Potsdam NY Me-Fites!
June 5, 2024 10:06 AM Subscribe
What are your recommendations for places to get gift cards for a new SUNY student?
My nephew will be a freshman at SUNY Potsdam in the fall — yay! (Except it's so far away...)
I would like to gift him a bouquet of gift cards for Potsdam businesses — places students go for fun, for necessities, for food, etc. I want him to get out and explore, and have the means to get things he needs as well as treat new roomies/friends.
Notes of potential interest:
• He'll have a car.
• He's going into music ed.
• He's a smart, kind, quirky kid.
Ideally, I could call up these places and have the cards mailed to me, but e-gift cards are also OK. I just have no knowledge of the town, and thought locals would have the best recommendations!
My nephew will be a freshman at SUNY Potsdam in the fall — yay! (Except it's so far away...)
I would like to gift him a bouquet of gift cards for Potsdam businesses — places students go for fun, for necessities, for food, etc. I want him to get out and explore, and have the means to get things he needs as well as treat new roomies/friends.
Notes of potential interest:
• He'll have a car.
• He's going into music ed.
• He's a smart, kind, quirky kid.
Ideally, I could call up these places and have the cards mailed to me, but e-gift cards are also OK. I just have no knowledge of the town, and thought locals would have the best recommendations!
Best answer: I used to live in Potsdam, though it's been almost 10 years. For food, the Potsdam Food Co-op is a great little grocery store with both essentials and some fun treats. There are several other more mainstream grocery stores; my favorite was Price Chopper.
In terms of restaurants, my go-tos were Little Italy (great pizza!) and Thai Cuisine.
Not really a gift-card rec (unless he likes deeply mediocre Mexican food), but the local Mexican restaurant has Geeks Who Drink pub trivia on Wednesday nights, and at least back in the day, it was EXTREMELY FUN. (Chips and salsa/guac were always safe, so maybe a small gift card for snacks if he and his friends want to check it out!)
posted by leftover_scrabble_rack at 3:23 PM on June 5 [1 favorite]
In terms of restaurants, my go-tos were Little Italy (great pizza!) and Thai Cuisine.
Not really a gift-card rec (unless he likes deeply mediocre Mexican food), but the local Mexican restaurant has Geeks Who Drink pub trivia on Wednesday nights, and at least back in the day, it was EXTREMELY FUN. (Chips and salsa/guac were always safe, so maybe a small gift card for snacks if he and his friends want to check it out!)
posted by leftover_scrabble_rack at 3:23 PM on June 5 [1 favorite]
thought of something else: one thing my friend would talk about is how Potsdam is close to Montreal & Ottawa. they would often visit. so maybe some gift cards to places there?
one spot i really liked in Montreal was the Drawn & Quarterly bookstore
posted by HearHere at 3:21 AM on June 6 [1 favorite]
one spot i really liked in Montreal was the Drawn & Quarterly bookstore
posted by HearHere at 3:21 AM on June 6 [1 favorite]
i heard back from my friend. there is another bookstore they’d mentioned before that i’d been thinking of, the Brewer Bookstore. the link is to the Visit Saint Lawrence County website, because that highlights the feature i think is super cool. it’s in an old hockey arena! Brewer is in the next town over though, so that’s why i couldn’t initially find it. if music is a focus, what i hear is that “there’s too much to do.” Crane school of music & the other colleges have things like performer series. one place i’d like to visit near there is Singer Castle.
gift card ideas: Foster the Plant Cafe, Old Market Coffee (there’s also Jernabi Coffeehouse), Jernabi roasts coffee for the Food Coop, where there’s fresh bread daily.
one reason the area is so good for music is that the noise pollution found elsewhere is largely absent. this is, of course, partly results from the Adirondacks. the Adirondack museum is a fun place to learn about the history, but it’s a bit far away. if you are looking for another gift, a neat book could be Bill McKibben’s Wandering Home, A Long Walk Across America’s Most Hopeful Landscape
posted by HearHere at 5:57 AM on June 7
gift card ideas: Foster the Plant Cafe, Old Market Coffee (there’s also Jernabi Coffeehouse), Jernabi roasts coffee for the Food Coop, where there’s fresh bread daily.
one reason the area is so good for music is that the noise pollution found elsewhere is largely absent. this is, of course, partly results from the Adirondacks. the Adirondack museum is a fun place to learn about the history, but it’s a bit far away. if you are looking for another gift, a neat book could be Bill McKibben’s Wandering Home, A Long Walk Across America’s Most Hopeful Landscape
posted by HearHere at 5:57 AM on June 7
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posted by HearHere at 2:14 PM on June 5 [1 favorite]