French Garden to close :(

The PD is reporting that the French Garden will be closing on June 26th. I am so sad to read this. Besides being a great place to eat and meet, the French Garden was a big supporter of all thing progressive, including being an early sponsor of WaccoBB.net.

I trust the Dan and Joan will continue to be active members of our community and I wish them the best in sorting out the finances of the Sonoma West Medical Center that they have worked so hard to sustain and generously supported, for the benefit of the wider community.

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/wacco...4_15-56-29.png
Chris Smith: Sonoma West Medical Center benefactors closing Sebastopol restaurant
CHRIS SMITH | June 8, 2016,

IN SEBASTOPOL, the hilltop French Garden Restaurant & Bistro Bar braces for shutdown by owners Dan Smith and Joan Marler-Smith, whose philanthropy has been important to many nonprofit endeavors and essential to the still uncertain revival of the former Palm Drive Hospital.

The Smiths’ decision to shutter the French Garden on June 26 follows, and is not coincidental to, the disclosure by the treasurer of the Sonoma West Medical Center that the reborn hospital can’t repay the couple’s $5.7 million loan.

The Smiths have said they will forgive the loan. But the loss of the nearly $6 million forces them to cut back.

Thus the demise of the French Garden, which the couple has said was not intended to be a money-maker. It hosted many benefit dinners, performances, and discussions of local and world issues.

The former home of the infamous Marty’s Top of the Hill bar had sat empty for a good long time when Smith and his wife, on one of their upswings, transformed it into the gracious farm-to-table dining room and bar that opened in 2006.

The evening of the 26th, the French Garden will conclude with a prix fixe dinner and music by Nina Gerber and Chris Webster and some of their friends. You can make a reservation by calling the restaurant.

Joan Marler-Smith said she’s sad but she and her husband still will have much to do once the French Garden is gone.

“One of our problems,” she said, “was probably that we had too many things going at once.”