Restaurateur Jim West takes own life, police report

Prominent Eugene businessman Jim West, president of Westraunt Concepts — which owns and operates local restaurants such as Mucho Gusto, Dickie Jo’s Burgers and Bill and Tim’s Barbecue — died on Friday of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to Eugene police.

He was 50.

West was found dead in his car about 6:55 p.m. Friday off Day Island Road in Alton Baker Park, Eugene police spokeswoman Melinda McLaughlin said.

Along with two of his brothers, West was a successful fixture on the local restaurant scene for more than 20 years. He and older brother Mike West, along with younger brother Phil West, opened West Bros. BBQ on Olive Street in downtown Eugene in the summer of 1992.

The new restaurant was a hit and led to several other business ventures over the years.

“It’s a loss to our business community,” said Dave Hauser, president of the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce, of Jim West’s death. “He and his brother (Phil) are known for running outstanding businesses, for never resting on their laurels, for always trying new things, being inventive, taking calculated risks — all the things that successful businesses do.”

Mike West died of a heart attack at the age of 51 three years ago this month.

West and his brothers came to Eugene as boys in 1972 when their father, Richard, was hired as the dean of the business school at the University of Oregon, according to a 2011 Register-Guard story on Mike West’s death. The family moved east four years later, but Mike West, then a senior at South Eugene High School, stayed, eventually becoming a chef and helping to start the former Cafe Zenon in downtown Eugene.

The brothers split their business in 2001, with Jim and Phil taking Mucho Gusto Mexican Kitchens and Mike West assuming sole control of West Bros. and the former Mona Lizza Ristorante in downtown Eugene. Mike West, who had relocated a few years before his death to La Pine, where he opened the Bend Fish Co., moved the barbecue restaurant to his Franklin Boulevard steakhouse in 2003 and closed it a year later, citing labor costs and other concerns.

Jim and Phil West opened their most recent venture, Bill and Tim’s Barbecue, at 201 E. 13th Ave., a space formerly occupied by one of their Dickie Jo’s Burgers restaurants, just last fall.

In early 2012, the brothers began a full-scale overhaul of their restaurant business, cutting back on some concepts such as their burger outlets, adding some new ones such as Party@Jo’s, and returning to their culinary roots, according to an October 2013 story in The Register-Guard.

The name “Bill and Tim’s” was something of an inside joke, a reference to the Wests’ barbecue tour of the South before they started their company in 1992, the story said. The locals they met on their fact-finding food tour had trouble understanding the Wests’ non-Southern accent, invariably referring to them as Bill and Tim.

Talking about some of the new restaurant’s specialities, such as a salad with rare or medium-rare tri-tip beef served with cold, organic greens, dijon-tarragon vinaigrette, cranberries and sweet and spicy pecans, Jim West told the newspaper: “Even with the traditional fare, we like to be extraordinary.”

He said that he had not kept a running total of how much he and his brother had spent on the overhaul of the Westraunt Concepts brands, but estimated that it was “well over $1 million … I need to sell a lot of food.”

Jim West also indicated that he and his brother were exploring additional possibilities and opportunities but that he was not ready to discuss them yet other than to say: “We will be offering catering and real-time delivery in the new year.”

Contacted on Saturday, Phil West said the family did not want to comment on his brother’s death at this time.

Jim West’s survivors include his wife, local artist Jane West, and their four children.

Register-Guard reporter Josephine Woolington contributed to this report.