Sewell was known for his culinary skills and expansive, giving personality

In an earlier version of this story, Chez Ray Sewell’s age was incorrect. He was 68 when he died.

On Monday, Eugene lost one its iconic citizens, Raymond Dale Sewell, 68, known to almost everyone who knew him as Chef Chez Ray.

Chez Ray touched the lives of generations of Eugeneans with an exceptional culinary skill and an expansive, giving heart.

Speaking about Chez Ray with friends and family, two consistent threads emerge in his life: a zeal for gastronomic invention and a playful, familial love rooted in the 1960s San Francisco culture that shaped his formative years. Woven together, the tapestry of Chez Ray’s work on this Earth came together in a great psychedelic splash, bright colors bringing light, and an indiscriminate joy that he shined onto those whose lives intertwined with his.

Chez Ray was born on Oct. 26, 1950, and grew up in San Francisco's bohemian Tenderloin district. He lived in an apartment with his mother above the legendary City Lights bookstore.

Chez Ray found his profession in the French culinary school that he enrolled in after vocational cooking classes in high school. Ray’s mentor, Swiss chef George Bollag, apprenticed under Auguste Escoffier, the father of modern French cooking.

“That made me and my fellow apprentices third-generation Escoffier cooks, which was a huge responsibility,” Chez Ray said to fellow chef John Duran in a 2012 interview at the Oregon Country Fair.

“The blossoming of the ‘60s was not only a social revolution but a culinary revolution. California cuisine came into play. There were amazing changes, Chez Ray said. “Instead of shipping all the ingredients from France, like chanterelles and stuff, we started harvesting them locally. Nobody had ever heard of that.”

At the same time, Chez Ray found his passion in the flowering music scene that had its roots in a great social upheaval. The black-and-white, buttoned-down 1950s gave way to a new, Technicolor world of free love of the 1960s. The counterculture world descended upon Chez Ray’s native San Francisco, and by the early 1970s, he was ready for less constrained environs.

Fortune found him following a group of Merry Pranksters north along the coast. The Pranksters accompanied their leader, Ken Kesey, when he left Northern California for the Kesey family farm outside of Pleasant Hill, southeast of Eugene.

“I went to Eugene’s Saturday Market and thought: What a wonderful place to be, maybe it’s time to take off on my own,” Chez Ray said in the 2012 interview.

Chez Ray arrived in the summer of 1972, at the same time the Grateful Dead were holding a concert at a field in Veneta. At the show, Ray met Page Browning, who he describes as a welder, a biker, an all-around rough kind of guy — sort of the Pigpen of the Pranksters, referring to one of founding members of the Dead, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan.

Browning took Chez Ray backstage and told him, “If you’ve got nothing to do back here, you’ve gotta find something to do.”

“And I thought, well, I can cook!” And so Chez Ray did.

The next week, Chez Ray had a booth at Eugene’s Saturday Market. He wanted to serve something unique, so Ray created his famous custard omelette that featured blueberries in brown sugar and vanilla, topped with raspberry custard on top.

“The next Saturday, the line was a mile long,” Chez Ray said.

Two weeks later, Chez Ray had a booth at the Oregon Country Fair under the name Gritz La Ritz.

“I wanted to do high-end cooking without charging much for it,” he said.

Gritz La Ritz stood as a staple of the fair for more than 40 years, and Eugene stood as home for Chez Ray for the rest of his life.

“You know, he cooked for the Dead,” said Deb Trist, also known as Downtown Deb, who hosts the Grateful Dead “Dead Air” radio show Saturday nights on KLCC.

Chez Ray toured with the Dead for several years in the late 1970s and early 1980s, serving as the tour chef. Eugene, however, always called him home.

It was at Ray’s first Eugene restaurant, La Primavera, that he met his future wife, Dawn Leona Sewell.

"I was watching him operate the dumbwaiter and came in to ask if they were hiring. That was the beginning of it."

Sewell didn't truly fall for Chez Ray until she spotted him one day at the Saturday Farmer's Market, handing out bowls of soup to "old-timers" occupying Ray's homemade tree stump seats that circled his stand. She asked how much the soup was.

"Soup's not for sale. I make it to keep them warm and nourished," he said, indicating the rough-and-tumble men.

Sewell saw that Chez Ray was making a huge amount of "bread sandwiches" and asked if she could help.

"Here's an apron," he said.

"Not long after, Shine was born," she said.

Jennifer Shine Sewell is Ray and Dawn's only child. She grew up watching her father cook for the breadth of Eugene's people.

“There was always a place to sit for everybody at his restaurants. Famous figures from the '60s would come in and the homeless folks just looking for somewhere dry to sit,” Shine Sewell said. “For hungry people who couldn’t afford to eat, Ray would choose the best morels and the best chanterelles, the choice vegetables, and cook his best meals for those who couldn’t afford it.”

“Chez Ray embodied what it’s like to really be a hippie," said Zane Kesey, Ken Kesey’s son. "He loved everybody and, with a broad smile, spread as much joy as he could.”

Kesey recalls many a meal at Ray’s second restaurant, Chez Ray.

“It was perfect for a first date, knowing the chef at Chez Ray’s. The food was exquisite and everyone was always able to partake.”

Chez Ray would organize dinners for Eugene’s less fortunate, either handing out free food on the street or organizing meals. One of his most famous, the Whiteaker Community Thanksgiving Dinner, began in 1982 and, in 2018, 36 years later, it turned out to be his last public event in Eugene.

In poor health, Chez Ray held a living wake Oct. 20 for his closest family and friends at WOW Hall. There, members of the Chautauqua Circus performed while Chez Ray reminisced with the fixtures in his life over the past 50 years.

At the 2012 Country Fair, Chez Ray marveled at how quickly that time passed. “Turned out to be a very short long strange trip.”

Chez Ray Sewell, who died Nov. 26, 2018, from complications of diabetes, is survived by his wife, Dawn Leona Sewell; his daughter, Jennifer Shine Sewell; and his granddaughter, AnnaBella SunShine DayDream Sewell.

Follow Matthew on Twitter @MatthewDDenis. Email mdenis@registerguard.com.