Restaurant Marché wrapped up a 13-year run at a cozy corner just off Windslow Way on Madrone Lane June 28.

Opened by owners Greg and Betsy Atkinson in 2012, the French bistro aimed to create a warm and inviting restaurant. The space will soon be occupied by former Bay Area chef, Pete Osborne. Greg said Osborne bought the furniture, dishes, pots and pans as well as appliances.

Osborne plans to open a new seafood restaurant called Sweetwater Tavern with co-owner Callie Tinney. He said he’s hoping to have the restaurant open sometime later this year after completing permitting and a remodel of the space. This will be his sixth restaurant as part of ownership or as a chef, and he’s looking forward to the opportunity to meet new people and connect with the Bainbridge Island community.

“There’s a creative aspect to it, too, that I’m just absolutely addicted to. I have ideas of what I want the restaurant to be like, but that’s not necessarily what the restaurant’s gonna be like once you get the doors open and kind of see what people’s hunger and thirst is for,” he said. “You have to adjust on the fly, and that’s all very challenging and fun.”

Prior to opening Restaurant Marché, Greg worked at Seattle restaurant Canlis, a Pacific Northwest fine-dining restaurant from the late 1990s to the early 2000s.

“Living here on Bainbridge, eventually, I just got the bug to have a friendly neighborhood bistro right here, close to home,” he said. “Eventually, I just really felt like, if I’m ever going to have a restaurant of my own, I better do it now before I get too old. I was just at a time in my life where I had an opportunity to do it.”

Over the years, Greg said he enjoyed having the opportunity to be integrated into the lives of the community from his employees to vendors and regular customers.

“Everything sort of came together for Betsy and I to open Marché in 2012 and then we went through the COVID-19 pandemic and some other kind of changes, and eventually we felt like, okay, we’ve had a restaurant, we’ve done that,” Atkinson said. “Now let’s offer someone else the opportunity to use this space. And so that’s when we decided to put the business for sale.

“It’s pretty hard work, and our business model had always been kind of a mom and pop shop, where, if it was open, we were there. So we were just doing four dinners a week with special events on other nights,” Atkinson said. “And then we realized, of course, that the space was a little bit underutilized, and someone should be there doing more dinners and brunches and lunches, but we just didn’t have the staff or the energy to really do it.”

Greg said before the first dinner service back in 2012, they had completed both a practice night as well as friends and family night.

“Things still got pretty jammed up, there were things in the kitchen that weren’t even finished yet. I didn’t have the shelves for my plates on the wall, and the prep table wasn’t finished, so I was putting the plates on to plywood. I think it was kind of crazy, but it was happy and joyful and really exciting,” he said.

In comparison, the final dinner service went smoothly, he said.

“I felt like we just floated right through it, even though it was super busy. As soon as news got out that we had sold and that our last night of service was coming, every night we had sold out about two weeks before the last night, so we were just booked solid,” he said.

Greg said he now wants to devote more time to his garden and spend time at home. He may also pursue writing a book about surviving the restaurant industry.

“By fall, I might get a little bit restless and start that book, but for now, I’m just going to enjoy being home,” he said.