Meet Matilda & Enzo Lucas | Bakers, young entrepreneurs and future restaurant owners

We had the good fortune of connecting with Matilda & Enzo Lucas and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Matilda & Enzo, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
Enzo: I chose it because of the freedom you have to express yourself the way you would like rather than following someone else’s dream or ideas. Matilda: I chose to pursue an artist career for the continuous excitement and freedom that is has to offer. Everyday is a new experience and you are able to continuously exercise your creative liberty and grow with it. You are not confined to a boring routine or boring procedures. We chose to pursue an artist career for the continuous excitement and freedom you have to express yourself the way you would like. Everyday is a new experience and you are able to constantly exercise your creative liberty and grow with it. You are not confined to a boring routine or pursuing someone else’s idea. Your business is constantly increasing and growing with your creative path. Everyday there are new challenges, which allow you to get creative in problem solving. Thats the beauty and freedom of owning your own business.

What should our readers know about your business?
What sets our business apart from others is our authentic homemade artisanal pastries. Baking the traditional French way, is a dying art form. As the world move towards mass production, processed foods, and fast food concepts, the traditional baking community dwindles down. Those who choose quality and sacrifice time and money are hard to find. Although my dad has been introduced to the benefits of mass production, he chooses to remain small in order to maintain control over the products. Growing up surrounded by the best pastries, he believes its worth it to spend extra for those quality ingredients. We believe that is truly what makes us standout in the community as there is no other French bakeries nearby or any that hold themselves up to those high standards of quality. We are proud to persist in maintaining that quality by buying the top quality ingredients and continuously quality checking out products while making necessary changes when needed. The way we got to where we are business wise is through continuous hard work and dedication towards the success of our business. It was not always easy, especially moving here from a foreign country and having no family/friend support at the start. It was a risky move but it was well worth it. The community in Fort Collins is fantastic and their support throughout the years is motivation to keep the legacy going. There have been some hard lessons along the way especially looking back over the last year with the pandemic. The restaurant industry is always going to be a challenge with this year has being the ultimate test for our industry. Coping with the instability of the economy and continuous closures, it has been quite unpredictable. We have had to adapt how we run the business in order to remain open and do what we can for our community. We want the world to know that we are here to continue to serve top of the line products and we will never sacrifice the quality simply to mass produce our business. We LOVE what we do and all we hope for is to provide our city with delicious unique items.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
As a food lover, if my best friend were visiting Northern Colorado area I would make sure to focus on the dining experience in Fort Collins as well as the surrounding nature. We have one of the nation’s highest restaurant per capita so there are tons of dining options around and many local nature treasures. I would start the week with a morning sunrise hike at Horsetooth to show them how close we are to the beautiful mountains and all the amazing activities it has to offer. I would follow up with morning coffee and pastries from our bakery (if it are summer enjoy the sun on our patio). Throughout the week I would make sure to include several of my favorite restaurants ranging from casual to upscale: Cafe Mexicali, Lucilles, Raska Ethiopian, The Welsh Rabbit, and Still Whiskey amongst a few of them. A walk through old town and window shopping is must when visiting Fort Collins. Our old town area is quite pleasant and offers plenty of entertainment and great for shopping at local artisan vendors. One evening I would invite them to a movie night at the lyric cinema, a cozy hangout spot on North College Avenue. Followed by late night drinks at Social, located in the old Fort Collins underground metro station with 1920s vibes. Another fun activity would be Happy hour at the Rio followed by salsa classes above offered on Tuesday nights. If it were summer I would ensure to plan biking trip using our wonderful biking trails that leads us to city park where we could set up a picnic in the sun near the lake. In the summers there are usually plenty of people around to meet or people watch. A few other potential activities could include: Pinot’s Palette, Fort Collins Escape Room, and Smokestack Pottery.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
We would definitely shout out like to shout out our parents who truly are the ones behind the whole story. Beginning with my grandfather, father’s dad, who was the original baker in the family in a small town in Brittany France. He began as a baker in World War II and eventually introduced our dad into baking. Throughout his childhood and teen years our father lived above their humble bakery and would help out in the family business. Eventually he spread his wings and moved to Paris where he continued developing his baking skills in several different bakeries. In his 20s he made the big move by himself to Key West Florida where he met our mother and brought her into the business. Since then they have worked as a team, father in charge of the kitchen and bakery and our mother being in charge of the business bookkeeping and front of the house operations. We have grown up seeing them work hard to create our little family owned cafe and bakery. They both moved their live across the world, neither knowing much English and have created an amazing legacy for our family! Now they offer us the opportunity to learn everything from them and we receive nothing but support and motivation.

Website: https://fortcollinscreperiebakery.com

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