Popular bakery hoping to avoid closure after zoning complaint

KCNC

By Andrew Haubner

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    Colorado (KCNC) — It’s mid-morning on Lookout Mountain, and Ruth Dufour has already been hard at work for nearly 10 hours. Dough for croissants, bread, and other baked goods is being proofed while her sister Rachel is out front taking orders and manning the register.

“We wanted to create a place to build community,” said Rachel DuFour, who co-owns Et Voila with her husband, Eric. Ruth, Rachel’s sister, is a classically trained pastry chef from France and functions as the head chef for the bakery here in Colorado.

They regularly sell out their pastries each day as the bakery has become a mainstay for cyclists and visitors passing through Lookout Mountain. The Dufours have embedded themselves within the community, donating 35% of their tips each month to a different local nonprofit.

“They have a really nice community,” said Nicole, who was passing through with her friends from college. “Everyone’s in here, there’s board games, and it’s in a really beautiful spot.”

“This is a daily spot for [neighbors], it would be for me if I lived here,” her friend Lauren added.

But by this coming Monday, that dream and community gathering spot may be in jeopardy.

“We have invested all of our money, we sold our house, we sold our condo to launch the business,” she said.

It all stems from two trailers on the property — that are mobile but given slats to appear rooted on the land — that are used as makeshift offices and a test kitchen. Ruth stays with Rachel and Eric, and all three wake up around 1 a.m. each day to make all of their baked goods from scratch.

“We understood that we were okay to have the trailers because they’re on wheels,” explained Rachel.

A single anonymous complaint to the county has now led to over a year of back-and-forth between the couple and the Jefferson County Planning & Zoning Board.

“The land that the bakery is on is zoned for commercial use. Since the bakery is a commercial use, there is no concern with the bakery,” Jefferson County told CBS Colorado in a statement. “However, any residential uses are not allowed on a commercial use property, meaning any mobile homes or dwelling units fall outside of the acceptable commercial uses. Since the property is zoned for commercial use, only commercial uses can be on the property. So, things that are not listed in the table of permitted uses for Neighborhood Commercial are not allowed – this includes industrial uses like warehousing, factories, oil and gas production, and many others.”

But within the link Jefferson County sent, there are two areas that could be understood as legal zoning as it pertains to the Dufours, something that they’re trying to work out before Monday. In the last year of working with the county, the community has crowdfunded over $18,000 to help the bakery obtain legal counsel. All that’s left to do is wait as the pastries and coffee continue to sell out and the Dufours hope a deal can be reached to allow them to keep serving the community they’ve come to love.

“If they do not grant us those, our deadline is Aug. 18, which is next Monday,” said Rachel. “Let us keep the dream alive.”

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