The longest days of the year are here. From here, the daylight only gives ground, so spend as much of it outside as you can while it lasts.
This week makes that easy. The Juneteenth festival fills Clinton Square Friday and Saturday, the Mets are home all week with fireworks Thursday and Friday, and Father's Day closes it out Sunday. We also spent some time over in Manlius, Swan Pond, and all.
Checking out the Swan Pond in the village of Manlius
Here's what's on our radar.
TL;DR:
The Lineup: Juneteenth and the Victory Parade downtown, the Summer Solstice Bonfire, the Vintage Raceboat Regatta, and a stack of Father's Day options.
Live Music: a loaded week at Beak & Skiff (Wilco, Charley Crockett, Dustin Lynch), Mumford & Sons at Lakeview, FunkyBlu's free jazz at The Fitz, and BeatleMagic closing out Father's Day.
The Tab: Eva's European Sweets in Solvay, three decades of pierogi, Gołąbki, and the Placki that landed it on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
The Spotlight: Tim Martin, the Syracuse coach who turned a referral group into a 14-year networking institution by running it like a game.
The Build: The 47-acre former Syracuse Developmental Center on Tipp Hill starts its turn into 500+ units of housing.
The Block: Manlius, home to a century-old swan pond, a brewpub in an 1829 church, and a grillhouse moving into the old bank.
The Scoreboard: A double state title: West Genesee baseball and Fayetteville-Manlius softball both bring home firsts, plus the Mets at home all week.
…and more!
THE LINEUP
Events this week — what's on, where, and how to get in.
Featured Event
Syracuse Juneteenth Festival — Clinton Square, 161 W. Genesee St. Friday, June 19, 5–10 PM and Saturday, June 20, 12–11 PM. Free. Schedule
Juneteenth becomes a full downtown weekend in Syracuse: gospel Friday night in Clinton Square, R&B Saturday until 11, both free. It opens Thursday with a noon flag raising at City Hall, and the Victory Parade steps off Saturday at 11 AM from the Dunbar Center. If you do one thing downtown this weekend, make it this.
Previous Syracuse Juneteenth parade (Photo by Don Cazentre | syracuse.com)
This Week
Tuesday, June 16
Planet KPop — Oncenter Crouse Hinds Theater, 411 Montgomery St., 7 PM. A touring K-pop tribute (BTS, BLACKPINK). From $60.90 plus fees. Tickets
Thursday, June 18
Adult Night Out: Book Edge Painting — Hazard Branch Library, 1620 W Genesee St, 5:30–7 PM. A free, adults-only book-edge painting workshop; bring your own hardcover. Details
Friday, June 19
Food Truck Fridays — Everson Community Plaza, 401 Harrison St., 11 AM–2 PM. A free walk-up lunch lineup of Syracuse food trucks. Details
World Cup Watch Party — Everson Community Plaza, 2 PM. A free outdoor watch party for USA vs. Australia (kickoff 3 PM), right after the trucks. Details
Saturday, June 20
Summer Solstice Bonfire & Food Truck Rodeo — Critz Farms, 3232 Rippleton Rd, Cazenovia, 12–9 PM. Free. Live music, food trucks, and a bonfire lit at dusk. Details
Westcott Art Trail — Westcott neighborhood, 10 AM–5 PM. A free, self-guided walk through artists' studios and porches. Details
Zoo Run Run 5K — Rosamond Gifford Zoo, morning start. $35 for non-members, includes zoo admission and a finisher medal. Register
Syracuse Vintage Raceboat Regatta — Willow Bay, Onondaga Lake Park, Saturday and Sunday. Vintage race boats running heats on the lake, with food and music on shore. Details
Sunday, June 21
Morning Canoe Tour — Beaver Lake Nature Center, Baldwinsville, 8:30–10 AM. A guided Father's Day paddle (eagles, herons, turtles), canoe included, $18–20. Register
Disney's Frozen — Syracuse Stage, closing weekend through Sunday. A good Father's Day matinee, and we recommend it (a fit for kids three and up). Tickets
Our family is still talking about this production weeks later! Highly recommend
Blind Tasting Whiskey Class — The Whiskey Coop, 120 Walton St, 3–4:30 PM. A Father's Day blind tasting at the Armory Square bourbon bar. Details
Live Music
This week at Beak & Skiff: the orchard's outdoor stage (2708 Lords Hill Rd, LaFayette) has a stacked week — Wilco (Tue), Charley Crockett (Thu), and Dustin Lynch (Fri), all 7 PM, plus free tasting-room music with McArdell & Westers Sunday, 2–4 PM. Tickets & full schedule
Mumford & Sons — Empower FCU Amphitheater at Lakeview, Thursday, June 18, 7:30 PM, with Dylan Gossett opening. Tickets
