Lake Placid restaurateur transitions to new life in Florida

Charlie Levitz

Charlie Levitz, the longtime Lake Placid chef-restaurateur who also helped elevate the cocktail scene in that tourist town, is in the process of transitioning his career to a less public level in Florida.

I ran into Levitz Tuesday when he was back in the Greater Capital Region to handle a series of private events. Levitz, who was chef-owner of both the long-running Chair 6 and the shorter-run Charlie's -- and its T-Bar cocktail lounge -- restaurants in the Adirondacks village, told me his was in the process of completing a relocation to Stuart, FL.

"I've been working on setting up a business as a private and special events chef," he said. "It's not simple to reestablish in a new market, but it certainly is less stressful than handling the responsibilities of both owning and operating private restaurants in a seasonally-popular place."

Levitz, 62, a native of Albany, closed Charlie's several years ago and closed his more-successful Chair 6 last summer after a 15-year run to concentrate exclusively on his work as a private chef and on special event catering.

His recent move to Florida's Treasure Coast, he said, is because his mother lives there and his wife, Rachel, "loves living there."

(Go here for a story on a special cocktail night I was involved in at Levitz's T-Bar.)

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