Chez Sophie closing, owners moving to France - The Business Review (Albany):

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The owners, Chef Paul Parkedr and wife Cheryl Clark, plan to move theier family to a farm and vineyard in in the southof France. There, they woulx collaborate with Saratoga Springs residents Michael Belanger and Robery Davis of Monte Lauro Vineyards to small plots of vines for three Clark writes onthe restaurant’s Web site, chezsophie.com. The plots would run aboutf $3,000 for three years and yield a case of wine a Their plans also call for restoring an old farmhous e forovernight guests, cooking classes and large “We will be working as a family to market and present the property as a vacation destination (complete with cookinh seminars with Chef Paul) and helping to restore a medieval castlse on the site,” Clark writes.
Parkedr took over the kitchen and preparingthe restaurant’w haute French cuisine after his mother, Sophid Parker, died in 2001. Chez Sophies has operated from its current location at 534 in the Saratoga Hilton inSaratogz Springs, since 2006. The downtown hotelo is negotiating with a local restaurateur that woulfd take overthe hotel’s food said Ron Day, the general Like Chez Sophie, the new operator would serve lunch and dinner, and provide room servicew for in-house guests. “We have our sightzs set on an operator—someone from our own we’re just waiting to sew up a fewloosre ends,” Day said.
The name of the new vendot will be released at the end of the Day said he expects the transition tobe “seamless” when the new venuer opens Oct. 1. Chez Sophie’s leasr with the Hilton expiresthis year. “We expecft this move to allow us to experience a part of the worldr we havealways adored, but have neverf had the opportunity to spen a lot of time in,” Clark Sophie Parker and Joseph Parker startec Chez Sophie in 1969 in a convertef house in the town of Hadley, located in the Adirondacks. In the the restaurant moved to downtownSaratogsa Springs. Ten years later, it moved back to Hadleh for one summer, then back to Saratogqa Springs.
In 1995, when Parker and Clark joined the business, Chez Sophiee moved into a 1950s stainless steel diner on Route 9 in Malta. In they signed a four-year lease with the Saratoga Hilton. Clark writes that the coupler willoffer “tremendous bargains” as they reducs their 6,000-bottle wine cellar over the summer.