Update 1/18: Esperanto owner Will Pouch weighed in on what he knows of the developments taking place below his Caroline Street restaurant when we chatted Monday evening:

"It’s a dynamite space. The space is pretty vast and cavernous, with really high ceilings.They’re beginning to finish up (renovating) the facilities and are now getting into the décor."

The venue is big enough to host live music, Pouch said, and it appears it will be ready to join the Saratoga nightlife circuit by this summer.

"(Building owner Bill Walbridge has) been working to renovate the space for a few years ... That’s why Esperanto moved," he said.

Moving Esperanto's dining room in July 2009 provided first-floor access to the underground spot. It's hard to be sure, but it looks like there are two entrances -- through new doors at the old Esperanto site and also down the new stairs in front of the new Esperanto.

End update.


As reported Jan. 14: Some sort of restaurant/pub/music lounge is in the works on Caroline Street, beneath Esperanto, Desperate Annie's, The Vault and Saratoga Guitar's adjunct space.

Workers clean up the Esperanto entrance around the
time the restaurant reopened, in summer 2009.
File photo by Rick Gargiulo.

No big surprise, it's horse-themed. The building permit says it's called the Paddock Bar.

Building owner Bill Walbridge is keeping the details under wraps for a few more weeks, he said Friday.

But the space -- inaccessible and unusable for anything but basement storage up until recently -- has been waiting to be developed since Esperanto was renovated in the summer of 2009. Workers began clearing out underground gunk and muck and carting it away in trucks soon after.

An Esperanto employee told me recently that the space has been considered for a dance club or a restaurant.

He joked that because of its sub-ground location, it might be harder to throw rowdy patrons out onto the streets.

What kind of business do you think would do well in the center of the hub of Saratoga nightlife, readers?