Photography by Shawn LaChapelle
There’s no sugar-coating it: This winter was a tough one. While Capital Region residents were hunkered down avoiding the cold and snow, local businesses—restaurants specifically—were fighting to survive. In a span of just a couple of weeks in February, Gershon’s Deli in Schenectady, Genoa Importing in Loudonville, and Primal: Your Local Butcher in Albany and Saratoga announced on social media that due to the rising cost of doing business, they were shutting down, effective immediately.
Local content creator Kristen Suraci was heartbroken.
“There were multiple posts I saw in one day, and I started crying because I think what makes this area so special is all the local businesses we have,” she says. “The rise of the cost of food is crazy and, yeah, people don’t want to pay $20 for a sandwich, but the businesses need to make money, so how do we both win? I honestly don’t know the answer to that.”
What Suraci does know is that there is something that we, as customers, can do: Buy local whenever possible. “It makes my blood boil when I see someone post that they went through the Starbucks drive-through,” she says. “I’m like, c’mon, support your local coffee shop. I know you have to get out of your car, but it takes two extra seconds, and it makes such a big difference.”
Suraci isn’t just talking the talk—over the course of the last few years, she’s made supporting local businesses into a career. “I cringe a little bit when people call me an influencer,” she says. “So what I’m saying more often now is ‘small business supporter.’”
Semantics aside, Suraci’s content is undeniably having an influence on the 518. Her brand, Saucy Suraci, boasts more than 40,000 Instagram followers, and this year she was voted Best Social Media Influencer in Capital Region Living’s Bestie awards. Her content leans foodie- and 518-centric, though in recent years she’s begun highlighting all sorts of small businesses, traveling from Beacon to Buffalo to do so. Recent posts show her getting a laser treatment at a Ehden Medical Aesthetics in Latham, working at Ecco Cowork & Community in Schenectady, and eating a smashburger at The Otesaga Resort Hotel in Cooperstown.
“The first two years of the page, I intentionally stayed behind the camera, because I didn’t want it to feel like it was about me,” she says. “I wanted the spotlight to be on the businesses I was featuring. But over time, I realized people weren’t just connecting to the restaurants and businesses—they were connecting with my reactions, perspective, and humor. And now people trust my recommendations.”
Suraci’s first memory of food is of growing up in Guilderland with her Italian grandmother’s cooking. “Typical Italian grandmother,” she says. “‘You’re looking skinny—you gotta eat something.’” In college, she realized that she could go out to eat all the time (provided she had enough money to do so), and became obsessed with trying every new restaurant that popped up. In her 20s, she became the person her group of friends and family would turn to for restaurant recommendations, and started posting her favorite spots on social media so people would stop calling to ask her.
The brand grew organically from there, and in December Suraci quit her tech job to do the Saucy Suraci thing full time. She now has an LLC, a bookkeeper, and a handful of sponsors that make coverage of smaller businesses (that can’t always afford her services) possible.
“One thing I’ve learned is that when you’re early in a space—and I do think I was one of the first people around here to really dive into this—there’s no roadmap,” she says of local content creation. “You have to build it. And I do feel like I’ve had the opportunity to help shape what influencer partnerships look like, especially in terms of valuing creators’ work and creating these long-term collaborations instead of one-off posts. It’s been rewarding to help raise the standard of what influencer marketing can look like, both creatively and professionally.”
One creative way Suraci has teamed up with local restaurants is through menu item collaborations. You can get the Saucy Suraci cocktail at 353 in Troy, the Sweet & Saucy pizza at Anthony’s by Romo’s in Voorheesville, and the Mezzi Rigatoni with Saucy’s vodka sauce at Noah’s Italian in Saratoga. And while those dishes are made by chefs and named after her brand, Suraci has also recently been cooking up a little something of her own.
“Saucy Syrups started because I saw someone make a banana bread–flavored syrup on TikTok,” she says. “It looked so good, so I tried making it myself. It’s kind of funny that a little kitchen experiment turned into this.”
“This”is Suraci’s own line of small-batch syrups, which are meant to be added to coffee, cocktails, or, if you’re feeling crazy, ice cream sundaes. At press time, flavors available on saucysuraci.com included cookie butter, salted caramel, strawberry shortcake, and hazelnut, plus a Girl Scout cookie–inspired collection featuring Marty’s PB Cup, classic shortbread, and Sauce-Moa, but other flavors, including the OG Banana Bread, will rotate back into the mix soon. In the future, Suraci hopes to team up with area coffee shops on collaborative drinks made with Saucy Syrups.
Speaking of coffee shops, that’s one area in which Suraci says the Capital Region is blessed. “There are, like, 5,000 local coffee shops,” she says. “Any city you go to in the Capital Region, you can find a local coffee shop. I feel like a broken record because I say it all the time, but we do not realize how lucky we are to live in an area that has so many locally owned businesses. It’s our job to keep them alive.”
Where in the World is Saucy Suraci?
If you’re looking for her, you can probably find her at one of these 518 restaurants.
Akanomi
Guilderland
“It’s a tiny little spot, but it’s some of the best sushi in the Capital Region. I don’t think the owner even knows I have an Instagram page, and I love that.”
Restaurant 605
Albany
“It’s a bar, but Chef Gabe—what he’s making there…His food is so good.”
Bocage Champagne Bar
Saratoga Springs
“I’m at Bocage a lot. I like their cocktails. All the staff is super friendly. I feel comfortable there.”
Anthony’s by Romo’s
Voorheesville
“Everything I’ve had there is amazing. They make a great burger. That’s becoming my new obsession.”
