Vic and Candy Shepard

The Love Birds that have lasted

By Molly Murfee

Dusty Demerson photos

Le Bosquet is the most continuously owned restaurant in Crested Butte and Vic and Candy Shepard have sculpted its success for as long as they’ve been married – over 30 years. As husband and wife, owners and managers, hostess and chef, they’ve weathered the famine as well as the feast. Their menu is as romantic as their story – warm goat cheese salad tucked into a nest of mixed greens; small plates of seared sea scallops in orange basil oil, lamb lollipops laced with a pomegranate demi-glace; entrees of peppered elk and hazelnut chicken warmed with a thyme cream sauce. For Valentine’s Day, lovers and friends nestle into warm nooks, toasting over fine cabernets, as comfortable as if visiting the home of a friend.

They met in ballet class. Vic followed his ski instructor friend seeking to learn balance and grace through the instruction.

“I thought it would be a great place to meet chicks,” he chuckles mischievously. And he did.

Candy was a dancer in the more advanced class, and whether her orange leotard or her sweet mannerism and voice caught his eye is lost to memory, although he does tease her now with a, “Why don’t you wear that anymore?”

They courted at the movies (“I bought you Milk Duds,” “No, they were Junior Mints.”), and on the ski hill. They eloped on their day off in 1978 (“I was 34,” “No, you were 30.”), skiing the North Face in the morning, then coercing a ski patrol friend, who was also a municipal judge, to conduct the ceremony at a friend’s house. Vic had begun bussing tables at Le Bosquet in 1977. A mere few months later, they bought half the restaurant on the collateral of Candy’s sewing machine, Vic’s bicycle and VW, and their skis, sharing responsibilities with the original owners Phillipe de Lazzaro, a French man with an Italian mother, and his wife, Jane. By 1978 Vic and Candy purchased the second half of the restaurant, and Le Bosquet became theirs to keep.

Although they have lived the majority of their lives together in Crested Butte, Vic and Candy didn’t arrive to the upper East River Valley in tandem. Vic began his life in Columbus, Ohio. While attending Ohio State he took a sabbatical to join the Peace Corps in Guatemala, returning to Colorado Springs to labor in the cement industry. His brother was attending Western State at the time, so Vic drove over Ohio Pass and into Crested Butte. That was in 1971 and it punctually marked the end of his cement career.

Meanwhile Candy had been growing up in Wisconsin, attending the University in Madison and studying special education. She landed a job in Boulder at a junior high school teaching the same and writing biological science curriculum. She moved to the East River Valley in the fall of 1973, teaching special education in Gunnison until finally moving her career further north to instruct the middle school children of Crested Butte.

Together as individuals they have served on the Town Council (Vic as Mayor for a stint), boards of the Nordic Center, Crested Butte Academy, 1% for Open Space. They’ve assisted the school, the Crested Butte Land Trust. Vic helped the infant Mountain Theatre begin, acting in the first play, “Dark of the Moon”. Candy lent a hand in the starts of the Chamber of Commerce, the East River School Committee to bring the middle school back to Crested Butte, the board that created the first radio station in the valley.

“She was President,” Vic boasts.

“I was President?” Candy questions, “I’m not sure I was President.”

Vic just smiles in an “oh well” kind of way, “Between the two of us we have one spotty memory.”

In the era of the year of “Un,” of a Crested Butte with dirt roads and no sidewalks, when life was simple and children played in the open expanses from the Bench to the river, Candy and Vic took over Le Bosquet. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” they muse.

Vic had prior experience as a chef, cooking at Le Garage in D.C., Stouffer’s Top of the Center with servings of classic French food such as Crepe Suzette, peaches flambé and Chateaubriand. Their personal relationship always allowed for unspoken communication in their restaurant duties, trading out shifts to recharge, sharing responsibilities in the kitchen. They began Why Cook?! preparing ready for take-out meals of crabcakes, roast pork tenderloin, duck quesadillas and dolmadakia. There they offer triple crème brie and chocolate cannolis.

They’ve worked to keep the business up to date, performing a majority of the duties when times proved slim, be it vacuuming the carpet or serving drinks. Together they can do every job in the business, Vic as the lead chef for 27 years, Candy whipping up creamy desserts. They’ve been blessed with an inspired staff and wonderful clients that have become friends over the years. There have been fairy godmothers when times got tough, offering a free place to stay; local banks understanding the climate and trusting them and their business as neighbors. Sometimes they haven’t even been able to pay themselves, but they look forward to being able to help another young couple along the way, as many did for them.

“We have to take care of each other,” notes Candy soberly.

In trade for an undulating economic climate they get clean air, jaw dropping views and an absence of traffic that clogs the by-ways of many Colorado ski resorts. They’ve raised their son, Andy, in a tight community and a beautiful environment with tons of freedom. They don’t have to worry if their employees are walking out with a tenderloin in their pocket. There are immediate trails to hike and bike. They realize, as Candy says, “Tis a privilege to live here.” And, despite the occasional uncertainties and hardships, it’s worth it.

Candy and Vic feel lucky to have found each other, and to be able to survive a relationship that spans from the business to the personal.

“You have to be best friends,” Candy recommends.

“You have to be going in the same direction,” adds Vic.

“When I’m discouraged, Vic can boost me up again, and hopefully we don’t go down at the same time. You commit to being here, to doing things separately and not worrying you’re apart. You like each other.” And then, after a thoughtful pause, “What she said,” Vic concludes.

Molly Murfee is a full-time freelance writer with over 400 locally and nationally published articles. Her newest project is a novel of place, entitled, “I Go to the Mountains to Pray”, exploring the persistent passion and fierce tenacity of mountain people living in the rhythms of their wild home. You can see a sample of her poetry on display now at the Alpenglow Gallery at Mountaineer Square. She encourages your correspondence at mmurfee.aei@usa.net.