Sonny Lubick: Restaurant and Legend
Hidden away below college in Old Town, Fort Collins, you’ll find an upscale steakhouse by the name of Sonny Lubick. The name will sound familiar to most people in the Fort Collins area; the football stadium is named Sonny Lubick Field at Hughes Stadium after all. General Manager and partner of Sonny Lubick Steakhouse Toby Sheppard shared the legend of Sonny Lubick, and the story of how this local steakhouse began.
“He’s the winningest coach in CSU (football) history,” Sheppard said, when asked about who exactly Sonny Lubick is. “He coached for fifteen seasons, ’93-’07, something like that. He’s well known by other coaches, he had two national championships with Miami as defensive coordinator. He had another national championship at Montana State in 1976. He coached with Jack Elway at Stanford; those are some of the highlights that come to my mind.”
Sheppard might even fall short when boasting of Sonny’s success, at Colorado State in particular. According to csurams.com, Lubick led the team to three Mountain West Conference championships (1999, 2000, 2002), nine bowl games, and was even named National Coach of the Year by Sports Illustrated in ’94. He coached multiple NFL players and brought CSU football to heights it had never seen before.
“We see him about every other week, he was in Saturday night with his wife and his son,” said Sheppard. “Both of his sons are coaches too. So Matt’s at Oregon now, he’s a wide receivers coach I think, he does recruiting. And Mark is on the staff of the Houston Texans.”
With such an impact to the Fort Collins area, it isn’t surprising that a restaurant would be named after Lubick. However, Sonny Lubick Steakhouse came into existence by chance.
Formerly Nico’s Catacombs, the Catacombs closed after being in business for 35 years. Sheppard had been the head chef at the Catacombs for 20 of those years.
“One restaurant closes, all of a sudden, you’re saying to yourself, wow, I don’t have a job, what am I going to do next,” said Sheppard. “So I made a bunch of phone calls, and one of the people that I happened to call was Rick Callan, and he said, I’ve always had this idea to do a Sonny Lubick Steakhouse.”
A couple weeks later, Sheppard and Callan (an active community member and commercial real estate broker) were in contact with Lubick and working on a business plan that would turn the Catacombs into Sonny’s.
“He (Callan) had this idea and I’d been here for twenty years, all of a sudden it just out of nowhere came together,” said Sheppard.
Fast forward six years to 2013 and Sonny Lubick Steakhouse is a well established restaurant in Fort Collins.
“It’s probably the only place in fort Collins like this,” explains Sheppard. “We describe it as a steakhouse first and a sports themed bar second. It’s not a sports bar so much with screaming people but a sports bar where you can catch up with that. And you know that there are people here that like sports but it’s certainly not all about sports.”
Sonny Lubick Steakhouse is also a main hangout for many of the current coaches at Colorado State.
“We’ve got a real good connection with all the coaches,” said Sheppard. “A couple weeks ago you had all these coaches here at the same time- and I don’t know if they were in contact with each other or it just happened- but at one time we had Jim McElwain, his wife Karen, Tom Hilbert, Al Simmons- the defensive coordinator, Steve Barnes, Larry Eustachy and his wife Lana, and Don that coaches cheerleaders. We know all them by name and they know us and we get to talk and see them.”
It’s not just coaches that visit Sonny’s, either. “A couple nights before that I saw Jack Graham out front and was talking to him,” said Sheppard. “Because of Sonny’s name, it brings all these people in, so it’s fun to get to know them.”
“He’s the winningest coach in CSU (football) history,” Sheppard said, when asked about who exactly Sonny Lubick is. “He coached for fifteen seasons, ’93-’07, something like that. He’s well known by other coaches, he had two national championships with Miami as defensive coordinator. He had another national championship at Montana State in 1976. He coached with Jack Elway at Stanford; those are some of the highlights that come to my mind.”
Sheppard might even fall short when boasting of Sonny’s success, at Colorado State in particular. According to csurams.com, Lubick led the team to three Mountain West Conference championships (1999, 2000, 2002), nine bowl games, and was even named National Coach of the Year by Sports Illustrated in ’94. He coached multiple NFL players and brought CSU football to heights it had never seen before.
“We see him about every other week, he was in Saturday night with his wife and his son,” said Sheppard. “Both of his sons are coaches too. So Matt’s at Oregon now, he’s a wide receivers coach I think, he does recruiting. And Mark is on the staff of the Houston Texans.”
With such an impact to the Fort Collins area, it isn’t surprising that a restaurant would be named after Lubick. However, Sonny Lubick Steakhouse came into existence by chance.
Formerly Nico’s Catacombs, the Catacombs closed after being in business for 35 years. Sheppard had been the head chef at the Catacombs for 20 of those years.
“One restaurant closes, all of a sudden, you’re saying to yourself, wow, I don’t have a job, what am I going to do next,” said Sheppard. “So I made a bunch of phone calls, and one of the people that I happened to call was Rick Callan, and he said, I’ve always had this idea to do a Sonny Lubick Steakhouse.”
A couple weeks later, Sheppard and Callan (an active community member and commercial real estate broker) were in contact with Lubick and working on a business plan that would turn the Catacombs into Sonny’s.
“He (Callan) had this idea and I’d been here for twenty years, all of a sudden it just out of nowhere came together,” said Sheppard.
Fast forward six years to 2013 and Sonny Lubick Steakhouse is a well established restaurant in Fort Collins.
“It’s probably the only place in fort Collins like this,” explains Sheppard. “We describe it as a steakhouse first and a sports themed bar second. It’s not a sports bar so much with screaming people but a sports bar where you can catch up with that. And you know that there are people here that like sports but it’s certainly not all about sports.”
Sonny Lubick Steakhouse is also a main hangout for many of the current coaches at Colorado State.
“We’ve got a real good connection with all the coaches,” said Sheppard. “A couple weeks ago you had all these coaches here at the same time- and I don’t know if they were in contact with each other or it just happened- but at one time we had Jim McElwain, his wife Karen, Tom Hilbert, Al Simmons- the defensive coordinator, Steve Barnes, Larry Eustachy and his wife Lana, and Don that coaches cheerleaders. We know all them by name and they know us and we get to talk and see them.”
It’s not just coaches that visit Sonny’s, either. “A couple nights before that I saw Jack Graham out front and was talking to him,” said Sheppard. “Because of Sonny’s name, it brings all these people in, so it’s fun to get to know them.”
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Click the file above to listen to Toby Sheppard tell the story of Sonny's opening in his own words!