Harvest Restaurant sold

By Zander Frost, Chronicle Staff Writer

The Harvest, the mainstay Queensbury restaurant and pizzeria at the corner of Bay and Cronin Roads, has been sold.

Charlie Hoertkorn and his family purchased it from Phil and Linda Hart, who opened The Harvest 52 years ago and ran it ever since.

Charlie is a Queensbury grad, class of 2004, who already operates The Horseshoe Bar & Grill in Saratoga.

“The Harvest is such a Queensbury staple, such a well-oiled machine, that I’m honored and blessed to have the opportunity to purchase this place. It means a lot to me,” Charlie told The Chronicle.

“I respect the owners. I respect the business so much.”

“I don’t want to change anything,” he emphasized, joking, “If I change the light bulbs, I’m going to be carried out with a pitchfork. People told me, don’t change the pizza, don’t change the wine pour.”

It will stay a family business. Charlie’s wife Kelli is involved, and Charlie’s sister Kelly Hoertkorn will manage the front of house. His other sister Catherine and her husband Mike DelSignore are partners.

“This opportunity…was something we wanted to do as a family,” said Charlie, whose mother Mary owns McDermott’s Harley Davidson on Rt. 4 in Kingsbury.

Kelly spent years as a Corinth school teacher and coach of the successful girls basketball team there. She now works with Charlie at The Horseshoe. “She’s got serious discipline from being a coach,” Charlie said, adding that she used to work at his and his father’s restaurant 20 years ago. “She’s been in and out of the industry for her whole life.”

Charlie said his restaurant career began in 2007, “three years out of high school,” when he and his father opened Charlie’s BBQ on Route 149 having “built the building together.”

Charlie said the long hours and short season pushed him to shut it down.

“It was a 10-week season, my dad got sick and I was the one running it. Long story short, I was in the kitchen 90 hours a week and I just — that wasn’t what I really saw for me,” he said. “I was like, ‘This is too much.’” His next venture was buying The Bullpen in Saratoga, an offshoot of the Bullpen in downtown Glens Falls that owners Paul Bricoccoli, Scott Endieveri and Jason and David Krogmann decided to sell.

Charlie and two partners bought it.

Then, “about five years later, we bought the Horseshoe” in Saratoga also from The Bullpen owners.

“About three years ago,” says Charlie, “I bought the Horseshoe from my partners and they bought Caroline Street Pub [formerly The Bullpen] from me.”

The Horseshoe is a track season juggernaut, serving throngs after the races.

The Bullpen and Charlie also connect via The Harvest and Talk of the Town.

Talk of the Town in Glens Falls started as Hart’s. It became Talk of the Town after the Harts sold it to open The Harvest in 1972. The Bullpen owners bought Talk of the Town in 2017.

“They’re really good friends of mine,” Charlie says. “And we’ve already joked like, ‘Oh, you’re competition.’ They’ll tell you the same thing — that’s not competition.”

Growing up, he said, “If you go to Queensbury, you went to Harvest. If you grew up in Glens Falls, you went to Talk of the Town. I personally go to both.

“I’m not a competition guy. I’m one of the guys, like, hey, there’s enough for all of us to go around.”

He said Queensbury accountant Phil Whittemore helped set The Harvest purchase in motion.

Charlie said he was considering a real estate investment and told Mr. Whittemore, “If there was any restaurant I’d actually be interested in, it would be something like The Harvest, because it’s so well ran, it’s so well maintained…I don’t have to do anything.”

He said the accountant told him, “That might be for sale.”

Charlie said Linda Hart reached out to him and they had a discussion.

“We agreed on most things,” Charlie said. After a long process — they originally hoped to complete the purchase in Fall 2024 — they closed on it this week.

“I would like to express our appreciation for Phil and Linda, for the opportunity for this, and what they’ve created,” Charlie said. “They created a very, very well run, very well established, lucrative business.

“I’ve been a 25-plus year customer. I literally use their takeout procedures as examples at my restaurant. They check everything.”

Charlie said he did make a slight change to the name. “Technically now the name of it [has been] Phil’s Harvest restaurant,” Charlie said. As of the sale, “it’ll be The Harvest restaurant.”

The Chronicle asked, why is The Harvest pizza so good? “I don’t fully know,” Charlie said. At the time of his interview, he said, “I haven’t seen the full recipe.”

“I like the fact that the sauce is sweeter,” Charlie said. “I like the crispiness but the softness of the dough. I think the big difference that a lot of people don’t know is the cheese is provolone, not mozzarella, which gives it that snap.”

“I’ve been a customer for 20-some years, so I’m speaking to you as a customer, not an owner. Every time I get it it’s consistent, every time I’ve ever had it for the last 20 years, It’s been the same [great] pizza.”

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