Garofalo & Co

The sweet Italian sausage is a three thumbs up winner (
) and so it’s well worth the trip into deepest, darkest Schenectady to visit Garofalo. The breakfast sausage is very sagey — these I can’t recommend. I love their ground chuck. Street parking is a joke, service is surly at best. They charge more if you use a credit card and don’t have a real register, so bring cash and don’t expect to get a real receipt. My server just ripped the paper off the adding machine and handed it to me. Hmmmmmmmm. But the sausages are AMAZING.

What can I say about this place? A LOT. But in the interest of not completely filling up Unilocal’s database, I’ll keep it brief.
The first thing that you notice when you walk into Garofalo’s is how great it smells: it’s like getting hit in the face with a cinder block of glorious fucking awesomeness. It smells THAT good. I love it.
I really don’t think there’s a single thing here that isn’t fantastic. I’m especially in love with their smoked ribs. The stuffed pork chops are awesome. They make all sorts of phenomenal sausages. They also sell a variety of other things: various cheeses, meats, spices, canned tomatoes, olive oil and more. The staff at Garofalo’s are great as well. They’re very friendly. This place is obviously in the best hands.
If you’re not familiar with the area, it might be a little tricky to find because it’s on a weird little road. There really isn’t any parking (I normally walk here from my Schenectady office anyway), so the best place is to just park in the lot around the bend behind Perreca’s and Cornell’s. Garofalo’s is well within walking distance from there.
Garofalo’s accepts credit cards, but there’s a minimum amount (which is $ 15 if I recall correctly).
Be warned: If you’re going there today for the smoked ribs, you’re SOL. I’m pretty sure I bought them out for the day. That’s how I roll.