Many of us Northeasterners reach our winter breaking point sometime in January. We’ve been inside too long. We mentally and physically cannot binge-watch another episode on Netflix. The crumbs on our one-size-fits-all fleece hoodie blanket are starting to cry out for a dustbuster. We’ve gotta switch it up, get out of the house, and break the monotony.
The problem is that most of the winter activities you’ll find suggested to you by writers of articles like these are either pretty obvious or appealing to relatively few people. Did you know you could go skiing in winter? Oh, you’re not a skier? Here are some winter hikes for you to test your susceptibility to frostbite.
Winter is not just for wintry activities that embrace the cold. Even though this winter has been warmer than some, most of us are not champing at the bit to freeze our butts off for entertainment. How to stay warm while finding a unique activity to break up the short days and long nights? Here are four unique ideas you might not have thought of:
Dine at a restaurant with a fireplace. Why does it please us to dine by the fire? Perhaps it reminds us of our evolutionary roots, congregating around fires for hundreds of thousands of years, enjoying the spoils of the hunt. You’ll notice that many of the local restaurants that feature fireplaces also offer many rustic, farm-to-table cuts of charred meat. Coincidence? Maybe we’re just hungry and cold.
You’ll find fireplaces in numerous Ulster County restaurants. With fuel prices astronomical as they are, we can’t guarantee they’ll be functional or lit. But certain restaurants are famous for their fireside dining, and you’d be missing out if you didn’t experience at least one this winter. Pro tip: Make a reservation and tell them you want to sit close to the fireplace. These are coveted seats that get filled fast.
The Hoffman House in Kingston is an old-style inn with an antique gun mounted above its main fireplace. The stone building was built way back in the 1600s, and the hearty, homestyle meals served fireside create a sense of being transported to an earlier time.
The Stone House Tavern in Accord is the town’s central restaurant. It has gone through several iterations over the decades. Its new owners have created a cozy, classy space and an elevated menu that’s a blend of steakhouse and pub.
Peekamoose Restaurant and Tap Room in Big Indian is a bit of a trek for many, but it’s worth it for the artsy, rustic ambience and yes, multiple fireplaces. Bring some friends, as this restaurant can accommodate large parties for a dining experience you won’t soon forget. The food is farm-to-table and high-end without being pretentious.
A fireplace is the central feature of the Phoenician Steakhouse dining room in (you guessed it) Phoenicia. Surf and turf abound on their menu, but there’s also plenty for vegetarians to drool over.
There’s also Garvan’s in New Paltz, an Irish-style gastropub and favorite of locals and tourists alike. Like many of the restaurants on this list, the fireplace feels integral to the rustic charm of the historic building. The food is hearty and refined, the staff friendly and inviting.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of all restaurants with fireplaces in Ulster County, but you can’t go wrong with any of these options… unless you get seated by the door instead of the fireplace.
Go on a record store crawl and host a home listening party. You don’t have to be a record collector to appreciate vinyl. You just need access to a record player and some indoor time on your hands. The winter seems built for this purpose. There’s arguably no better season to plant oneself in front of a couple of speakers and go on an epic journey of sound. Might as well be stuck inside with your favorite musicians.
A panacea for the digital-music age, the analog nature of vinyl will ground you to the musical experience. If you’ve been using Spotify for several years, playing a record will transport you to a bygone era where immersing oneself in the music was a built-in part of the listening experience, due simply to the fact that vinyl albums are continuous, linear and (if you’re tuned in) uninterruptible. They also sound uniquely good, perhaps better than digital, as their sonic footprint is continuous and analog, whereas digital sound consists of countless imperceptible samples.
Each local record store has its own flavor and unique offerings, and part of the joy of record shopping is the surprise of discovering something new or long-sought. We recommend you visit them all.
In Kingston, Rocket Number Nine Records and Rhino Records, just a block away from each other, offer excellent selections. You can sometimes find a good vintage platter at Kingston Consignments on the very same street. Planet Woodstock in the Town of Ulster is also a good nearby spot to dig in crates of budget vinyl.
Rhino Records also has a location in New Paltz, and has been a beloved mecca for music-hungry college students in the town for several decades. Parlor is a quaint and charming bookshop with a small selection of vinyl and occasional live performances in-store.
Further north, Woodstock Music Shop has a decent selection of records, including some sought-after gems.
There are other great record stores not too far out of the county: Darkside Records in Poughkeepsie, Hudson Valley Vinyl in Beacon, John Doe Records and Books in Hudson, Rhinebeck Vinyl Vault, Rock Fantasy in Middletown, and Spike’s Record Rack in Catskill, to name a few.
If you’d rather not break the bank at a time when eggs cost $8 a dozen, invite your vinyl-collecting friends over and let everyone DJ their favorite cuts and sides.
Go thrifting. ‘Tis the season when everyone gets rid of stuff to make room for new stuff. ’Tis also the season of inflation, shrinkflation, recession and record corporate profits. One of the best ways to subvert all that is to hit our many excellent local thrift stores.
There’s a distinction between thrift store and consignment/vintage store, though it can be a blurry line. Generally, thrift stores take donations, sift out the crap, skim the really good stuff, and put the rest on retail, gradually dropping prices of items that don’t sell until they get donated elsewhere. Vintage stores and consignment shops are less likely to take donations and are more focused on marking up the best items sourced from thrift stores, flea markets, yard and estate sales and auctions, often in themed collections.
Kingston has a number of true thrift stores: Free to Thrift is jampacked with great clothes and other thrift items priced reasonably. Fairly New Thrift Shop is a volunteer-run affair associated with a nearby church. People’s Place has a wide selection that’s well-organized and focuses on items that have utility for low-to-no-income earners — just one aspect of their multifaceted community outreach that helps thousands of residents each year.
In Kingston, you can also find three of the funkiest fusions between thrift store and junk store: Stan’z Used Items & Antiques is packed wall-to-ceiling with odds and ends. Zaborski Emporium is a towering multi-floor warehouse of home fixtures and random items from every historic era. And P&T Surplus offers the most delightfully random collection of tools, materials and electronics.
The Salvation Army has two main thrift stores in Ulster County, one in Kingston and the other in New Paltz. The Kingston location is okay for clothes, but the New Paltz location is a two-floor thrift hotspot with great finds donated by college students and well-to-do residents. Make sure you visit the lower floor in the back that features a huge room full of furniture.
Out on Route 28, the Tibetan Center offers an eclectic collection focused on furniture and larger items, as does the Ulster Habitat ReStore up the road.
Plan your garden with a local expert. During the pandemic, it seemed like everyone who lived adjacent to a patch of land was starting a garden. Many of us were humbled after a few YouTube tutorials failed to give us the green thumb we needed to produce more than a handful of undersized veggies.
This year, resolve to do it right. One of the benefits of being surrounded by nature in Ulster County is that you are also surrounded by nature experts. And the experts will tell you that the time to start planning your garden is fast approaching. The last spring frost is still months away, but you’ll likely want to start some seedlings indoors, which means procuring the necessary supplies and formulating a plan of attack.
The best advice for an Ulster County resident seeking to have a bumper crop in 2023 is to find a local gardening expert with whom to collaborate. We recommend searching for a garden center near you, as you’ll be returning frequently for supplies and advice. Owners and employees are typically friendly and outgoing – after all, they care for thousands of living things each day. Make a friend and later this year you may find your garden overflowing with a bountiful harvest.
Join the family! 
