Whats the latest on BIT?
Looks like they're REALLY pushing to be open before bluegrass ... understandably given that it's probably the biggest revenue generator for BIT. I think they'll try to open sooner if possible.
http://www.telluridenews.com/articles/2011/01/19/business/doc4d23d30271c20092683498.txtBaked in Telluride
shooting for Bluegrass
Greene: ‘Every single person in town,
whether they like me or not, wants it to get back together’
By Matthew Beaudin
Editor
Published: Tuesday, January 4, 2011 11:04 PM CST
It came down fast that February night, a pile of smoking tin and three-story tall flames searing icicles on the neighboring buildings.
But Baked in Telluride is going up fast, too: Project managers and its owner, Jerry Greene, are hopeful the bakery can be churning out loaves of Jewish rye and hundreds of bagels a day again by the Bluegrass festival in late June. That deadline is only hopeful, though, and no one has made any promises.
“I think we’re going good,” said Peter Garber, BONE Construction’s foreman on the site. “As far as my schedule, which is kind of ethereal, everything’s going as fast as it can possibly go.
“I can be as optimistic as I want. But I’m the guy on the ground going Go Go Go.”
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The bakery, which was Telluride’s longest-running restaurant, famously burnt to the ground last February in a spectacular fire that set the icy streets aglow. Hundreds watched as smoke slithered from the building’s cracks. Later, the flames began licking at the front door. At times, they shot high into the air, glowing towers amid the thick clouds of smoke. Hour by hour, one of Telluride’s iconic businesses billowed into the night air.
According to an investigation, over the past 30-plus years the bakery’s oven had turned the wood beneath it — even through a ceramic tile buffer — into “charcoal” that ultimately caught fire.
Those findings are in step with early reports of the fire, which indicated that it first began in the flooring of the historic bakery.
Baked in Telluride was Telluride’s longest-running restaurant in one of Telluride’s oldest buildings: the bakery had been in operation since December of 1976 and the building had stood — in one version or another — since 1892. It was built as a transfer house for rail-to-animal transfers and has since housed a power company, a plumber, a welding shop and, finally, the bakery.
Right now, crews are framing the building, and it’s starting to look like the structure it once was — which is being, essentially, recreated.
There seems to be a level of care and concern from the public not seen with many projects in town. Even the town helped expedite the resurrection.
“If I stick my head out of the fence, I get questions,” Garber said. “It’s a job, you’re there eight hours or so a day. But it is cool. It’s been neat to see the public support.”
Greene, meanwhile, is missing the work. Usually, he could be found at his bakery.
“I always had work at the bakery,” Greene said. “The holiday time, I felt left out…”
The new iteration of Baked will be more spacious, easier to clean and will allow better handicap access.
“We’re trying to get ready as early as possible. Ideally, I would love to open in the offseason as early as possible,” Greene said. “I will do the best I can to take care of everybody.”
It’s true, there is something missing from town. Greene knows it, too: “Every single person in town, whether they like me or not, wants it to get back together,” he said.
All told, the building stood for 118 years. Before the fire, Baked in Telluride employed 25 people.
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