No more fondue in Park City?

In the not-so-old days, it used to be that everything that came from the Alps carried a certain mystique and a desirable cachet all over America. Adolph Imboden, just like me, took advantage of this state of mind to come and start a career in the United States.

For the past 47 years, Adoph’s Swiss Restaurant has been a Park City institution offering fondues as well as wienerschnitzel and roesti from his native country. In fact, Adolph, who is now 78, set foot in Park City in 1971 to work for the Park City Ski Area as its food and beverage manager. 

In 1974, he went on his own and opened his namesake restaurant and for almost five decades and three locations later, made it as a shrine not just to fondue, but also to ski racing and its champions. Inside his establishment, the walls held a huge array of framed photos from national as well as international ski racers and visiting celebrities who ate there. 

There are autographed photographs of winter-sports stars like the Mahre brothers, Hermann Maier, Bode Miller, all the way to Park City’s own Ted Ligety. 

Seemingly, Adolf was not a Francophile, and there were no pictures of French skiers in his restaurant. It went right down to the French flag that was conspicuously absent from the outside of his establishment, where all the other colors representing the essence of alpine skiing were flying in the Park City breeze.  

Early April, unable to renew his lease, Imboden announced that the restaurant would close at the end of the month, ending decades that largely mirrored Park City’s rise as an international ski destination. 

Beside doing some catering in the future, Adolph plans to ski and spend more time in his beloved Switzerland. Auf Wiedersehen!