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LOCAL HABIT<br />
from where I stand<br />
Silver Lake<br />
Angel Roscoe<br />
as told to Mackenzie Wilson<br />
photos by Meg Roussos<br />
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT Angel (left) and Jamie Roscoe<br />
co-own Cowboy Dinner Tree. They serve whole chickens and<br />
thirty-ounce steaks to hungry customers. Angel stirs a giant<br />
vat of baked beans. Guests often write their name(s) and<br />
date they visited on a dollar bill and tack it to the wall—the<br />
wall gets so crowded that the Roscoes take all the money<br />
down once a year and donate it to charity.<br />
A LOT OF PEOPLE fall in love with the<br />
simple way of life out here. Our restaurant<br />
is a couple of miles outside of town in Silver<br />
Lake. To us, Lake County is the most beautiful<br />
spot in Oregon.<br />
I’ve been working at the Cowboy Dinner<br />
Tree since I was 14 years old and it’s where<br />
I met my husband, Jamie. My parents, Don<br />
and Connie Ramage, bought Cowboy Dinner<br />
Tree in 2007. When they were ready to<br />
retire in 2012, Jamie and I took over.<br />
Jamie was celebrating his birthday at<br />
Cowboy Dinner Tree when we met in 2005.<br />
At the time, I was working as a dental assistant<br />
in Bend, so I was just helping out that<br />
weekend. He ordered the steak and I guess<br />
you could say it was love at first sight—we<br />
got married that same year. Now we have<br />
three beautiful kids, Wade, 6, Jack, 8, and<br />
Dani, 11, who help us at the restaurant.<br />
Regulars like seeing our whole family when<br />
they come in for dinner; and by regulars, I<br />
mean, they come in once a month. There’s<br />
so much food, you wouldn’t want to come<br />
every weekend; we serve whole chickens<br />
and thirty-ounce steaks.<br />
We like the way of life out here and like<br />
to share it with people. It’s one of the best<br />
areas to see the sun rise and set because<br />
the terrain is wide open. We get a lot of<br />
people who come out just to look at the<br />
stars; there’re no lights here to hide them,<br />
it’s so rural.<br />
I can’t imagine moving back into a town<br />
or city, but it would be nice to have a doctor’s<br />
office closer than La Pine. Here we<br />
are though, living at the edge of the mountains<br />
with millions of acres right out our<br />
front door. We can go do about anything<br />
we want, any day of the week ... when the<br />
restaurant isn’t open. It allows us to make a<br />
living out here, but if we didn’t have it, we<br />
wouldn’t move. As long as you’re ready to<br />
get your hands dirty, there’s always work in<br />
Lake County.<br />
60 <strong>1859</strong> OREGON’S MAGAZINE MARCH | APRIL <strong>2016</strong><br />
MORE ONLINE View an extended gallery at <strong>1859</strong>magazine.com/fwis
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