On any given day through the heart of the 20th century, blue-collar workers in Saranac Lake could be found pounding burgers at the Dew Drop Inn on Broadway, right alongside bejeweled ladies from Upper Saranac nibbling on seafood platters, boisterous, five-o’clock-somewhere barflies, politicians feasting on New York strips and college kids tossing pizza crusts to the ducks drifting by on the river that flowed a few feet beneath the cantilevered dining room.
“Saranac Lake is an eclectic place,” said Katie Stiles, whose real estate office is a few steps upstream of the old restaurant.
Stiles is managing the property for its new owner, Taimim Li, of Long Island, whose family has connections to Saranac Lake dating back to its days as a cure center for tuberculosis. Li recalls visiting the restaurant in its heyday, Stiles said, and plans a restoration that will include elements of its history, which all told dates back to the building’s construction in the 1890s.
And there are many elements to draw from. Mohammad Ali ate
