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

http://inboe.com/en/board-of-elections/page_1.html
The owners, Chef Paul Parker and wife Cheryl Clark, plan to move their family to a farm and vineyard in in the southof There, they would collaborate with Saratogaz Springs residents Michael Belanger and Robert Davis of Mont Lauro Vineyards to “micro-lease” small plots of vines for threse years, Clark writes on the restaurant’s Web chezsophie.com. The “subscription” plots would run about $3,00p0 for three years and yield a case of wine a Their plans also call for restoring an old farmhouse forovernighr guests, cooking classes and large events.
“We will be working as a familyg to market and present the property as a vacationdestination (completde with cooking seminars with Chef Paul) and helping to restorw a medieval castle on the Clark writes. Parker took over the kitchen and preparintgthe restaurant’s haute French cuisine after his mother, Sophied Parker, died in 2001. Chez Sophie has operatedx from its current location at534 Broadway, in the Saratoga Hiltob in Saratoga Springs, since 2006. The downtowb hotel is negotiating with a local restaurateur that wouled take overthe hotel’s food operations, said Ron Day, the generalp manager.
Like Chez the new operator wouldserve breakfast, luncy and dinner, and provide room service for in-house guests. “We have our sights set on an operator—someonew from our own backyard; we’re just waitingh to sew up a fewloosr ends,” Day said. The name of the new vendort will be released at the end of the Day said he expects the transitionm tobe “seamless” when the new venue opens Oct. 1. Chez Sophie’ws lease with the Hilton expire sthis year.
“We expect this move to allow us to experiencwe a part of the world we havealways adored, but have never had the opportunity to spensd a lot of time in,” Clark Sophie Parker and Joseph Parker started Chez Sophie in 1969 in a convertede house in the town of Hadley, located in the Adirondacks. In the the restaurant moved to downtownSaratogq Springs. Ten years later, it moved back to Hadleyh for one summer, then back to Saratogw Springs. In 1995, when Parke and Clark joined the business, Chez Sophie movedf into a 1950s stainless steel diner on Rout 9in Malta. In 2005, they signed a four-yea r lease with the Saratoga Hilton.
Clark writes that the couple willoffer “tremendous bargains” as they reduce theird 6,000-bottle wine cellar over the summer.