Nikki Hill — The 443 Social Club, Thursday, June 18, 7 PM. A rhythm-and-blues powerhouse in the 443's small, seated listening room. Tickets
FunkyBlu — The Fitz, Friday, June 19, 8:30 PM. Free, no cover. Live jazz in the speakeasy beneath Oh My Darling, 321 S. Salina St. Details
Vance Gilbert — The 443 Social Club, Friday, June 19, 7 PM. A folk singer-songwriter known for sharp, funny live sets. Tickets
Jason Ricci & The Bad Kind — The 443 Social Club, Saturday, June 20, 7 PM. A top-tier blues harmonica player, with an afternoon harmonica workshop earlier the same day. Tickets
BeatleMagic — Sharkey's Bar & Grill, Liverpool, Sunday, June 21, 5 PM. A Beatles tribute through the whole catalog. A good Father's Day pick for a dad who likes the Beatles. Tickets
Coming Soon: Manlius Antique & Classic Car Cruise (Mondays behind Sno Top, next one June 22). Jelly Roll at the Amphitheater (June 23). Daniel Tosh at the Oncenter (June 23–24). Manlius Summer Concert Series and Farmers Market open June 29.
That's just the short list
We track way more than we can squeeze into The Lineup. Refer 2 friends to the Club, and the full calendar unlocks:
THE TAB
One food or drink spot this week — what to order and where to find it.
The back patio at Eva’s (Photo by Nichole Gantshar)
Eva's European Sweets — 1305 Milton Ave, Solvay
With the long days here, this is the time of year we point people to Eva's back patio — a colorful, mural-backed spot, best enjoyed with one of their imported Polish beers in hand. We've gathered a lot of family around an Eva's table over the years, and in summer it's the patio. The Gołąbki (pronounced go-WOMP-kee), stuffed cabbage rolls, are our go-to.
Eva's has been the home of authentic Polish cooking on Milton Avenue for going on three decades. Guy Fieri put it on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, and the plate that earns the cameras is the Placki Hungarian Style — four potato pancakes buried under a spicy ground-beef-and-tomato sauce with peppers, onions, and sour cream.
Beyond the Placki, the rest of the menu earns the regulars: hand-made pierogi, the Bigos (hunter's stew), and the Polish Platter to taste across the menu. Save room for the dessert case up front. One note: Eva's is closed Sunday and Monday, open Tuesday through Saturday.
Menu and hours at evaspolish.com.
THE SPOTLIGHT
A deeper look at one person, place, or project in Syracuse.
The Coach Who Turned Networking Into a Game
Ask Tim Martin where the Orange Network came from, and he'll point to a lacrosse field. "Everything you could possibly need to do on a lacrosse field, you can make a game out of," he says. For fourteen years, he has run the group on that principle: a small, tight-knit referral group of business owners who show up for each other week after week.
Martin has spent 34 years in the security and alarm business, these days selling "belly to belly" for Syracuse Time & Alarm. But the work he's known for is the one he doesn't get paid for: every week, he coaches a roomful of business owners on how to talk about what they do.
Tim Martin and his wife cheering on the Geneseo Lacrosse team
Coaching became his second act. Fourteen years ago, around the time he lost his mother, Martin got sober and found himself with a surplus of time he was determined not to waste. His kids pulled him into coaching, lacrosse most of all, where he picked up a USA Lacrosse method that turned drills into games. It stuck.
So when he went looking for a better networking group and couldn't find one, his wife told him to build his own. He modeled it on Toastmasters, putting the same focus on what he calls "verbal warfare" — sharpening how you tell your story until, the moment someone asks what you do, "you're on." His one rule: educate, don't sell. "Once you understand that," he says, "everything gets easier."
He's blunt about why he stays. He started in Pensacola and never took to the pace ("don't worry about it, Yank, we'll get to it tomorrow"). "I'm from the snow capital of the world," he says. "We've got to get it done today, because it could snow tomorrow."
Strip away the leads and the referrals, and what the Orange Network really does is connect people, the small, repeated introductions that slowly knit a local business community together.
