Bakers hope for bright prospects in Longmont

LONGMONT — The Oscar-winning 1987 film “Babette’s Feast” told the story of a woman who raised the spirits of a Danish village through her great food.

Steve and Catherine Scott hope Babette’s Artisan Bread can bring the same magic to Longmont’s Prospect New Town development when their bakery and cafe opens there on Feb. 9.

“We’re going to try,” Steve Scott said.

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Babette’s is moving to Prospect from Denver’s trendy River North neighborhood, where its unique baked goods drew an enthusiastic following for more than five years before closing on the day before Thanksgiving. The Scotts opened that bakery in September 2013 inside The Source, a market hall at 3350 Brighton Blvd., but faced a mounting series of challenges.

“We just had 800 square feet in the market hall” — barely big enough for the bread oven — “and we did not have any seating,” Catherine Scott recalled. They also dealt with the quirks of 100-year-old water pipes, the near-constant construction along the street, the rising costs of running a business in RiNo, parking that went from free on the street to paid in a garage, the daily commute to Denver from their home in Longmont, and what she described as “such an over-inundation of market halls in Denver.

“It was a bit of a nightmare the last two years,” she said. “It was hard to find that perfect formula, and ours was not. But it was a good learning experience. We learned a lot of lessons the hard way.”

The one perfect formula the Scotts did have was the dark-crusted baguettes, batards, boules and croissants that drew customers from miles around and raves from food critics nationally.

“There wasn’t anything like it in the area when we opened,” Steve Scott said.

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If you go

Babette’s Artisan Bread, LLC
2030 Ionosphere St., Longmont
720-204-7420
Babettesbakery.com

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The difference was the long fermentation times and higher hydration than most bread doughs, to the point where the amount of water in the sourdough by weight almost equals the amount of flour.

“It’s super moist,” Catherine Scott said, “and people are always surprised at how long it lasts.”

Steve Scott said he had worked in several bake shops but “I wanted to have a signature thing, so I started diving into fermentation and figuring out what I could achieve with a very hydrated dough. It’s really the top end of the baking industry. A handful of us were close to doing the same things, but achieving different, personal results.”

The dough is fermented for about 40 hours, he said, “and then baked in a very hot oven with a lot of steam” for about 40 minutes. The long fermentation brings out the natural starches and sugars in the grain, resulting in the reddish, burnished crust.

“What satisfied us most in RiNo was our return customers,” Catherine Scott said, “the older, dedicated bread fans, and the families that came on weekend mornings.”

Relocation to Longmont came thanks to builder-developer Tom Shook, who offered the Scotts what they saw as a great deal on the space in Prospect.

“We have a great working relationship with Tom, and an open line of communication,” Steve Scott said. “As a whole, Prospect is an incredible little community.”

“I really appreciate the layout of the neighborhood,” his wife added, “and people being able to walk or bike everywhere and get everything they need.”

Not that Prospect doesn’t present its own array of challenges.

Businesses in the “new urbanism” neighborhood on the south end of Longmont have had mixed success, and Babette’s will open in a spot where Open Door Brewing Co.’s taproom lasted barely 16 months.

“The tricky thing is that commercial places have had trouble getting people from outside to come into Prospect,” Catherine Scott said. “I think we’ll be able to get people from Denver to come in, but our first big challenge will be getting the rest of Longmont to come in and see us.”

There’ll be plenty of room for them, though, with 3,000 square feet inside and a 1,700-square-foot rooftop patio. The spacious venue will allow the Scotts to add a wood-fired pizza oven as well as salads, a cocktail bar and more, and employ about 15 people instead of the five at most that they had in Denver.

Not to mention the shorter commute. “We’re very excited to be close to home in a smaller community,” she said.

A native of Connecticut, Catherine met Steve in Colorado. They’ve been together for a decade and married for six years. For Babette’s, they combined her skills as an architect with his experience in the food industry, which now spans 23 years.

“We just kind of fell into me doing the food and Catherine doing the front end and books,” Steve Scott said. “It has really made us closer in our personal and professional relationship.

“I’m going to be running the food side, and then step aside and allow two managers to shine and grow as leaders.”

Catherine Scott designed the cabinetry, walls and lights in the Prospect space. “It’s very open, with lots of glass, garage doors and an exposed ceiling,” she said. It’s a little like a train station; very timeless.” She employed Denver-based Housefish to build the furniture for the café in a blue hue that matches the tile of the pizza oven.

The sourdough that goes into that oven will have been fermented 40 to 60 hours, Steve Scott said. “The longer, colder fermentation will give it a better-tasting crust. We’ll have Napoli-style pizza that rolls up into a sandwich.

“We also have a full liquor license, so we’ll have mostly Italian-style cocktails, some natural wine offerings and three beers on tap — Wibby Brewing, exclusively, because we were just blown away by how incredible they were. We’re just using Wibby because it’s a great beer.”

The inside space is divided between the bakery and café. The initial plan is to open the bakery at 7 a.m. daily except Mondays, and the pizza café from 4 to 9 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays. They’ll eventually serve lunch and dinner from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, but Steve Scott said the ultimate plan is to be open for dinner seven days a week.

Overall, the Scotts say they are excited about their prospects in Prospect.

“We have a really good following and reputation on the Front Range,” Steve Scott said, “and now we’re bringing something different to Longmont and Boulder County as a whole. Longmont is growing exponentially every day, and I think the time is right for Prospect.”