While the inside of Adirondack Pub and Brewery in Lake George was empty in the morning hours of New Year's Day, looks can be deceiving.

Even through the pandemic, business was good for James McReynolds.

"Summer was well," said McReynolds, the general manager. "We had a great tourist season and honestly, we're looking forward to a great 2022 with big events like Ice Castles. Hopefully, it can get a little colder so we can get the tourist season in the winter time to kick off things, as well."

But the new year brings new laws, notably the statewide ban on polystyrene foam containers.

Many restaurants across the state that have utilized the foam containers for takeout now have to find different ones. But for the Adirondack Pub and Brewery, they took steps months, and even years, to prepare in advance.

What You Need To Know

  • As of Jan. 1, buying and selling of polystyrene foam is banned

  • One local restaurant got ahead of the curve by preparing years in advance

  • Adirondack Pub and Brewery GM James McReynolds said it's all about preparing to make sure laws like this don't impact business

"We’ve been using paper straws since before paper straws were a thing in California," McReynolds says. "Most of our other containers are biodegradable, or at least 50% recycled material or more, so we’ve already anticipated these things. We made the shift a number of years ago."

While it's not an issue for Adirondack Pub and Brewery, the law might be for other restaurants across the state given the supply chain issues of the latter part of 2021.

But McReynolds said it's all about looking ahead.

"Can you be resilient enough to work with different things?" he said. "Can you work with your purveyors to try and anticipate stuff? Ask your sales people different stuff. ‘Hey, what does it look like in a month from now? How many of these do you have in stock?' Do we have the personnel, the finances and storage to purchase things in advance and store them in case these things come up? And I think, luckily for us now, compared to 2020, where we didn’t expect anything, we anticipated these things now."

With the omicron variant of COVID-19 surging through communities, McReynolds had stocked up just in case dining rooms close and restaurants move to takeout only.

"Do we anticipate going back to takeout? I really hope not," McReynolds says. "Are we stocked up on some of things we didn’t have in 2020? Absolutely we are. But with COVID and everything, our restaurant shifted to fully vaccination and proof of vaccination required for entry to hopefully keep us as safe as possible, but also allow us to be open and operate.”