If it sounds interesting to you: the Orange Network is a small, tight-knit group of Syracuse business owners who actually send each other work, and because seats stay loosely industry-exclusive, you'd be the one they call for what you do. Reply with "Orange Network" and what you do, and we'll get you to a meeting.
THE BUILD
Construction and development around the city, in plain English.
A Second Life for Tipp Hill's Old Developmental Center
If you've driven the west side, you know the hulking empty campus off South Wilbur Avenue — the old Syracuse Developmental Center. The state institution closed in 1998, ran smaller programs there for another decade or so, and has sat empty since. Forty-seven acres of it. The city ended up with the property in 2019, after the taxes stopped getting paid.
The property sits just South of the Rosamond Gifford Zoo
That's finally turning around. The old buildings have come down, and the financing for the first phase is locked in, part of a roughly $130 million project. The Albanese Organization is building the first 260-plus affordable apartments, aimed at households earning 30 to 80 percent of the area median income, the range that covers a lot of the people who keep the city running: first responders, teachers, hospital staff. Construction is set to begin this year.
The full vision is bigger and further out — north of 500 units of mixed affordable and market-rate apartments and townhomes across three phases, plus green space, retail, and a manufacturing-and-office building. A local nonprofit, Home HeadQuarters, is building 27 of those as owner-occupied townhomes, not rentals. But the headline for now is simple: one of the biggest vacant eyesores on the west side finally looks like it has a path to becoming a neighborhood.
Coverage from Spectrum News.
THE BLOCK
One neighborhood at a time — what's there, what's changing.
Manlius
Drive 15 minutes east of downtown, and the village of Manlius is having a moment. The past year brought a Taco Bell Cantina to the old firehouse, Holland Farms to the crossroads, and a creperie to Seneca Street; the county just put $300,000 into the Fayette and Seneca storefronts; and a grillhouse is taking over the old bank this summer (more on that below). On Monday nights, the lot behind Sno Top fills up with classic cars. The village core is a tight, walkable stretch of Fayette and Seneca Streets, worth exploring on foot.
Some of it goes way back: Sno Top has scooped ice cream since 1957, the Swan Pond's swans have been a fixture for a century, and the village has been on the National Register since 1973.
One of the vibrant village murals
Some of our favorites right around the village:
Sno Top — 315 Fayette St. Village ice cream since 1957, and the hub of the Monday-night car cruise.
Seneca Street Brew Pub — 315 E. Seneca St. A craft brewpub inside the 1829 First Baptist Church; the pews are gone but the bones are not.
The SingleCut Barn & Lodge — 604 E. Seneca St. The NYC brewery's taproom, in a historic barn at The Yard, the village's arts-and-retail community.
Manlius Supply Co. — 209 E. Seneca St. A modern general store of candles, gifts, and everyday goods, including sourdough bread.
Of Moose and Mind Bookshop — 137 E. Seneca St. An independent bookshop with a curated, community-minded selection.
A.W. Wander — 145 E. Seneca St. Craft beer and wood-fired pizza, with some of the village's best outdoor seating on Seneca.
Manlius Cinema — 135 E. Seneca St. A single-screen movie house open since 1918, one of the oldest in the country.
Mrs. Kelder's Cakes — 120 E. Seneca St. A family-owned bakery known for fresh-daily cupcakes and custom cakes, with gluten-free and vegan options.
Diwan — Fayette St. Middle Eastern cooking from the team behind Baghdad, hummus, kebabs, and falafel, and as of this month, a full liquor license to go with it.
Mill Run Park — Mill Street. A village park our kids love, with a playground and a creek to splash in.
Coming soon to the corner: Steigs Grillhouse is moving into the former bank at 228 E. Seneca St., a restaurant, bar, and retail meat counter from the people behind Liehs & Steigerwald. It's not open yet, but the old vault is going to make a good dining room.
If you can swing a Monday, the car cruise behind Sno Top (with a cone in hand) is the most Manlius thing there is.
THE CLUB
Your space — reply and join the conversation.
Father's Day weekend has us thinking about the things that get handed down. Not the big stuff. The small, specific Syracuse stuff: the diner your dad always ordered the same thing at, the route to the lake everybody in the family takes, the bakery you go to because someone took you there as a kid.
This week's question: what's the Syracuse tradition you inherited — a spot, a dish, a ritual someone passed down to you? Hit reply and tell us. Best answers run next week.
THE VIEW
One photo from the week — from us, or from you.
Dinner at St. Sophia’s Greek Festival this past week
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— Salt City Club Team