There have been many restaurants in Whistler over the years named for individuals, whether they be the chef, the owner, or a notable valley personality (for a time there was a restaurant in Whistler Village named Myrtle’s after Myrtle Philip). Two such restaurants operating today are Black’s, which first opened as The Original Restaurante by Lawrence Black in 1985, and Araxi, which was opened by Jack and Araxi Evrensel in 1981. Other namesakes of Whistler Village eateries include Ingrid Morgan (Ingrid’s Village Cafe, 1986), Joel Thibault (Chez Joel, 1985), Umberto Menghi (Trattoria Di Umberto), Tom Akama (Tokyo Tom’s), and Isabelle Czerveniak (Isabelle’s, opened by her parents Curt and Monica in 1985). Travelling north of the village in the early 1980s, you would have come across a sign for another restaurant, this one located at the base of the Rainbow Ski Village and named Beau’s.
Capilano Highlands Ltd. opened a small ski area at Rainbow in the winter of 1969-70. Operated by Vic Christiansen and his family, it had one 400-foot rope tow and a beginners’ slope. After that first season, another, longer rope tow was added and a day lodge with a café was constructed. During the 1970-71 season, Rainbow operated five days a week (Wednesday to Sunday) and offered night skiing and reasonable rates. Over time, a third rope-tow was added and a ski jump was built.
Tom and Betty Jarvis bought the Ski Rainbow area (including lifts, ski shop and cafeteria) as a going concern in the summer of 1979 and, after renovating and extending the existing restaurant facilities, they opened Beau’s in December of that year. The name came from the Jarvis’ eldest son, Beau Jarvis. Beau’s featured a “continental cuisine” prepared by chef Michel Bertholet and was open daily throughout the ski season, even during the weeks when there wasn’t enough snow for the Rainbow Ski Village to be open for skiing.
Beau and his brother Quinn grew up in a much smaller Whistler than the one we know today. In an interview in 2024, he could name almost every student in his Myrtle Philip School kindergarten class taught by Jane Burrows (there were only five or six of them). With so few children, the school didn’t really have enough kids to form competitive sports teams and so individual sports, such as cross-country (running and skiing), ski racing, and later skateboarding, were popular.
In the summers, Beau remembered he and his friends would head out for the day with a backpack and a towel each, often hanging out at the ski-jump ramp on Lost Lake or going to Alta Lake, where they would explore the empty cabins at Rainbow Lodge or use the beach at the Youth Hostel. As they got older, some of them began participating in the Dave Murray Summer Ski Camps on Whistler Mountain and joined the Blackcomb or Whistler Mountain Ski Clubs.
Beau also recalled lots of skiing at Rainbow. Though the ski jump was no longer in use and had started to deteriorate, a track through the trees between the two beginner runs led to a jump that young, adventurous skiers could launch themselves off of, which, according to Beau, led to an announcement over the loudspeaker where Betty would tell her sons and their friends to “stop jumping into the middle of the ski hill.”
A couple of bad snow years in the early 1980s meant the Rainbow Ski Village wasn’t always able to operate, but Tom and Betty continued to open Beau’s for a few seasons, even after shutting down the skiing side of the operations and selling the lifts and equipment to the Canadian Armed Forces. Beau’s closed for good in the mid-1980s.
