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“Provence to become Hundred Acres ”

Sometimes as hard as you try to make something work, it just doesn’t work. That was the case at Provence, the charming French countryside café that Vicki Freeman and Marc Meyer opened a year ago, hoping to revive the space to its former luster. In my mind, they had. While there were issues early on in the kitchen, Marc steadied the ship. I enjoyed many dinners there, at bar, in the serene tented garden, and up front at the café tables pressed up against the French doors on cold winter nights. This restaurant was an ideal spot to gather friends for a weekday dinner, to celebrate a birthday, or just to hang out and eat oysters. I was surprised to hear of its closing, reported by Pete Wells on Diner's Journal Monday. But after speaking to Vicki, it made sense.

“We loved Provence and had so much nostalgia for the restaurant, but it was just hard for us,” she said. “We kept trying to get it to be what we wanted it to be and it wasn’t working. We weren’t enjoying it. We’re two Jews and an Irish girl trying to run a French restaurant, and it didn’t make sense. And then we realized we didn’t have to do this. We could do something else.”

And that’s precisely what they decided to do. Saturday night will be the last meal served at Provence. On Sunday the restaurant will begin its transformation into Hundred Acres, a rustic market-driven/butcher shop-inspired concept they’ve been planning since before Cookshop. Named for the term given to Soho at the turn of the 20th century—Hell’s Hundred Acres—the restaurant will be a farm-to-table showcase for the farmers that Marc and his chef-partner Joel Hough have come to know over the years.

Opening in May, the restaurant will be designed by Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton (who also did Provence) with a bar that will take on a butcher shop feel with subway tiles and a slew of meats on display. In the dining room, which will be simple and minimalist and marked by bare wooden tables, the menu will change every day depending on market availability. Expect pastas, fish, lamb, poultry and beef, and sides of daily vegetables and grains, and big wooden bowls of seasonal salads. Vicki was clear in explaining that this will be the most casual and affordable restaurant of their group. Entrees will top out at $22. The wine list, by Richard Luftig, will reach no higher than $50 a bottle and most glasses will be $8.

Here’s to new beginnings and a Hundred Acres!

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