Photo from the Andes Hotel's Facebook page.
The town of Andes, and its eponymous hotel, got a very complimentary shoutout from New York Post real estate writer Tina Traster, who's been making the rounds of little Catskills towns recently.
The Andes Hotel is not the honky-tonk I remember. Neither is the sleepy village of Andes, situated halfway between Woodstock and Cooperstown, about three hours from New York City.
With its fresh, locally grown menu items, an array of music and theater, the annual Harvest Moon Ball, updated rooms and Cans & Clams nights in its summer shack, the Andes is as hip as any NYC boutique hotel. It draws locals, second-home owners and tourists.
It wasn't Traster's first visit to the hotel, either -- though it's changed a bit since last time she was there:
My most vivid memories of being a camp counselor in the late 1970s are about nights out at the Andes Hotel in upstate Delaware County. The scene was a mix of tattooed, bearded bikers shooting pool in the bar and blue-haired ladies and gents square dancing in the cavernous dining room. We counselors used to order pizza and beer from the bar.
Nights at the 1850s two-story Colonial hotel, with its gracious rocking-chair porch, were exotic for a city kid, as was the night I spent in one of the hotel rooms out back. (Don’t tell my parents.)
The Andes Hotel may have had a menu upgrade and a makeover since Traster's camp counselor days, but it's still a favorite watering hole for locals as well as the occasional Manhattan celeb. On any given Friday night, you can find that wide, welcoming porch inhabited by a motley crew of local regulars, second-home owners and Gothamites fresh off the Trailways bus. (And maybe even a Watershed Post editor.)
The Andes Hotel is a Watershed Post advertiser. And, full disclosure, we've eaten a great many of their burgers.
