Jane Capito, of Willy Street’s Lazy Jane’s Cafe, passed away on Oct. 11. She left a lasting mark on the Madison restaurant scene as the restaurateur behind the Wild Iris Cafe, Greenbush Bar, Botticelli’s and Mickey’s Tavern.
Her son Ben Altschul tells Isthmus that his mother had been diagnosed with dementia about 12 years ago. “We came to understand something was shifting around my mother cognitively. So in many ways [her death] was not a surprise to us as a family; [we] had seen the progression. At the same time the timing can never really be expected. As a family we’re all in the wake of a very powerful experience.”
Capito would have been 81 on Oct. 21.
Altschul says that Capito was born in Salt Lake City in 1944 while her father was overseas serving as a colonel in the U.S. Army during World War II. Post-war, the family was stationed in Washington, D.C., Germany and the Philippines. “My mother was exposed to culture and a sense of global citizenry, [and] humanity in a way that profoundly shaped who she was,” says Altschul. By the time Capito was a teenager, the family was stationed in San Francisco…