Center, 8477 East Mud Lake Rd., Baldwinsville, Tuesday April 28. $5 vehicle fee, pre-registration required. Guided walk for spring snails and salamanders. Details
Syracuse Mets vs. Lehigh Valley IronPigs — NBT Bank Stadium, Tue–Fri first pitch 6:35 PM, Sat–Sun 1:05 PM. Six-game home series. Tickets
Open Figure Drawing — Everson Museum, Thursday April 30. $14. Drop-in session — bring your own materials. Details
Feats of Clay — Everson Museum, Friday May 1. $14. Annual high-school ceramics showcase — one of the best student art events in CNY. Details
Syracuse Crawfish Festival — Clinton Square, Saturday May 2, 11 AM – 7 PM. FREE. 19th-annual Louisiana-style crawfish boil with Gulf shrimp, two stages of live music, food trucks. Proceeds benefit Operation Northern Comfort. Details
Photo: Operation Northern Comfort
Beak & Skiff Kentucky Derby Party — 1911 Tasting Room, Lafayette. Saturday May 2, 11 AM – 8 PM. Free — derby on the TVs, live acoustic music on the orchard. Details
Downtown Syracuse History Tour — Departs MOST Children's Museum, Sunday May 3, 10 AM. Preservation Association of Central New York. Tickets
Live Music
Loren & LJ Barrigar — The 443, 443 Burnet Ave. Thursday April 30, 7 PM. Father-son acoustic duo from CNY — Loren a local fixture for decades, LJ recording with him since he was a kid. Tickets
The Scene — College Jazz Night — The Fitz, Thursday April 30, 8 PM. Free. Student jazz ensembles at The Fitz. Details
Brandon Santini — The 443. Friday May 1, 7 PM. Memphis blues harmonica player, Billboard charted. Almost full. Tickets
The Nicksons — The Fitz, Friday May 1, 8:30 PM. Free. Local jazz combo. Details
Photo: syracusetix.com
Houses of the Holy (Led Zeppelin tribute) — Sharkey's, Liverpool. Friday May 1, 6 PM. Full Zeppelin catalog — small room, these shows fill up. Tickets
Harmonic Dirt — The Fitz, Saturday May 2, 8:30 PM. Free. Local jazz/funk group. Details
Jadakiss — The Westcott, 524 Westcott St. Saturday May 2, 8 PM. Hip-hop headliner from the LOX. Tickets
Noisy Boys — Beak & Skiff, Lafayette. Sunday May 3, 2 PM. Free. Local acoustic-folk trio, afternoon set in the orchard tasting room. Details
Coming Soon: Earth Crisis at Sharkey's (May 8) — foundational Syracuse hardcore band, 30 years since Gomorrah's Season Ends. GENIUS NY Pitch Finals at The Oncenter (May 7) — five companies, $3M on the line. Disney's Frozen at Syracuse Stage (May 13–Jun 21).
THE TAB
One food or drink spot this week — what to order and where to find it.
Photo: Theresa Marzullo
The Kebab Place Seafood & Halal 376 Grant Blvd., Shop City, Syracuse Sun–Thu 11 AM – 11 PM; Fri–Sat 11 AM – midnight
The owner is Raj Kummar, who also runs Raj Saffron House on the South Side. The Kebab Place is his newer, narrower concept: Indo-Mediterranean grilled proteins and fresh seafood, with a kitchen bigger than the dining area because most of the volume goes out the door for takeout.
The seafood is the unusual part. Halibut and sea bass come up fresh from NYC suppliers, and the marinades are built on coconut milk instead of yogurt, making most of the menu naturally dairy-free.
What we're looking forward to trying: the mango scallops ($17.95) and a side of garlic naan ($3.95). Save room for the rice pudding ($6.95).
Read the full story at This is CNY.
THE SPOTLIGHT
A deeper look at one person, place, or project in Syracuse.
Inside Pascale's Wine & Liquors
Walk into Pascale's in Fayetteville on a Saturday, and the first thing that happens is someone asks what the occasion is — who's coming over, what you're cooking, what you already like. Not just what bottle you're after or a generic "How can I help?" That's the difference, and it's by design.
