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When Sophie and Joseph C. Parker opened Chez Sophie in 1969, their son
Paul was 6 years old and their daughter Ellen was 19. The family had
first formed in post-War Paris, where Joseph was studying art on the
G.I. bill with Paul Colin and Fernand Leger. He met a beautiful woman
on a Metro elevator at Harvé-Coumatin - a war orphan on her first solo
weekend outing after leaving the orphanage - and soon they were married
young parents.

Joseph and Sophie returned to the U.S. with their baby daughter, and he
started a successful commercial art studio, serving for a time as art
director for Seagram’s. Sophie became a nationally ranked fencer, a
fine tennis player, a mother for a second time and an elegant
entertainer of Joseph’s clients.

In the late 60s, the family stumbled across an old bar and diner in
upstate New York. Spurred by the untimely death of a good friend, they
realized they were tired of putting Joseph’s art behind their financial
obligations. They made a radical decision to close the art studio and
relocate the family to rural Hadley, New York. They turned the old bar
into a small summer restaurant with a wooded view of the Sacandaga
River and lived in a tiny house next door on the secluded mountain
road.

Sophie was a talented home cook who had learned from her grandmother in
the Pas de Calais and from the nuns at the orphanage, but by no means a
chef.

She offered her services for six months as an apprentice to George
Seitz, the chef and owner of The Arch in North Salem, in order to learn
how a restaurant kitchen operates.

Warned that no one would eat at a place that didn’t sell pizza or
hamburgers, Sophie stubbornly sold snails and duck, filling a void that
no one knew existed. Finding ingredients was difficult. Sophie kept an
extensive garden and worked with local farmers, and used simple,
classic recipes to reveal the best qualities of her ingredients. The
little restaurant attracted such a following that at times there would
be a parade of limousines bearing horse-racing luminaries and members
of the New York City Ballet and Philadelphia Orchestra heading from
Saratoga up the twisty mountain pass.

Sophie and Joseph opened the restaurant every summer, eventually moving
into downtown Saratoga Springs. Paul began helping wash dishes when he
was just big enough to sit in the soap sink with the plates. Ellen (now an Obie- and
Emmy Award-winning actress) also helped out
each summer.

Eventually, Paul dropped out of Vassar College and went to work as a
musician in Paris, London, New York and Memphis. Naturally, he
supported himself in the restaurant business, working in both the front
and back of the house (and even in the car - as a driver for Domino’s
Pizza while he played in a rock band in Memphis.)

After meeting his future wife, Cheryl Clark, in Memphis, he returned to
New York City so she could earn her Master’s degree in journalism. They
relocated to Eastern Long Island, where he finished a degree in
philosophy and comparative literature.

Meanwhile, Sophie and Joseph decided to retire. But rest and
relaxation were so foreign to Sophie that in 1993 she took a job
working with Paul for a Cordon Bleu chef on Long Island.
That experience made Paul rethink his plans to finish a doctorate in
philosophy. He realized he missed his family and the restaurant
business, and began talks with his parents about moving back to upstate
New York.

The family decided to reopen Chez Sophie as a year-round bistro, with
the same simple, elegant food and a more casual atmosphere. They bought
a vintage 1950s stainless steel roadside diner just south of Saratoga
Springs that had been “smiling” at Sophie for years. Hundreds of the
original Chez Sophie customers visited the new Chez Sophie Bistro,
which offered a more casual atmosphere and an á la carte menu with many
of Sophie’s signature dishes. Paul managed the restaurant, Joseph
served as host and Paul’s wife, Cheryl, learned about the restaurant
business from Sophie, working her way up from dishwashing to pastry
making. In 1998, William Grimes of the New York Times described it as
“a tiny bit of France 3,500 miles from Paris - the neighborhood bistro
that every Manhattanite dreams of.”

Sophie passed away in Feb. 2001 and Joseph sold the restaurant to Paul
and Cheryl. Trained in traditional French cooking by his mother (as she
was trained by her grandmother) Chef Paul continues the culinary and
family traditions his mother loved. Cheryl, who retired from journalism
in 2001, manages the dining room and website and works with her husband
to maintain the extensive wine cellar. Their son, Nicholas Charles, was
born in 2003. Later that year, Joseph married Nancy Griffis, a widow
and former school administrator who is now a licensed massage
therapist. The two maintain an art gallery and massage studio at the
old restaurant in Hadley and help out at the bistro on weekends.