Detour Bakery is a neighborhood French styled retail bakery creating fresh pastries, artisan breads, quiches and sandwiches made fresh daily. Walking through the front door, the smell of fresh baked bread permeates through the mask required to enter. It is a place that prides itself on freshly baked items every day.

Detour Bakery: Jeffrey and Florence Payne, owners of Detour Bakery, have been proudly baking fresh artisan breads, croissants, quiche, and other pastries for eight years. The bakery was designed by Florence who has a background in architecture.

Owners: Jeffrey and Florence Payne opened Detour Bakery eight years ago and have seen steady growth ever since. Detour Bakery’s name was hatched while watching Le Tour de France while completing paperwork to start their business.

  They have been in business for eight years and joined the Greater Glendale Chamber of Commerce seven years ago. “We joined the Chamber because we wanted to be part of the business community in the Glendale area,” said Jeffrey Payne, owner of Detour Bakery. “We wanted to reach out to those businesses as well as the residents here in Southeast Denver. It made sense to join the Chamber for that reason.”

Payne owns the bakery located in the Virginia Village neighborhood of Southeast Denver with his wife of 25 years, Florence. They are a small production, retail bakery that also features some non-French style products like Texas-sized Cinnamon Buns, Rich Chocolate Cakes (Gateau Chocolate) and Macaroons. They also have Banana Pecan Bread, Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk and others.

The bakery is a fast-paced, vibrant shop where you can enjoy a delicious treat, grab a baguette and paté for a picnic, or purchase something tasty to add to your own creations at home. And in the days of Covid, most people are doing a lot more cooking and eating at home. “Covid has changed the way we’ve had to do business,” said Payne. “We’ve stayed smart and stayed profitable. It’s been a really good year despite everything that has happened.”

The growth over the last eight years has been pleasing as well. “We’ve seen steady growth both from our friends in Glendale and the neighborhood as well as our reach all across the Denver area now,” said Payne. “I’m surprised we have customers from all over the metro area. I thought we would always be just a neighborhood bakery, but word got out and fortunately during these Covid times, we’ve been busy.”

Payne, whose wife Florence is from France, had a love for baking long before opening Detour Bakery. His background is sales and marketing and he traveled all over the country selling cameras. “My love of bread and traveling the country looking at bakeries is where this all started,” said Payne. “I started baking as a hobby because traveling three weeks out of the month, when I would come home, I would want to stay home and not necessarily go out. So, I would practice my baking techniques and got better at it over the years.”

And as he traveled, he would frequent local bakeries. “Every time I went out on a business trip, I would look at bakeries around and see what they had and steal their menus and take pictures,” said Payne. “I always noticed that most decent bakeries were busy. There was always a line and always seemed like they had people coming to their establishments.”

After a corporate takeover and Payne not wanting to work for what would have been his next boss, he and his wife jumped into the bakery business. As they were filing the paperwork with the Secretary of State, Le Tour de France (annual men’s multiple stage bicycle race) was on TV. One of their two children made a joke saying they should call their bakery Detour de France. The name stuck and rather than calling it by this name which would be confusing, they dropped de France and named it Detour Bakery.

Payne’s wife Florence has a background in architecture. She designed the bakery and they built what is now one of the most popular bakeries in all of Denver. They average 500-700 people through the door each week.

Detour Bakery is open 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. They are closed Sundays and Mondays. They are located at 1479 South Holly Street in Denver. For more information, visit www.detourbakery.com.