Pascale's Wine & Liquors at 105 Towne Drive in Fayetteville opened in 2022 — the newest chapter in a Pascale-family wine and liquor story that has run in the Syracuse area for over 40 years. Kendra Pascale owns the Fayetteville shop. She came up in the food-and-beverage world starting in high school.
The shop is women-owned and women-operated: Kendra as owner, with Catherine running the team on the floor. That shows up in how the shop feels when you walk in — warm, unhurried, and deeply knowledgeable in a category that usually skews the other way.
The selection is built for everyone who walks in. The basics and the tried-and-true are there — the popular labels, the reliable everyday bottles. But alongside them sits a selection most Central New York stores don't carry.
Wines from producing regions you rarely see here. Small-lot imports from obscure countries. Additive-free tequilas from Mexican-owned distilleries using traditional methods. A shelf of amaros and fruit liqueurs that lets you actually make a craft cocktail at home. Nick Pascale is a bourbon enthusiast and expert, so the selection goes several layers deeper than the usual suspects.
Which gets us to the private barrel program. Kendra and Nick travel to Kentucky and other parts of the country to hand-select barrels from distilleries ranging from household names — Old Forester, Elijah Craig — to places most people haven't heard of, like Kings County Distilling out of Brooklyn. The barrel on the shelf didn't come from a wholesaler's email blast. They tasted it, picked it, and brought it back.
A few New York State producers they wanted to put on your radar:
Dr. Konstantin Frank (Hammondsport) — Frank came from Ukraine in 1951 and was told European grapes couldn't survive here. He proved them wrong in 1958 and sparked what the Finger Lakes still calls the Vinifera Revolution. Nick and Kendra's pick: the sparkling.
Hermann J. Wiemer (Dundee) — Wiemer came from a German winemaking family, planted vines on an abandoned soybean farm in Dundee in 1973, and built a Riesling program that critics consistently call the best in the country.
Forge Cellars (Burdett) — a French-American collaboration founded by Louis Barruol of Château de Saint Cosme in Gigondas and American wine veteran Rick Rainey. The on-site winemaker trained at Bordeaux under Barruol — the French thread runs from the top down.
Weis Vineyards (Hammondsport) — founded in 2017 by a German-American couple (Hans Peter grew up in his family's Mosel winery; Ashlee is a Hammondsport native). Nine years in, they've won NYS Winery of the Year three times, including back-to-back in 2024 and 2025.
Ryan William Vineyard (Burdett) — Nick's pick for proof that the Finger Lakes can do reds. NYS is Riesling country, but the Merlot here is the exception worth knowing about.
Photo: Ryan William Vineyard
We asked them for their pick for Sunday dinner under $40: Their answer is Natale Verga Barolo — an Italian red that runs under $40 and pairs flawlessly with pasta, meatballs, and red sauce (which is what the Pascales eat on Sundays, for the record).
If you're planning on stopping in, ask about case discounts. Twelve 750mls or six 1.5Ls, mix and match across any wines of the same size. Most first-timers don't know it's an option.
Pascale's Wine & Liquors — Fayetteville 105 Towne Drive, Fayetteville, NY 13066 Mon–Sat 9 AM – 9 PM · Sun 10 AM – 6 PM (315) 355-6222 pascaleswineandliquors.com · Instagram · Facebook
THE BUILD
Construction and development around the city, in plain English.
411 University Ave Gets Smaller
The nine-story apartment building approved at 411-413 University Avenue in 2024 is getting scaled down. Per Syracuse.com, the developer revised the plan from the original 47-unit, nine-story student-housing concept to roughly 30 one-bedroom apartments.
The site sits less than a half-mile north of campus. The developer, Gem Street Holdings — based in New Jersey — operates ten student-housing complexes around Syracuse, so the scale-down isn't a retreat from the market. It's a different bet on what the market will pay for.
If you live, work, or commute through University Hill, this is the project to watch. Demolition of the two existing houses on the lot was already part of the original plan.
