The Mount Bakery
The Mount Bakery is a café in Bellingham, Washington's Arts District at 308c West Champion Street. The restaurant was a pioneer in the area's Slow Food Movement. The café is well known for its devotion to the sport of bicycling, featuring bicycle-themed art, clothing and its annual live screening of the Tour de France which draws crowds of cycling enthusiasts each year to eat breakfast and watch the event unfold in the early hours of the morning.
History of the Bakery
The restaurant was founded by Olivier Vrambout, a Belgian pastry chef, in February 2001. Vrambout had worked previously worked as the dessert chef at Boundary Bay Brewery, occasionally selling his pastries on the outskirts of the Bellingham Farmer's Market as well. Vrambout, known as Olivier or alternately Oliver, began the restaurant as a créperie, bakery and Belgian waffle shop, making waffles on his grandmother's waffle iron and keeping a European schedule, closed on Sundays and Mondays. The café has slowly expanded its offerings from desserts to breakfast and lunch and finally dinner. In 2008, Vrambout sold the restaurant to early employee Vince Lalonde, a Bellingham artist and musician Vrambout went on to open a combination cafe and bicycle shop in Stillwater, Minnesota called The Bikery. Under Lalonde, the restaurant opened a second location, Mount Bakery Fairhaven, at 1217 Harris Avenue in the Fairhaven Historic District, a neighborhood of Bellingham.
Bicyclists, Bike Films, Bike Art and Bike Pride
Bellingham is a pointedly bicycle friendly and bike-proud city.The Café has served, from the start, as a gathering place for bicyclists not only during the annual Tour de France showing but year round. The Café often hangs bike-themed art, sells bike-themed clothing and is a sponsor of Bellingham's Annual "Bike In" held in the Arts District. The Bike In features live music, a bike-themed movie by the district's Pickford Cinema, Mount Bakery foods and the annual Show & Shine, an arts and biking event at which people bring their bikes to show off and prizes are award for Best Vintage Bike, Best Decorated Bike and so on.