Stories, tips, and local perspectives from across the Finger Lakes.
Stacey's Permanent Solutions in Weedsport is a one-stop aesthetic center that has amassed an almost absurd number of FLX Finest awards: Gold for Aesthetic Medicine and Hair Removal in both 2024 and 2025, Gold for Nail Salon in 2025, Silver for Day Spa, Tanning, Yoga/Pilates, and Massage in various years. The breadth of services — […]
Smokin Pete's has been climbing the FLX Finest BBQ rankings with the steady patience of a proper low-and-slow cook — Silver in 2022, Silver in 2023, Silver in 2024, and finally Gold in 2025. That four-year arc from contender to champion tells you everything about the operation at 5286 West Lake Road in Geneva: this […]
Forty-eight years on Fall Street in Seneca Falls is not a career — it is an institution. Sinicropi Florist has been doing the flowers for this community's most important moments since the mid-1970s, and the FLX Finest voting history reflects that deep-rooted trust: Gold in 2024 and 2025, Silver in 2022 and 2023, with an […]
Simply Crepes started with a family recipe from a dairy farm in rural Quebec. Co-founders Pierre and Karen Heroux built their restaurant concept around the homespun crepes Pierre's grandmother cooked on buttered cast iron — simple, unpretentious, stuffed with whatever was good that morning. Two decades and multiple locations later, the formula still works. The […]
Silver Creek Golf Course on River Road in Waterloo is the most consistent Silver finisher in the FLX Finest golf category — earning the award in 2022, 2023, and 2024. Three consecutive years of being voted the second-best course in the Finger Lakes is not a consolation prize; it is proof of a course that […]
Seneca Lake Resorts operates across multiple locations on the lake and earned Gold for Best Boat Rentals in 2024 followed by Silver in 2025, plus connections to Sampson Marina. The operation is built around getting visitors onto Seneca Lake — the largest, deepest, and arguably most dramatic of the Finger Lakes — and they have […]
Seneca Farms is a roadside ice cream stand on Route 54A just outside Penn Yan, and it has been a summer ritual for Keuka Lake visitors for decades. The soft-serve and hard ice cream are made with local dairy, the portions are generous enough to make you reconsider your second scoop, and the picnic tables […]
Sampson Marina on Highway 96A in Romulus earned Silver for Best Marina in 2024, and its location within Sampson State Park on the eastern shore of Seneca Lake gives it something no private marina can replicate: direct access to one of the Finger Lakes' best state park campgrounds and the deepest, most productive fishing water […]
Sakura sits in a strip plaza on Eastern Boulevard in Canandaigua, which does not scream destination dining, but what happens inside is worth the unassuming entrance. This is a dual-format Japanese restaurant: one side runs a full hibachi grill where chefs work the teppanyaki tables with the expected theatrics — knife tricks, onion volcanoes, flaming […]
On Main Street in Willard, a tiny hamlet on the western shore of Seneca Lake, Rylee's Place has quietly become one of the most decorated cheap eats in the entire Finger Lakes. This family-owned diner punches absurdly above its weight class: Gold for Best Cheap Eats in both 2024 and 2025, Gold for Best Appetizers […]