The building is still happening. Just smaller.
Coverage from Syracuse.com (April 27).
THE BLOCK
One neighborhood at a time — what's there, what's changing.
Eastwood
Can’t wait to go grab the Wagyu Cheesesteak
Eastwood is having a busy week. A 105-year-old red oak is coming down on a residential block, the city held a celebration of life for the tree, a new chef is putting Wagyu on the cheesesteak menu inside a James Street sports bar, and the police are asking the neighborhood for help on a string of retail-crime incidents.
Some context: the oak was planted by the parents of longtime Eastwood resident Elaine Smith in honor of her birth. The tree outlived her. A forester from Cornell Cooperative Extension told LocalSYR it's genuinely rare to see a red oak hit 100+ years in an urban setting. The neighborhood held a sendoff on Saturday April 26.
We spent some time on James Street last week. A stretch of it has been quietly filling in — restaurants, bars, small shops — and the energy on the street is different.
A few of our favorites and recent stops right around Eastwood:
Eastwood Brewing Co has no shortage of Syracuse pride.
Chadwick's Sports Bar and Grill — 2529 James St. Chef Kaleb Schnell (from Hermit's) is running a Wagyu cheesesteak: American Wagyu from Deer Hill in Cazenovia, DiLauro's roll, Duke's mayo on the flattop. $12. Featured in This is CNY's Syracuse Sandwiches series.
The Cracked Bean Roastery — 2384 James St. One of our favorite roasteries in CNY and our go-to for espresso beans at home. Daily 7 AM–4 PM.
Caffé Cosi — 3501 James St. We previewed the opening in Edition 2.
Eastwood Brewing Co. — 108 Walter Drive, off James. Our first stop last week. Authentic place with good people — looking forward to having Eastwood Brewing at some upcoming Salt City Club events.
We're going to feature businesses in and around Eastwood on our Instagram in the coming weeks. If there's a spot you want us to hit, hit reply.
THE SCOREBOARD
Local sports — what just happened and what's next.
Crunch vs. Cleveland Monsters — AHL North Division Semis. Best-of-5 series. Series tied 1-1 after the Crunch dropped Game 1 in Cleveland and bounced back with a 4-1 win in Game 2 — they scored four goals on their first six shots.
Game 3: Friday May 1, 7 PM at Upstate Medical University Arena. Game 4 (if needed): Sunday May 3 at Upstate Medical University Arena — only plays if the series reaches 2-2. Tickets
Syracuse Mets — six-game home series vs. Lehigh Valley IronPigs. Tue–Fri at 6:35 PM, Sat–Sun at 1:05 PM at NBT Bank Stadium.
THE KEEPER
A local pet looking for a home.
Meet Iris! She is a 2-year-old Pit Bull Terrier/Mix weighing in at 54 lbs. She is spayed and does well with children over 12.
This week’s Keeper is ready for adoption at Helping Hounds Dog Rescue.
Here’s what the Helping Hounds team has to say about Iris: “Iris is a fun-loving pit mix who was found as a stray and was brought into our foster/ adoption program through B & R Bunkhouse. She has tons of happy energy and a zest for life. Iris would thrive in a home that can provide proper enrichment outlets to keep her mind and body busy. She’s quite agile and would honestly make an amazing candidate for dog sports or an active lifestyle. When she’s not on the move, Iris is all about the good stuff—snacks, cuddles, and soaking up affection from her people. She’ll also never say no to a walk and is always ready for her next adventure.”
THE CLUB
Your space — reply and join the conversation.
We asked last week for your little-known live music venues — the small, neighborly rooms like Brian's Landing in Jamesville. The inbox stayed quiet, which is fair. So we're swinging at a different pitch.
This week's question: What's the dish in Syracuse that nobody talks about but should? Hit reply. Best answers run next week.
THE VIEW
One photo from the week — from us, or from you.
The Palace Theatre in the heart of Eastwood
Every Tuesday, in your inbox.
Join the club.
— Matt, Cary, Nick, & Kendra