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After a year of serving up gourmet comfort food, alongside tasty pastries and coffee, Corbeaux Bakehouse has closed its doors.

The European-style bakehouse that took over part of the space left vacant by Melrose Cafe and Bar on 17th Avenue S.W. shut down permanently Saturday night.

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The restaurant/bakery hybrid was a tricky concept, and hard to execute in that prime location, with a restaurant kitchen, full bakery and patisserie taking up space in a spot with expensive rent, said Russ and Chris Prefontaine, Corbeaux’s owners, of the decision to close.

“We’ve come to realize the concept itself is flawed in a way that the space is too large and too small,” said Russ. “Too small of a restaurant and too large of a cafe. To make the numbers in that work with that rent scenario, it’s impossible.”

The original idea was to have a restaurant, as well as the bakery/patisserie that would serve customers on site and supply food to the Prefontaines’ Analog cafes — the third of which just opened in Southcentre Mall. Award-winning U.S. chef Keith Luce was brought on to head up the menu, which found a strong following for some of its offerings, including the duck wings. But the concept of creating a restaurant-bakery hybrid that transitioned through the day led to some initial confusion from customers.