Oven explosion at Reunion Bread temporarily shuts bakery

Mother’s Day is the busiest day of the year for any bakery, apart from maybe Christmas.

But just 90 minutes before Ismael De Sousa opened Reunion Bread for business on Sunday, May 14, his bread oven exploded, sparking a large fire inside the bakery at The Source Hotel + Market Hall.

“Thank God no one got injured because it was massive,” De Sousa said. “The bread oven takes up three-quarters of the bakery, but no one was near the oven at the exact moment when it blew up and caught on fire.”

The Denver Fire Department arrived on the scene, as well as a line of shocked customers, but the fire, which De Sousa guessed was caused by a gas leak in the oven, was already out, so DFD helped fan out the remaining smoke.

De Sousa’s team was able to use the ovens at Bellota restaurant next door to save Mother’s Day, but many problems remained.

“It was still a big profit loss because we could only make bread out of that specific oven, and we could only make half of what we sell, like croissants, cookies and pastries,” De Sousa said. “We were running back and forth from the bakery to Bellota for six hours.”

For now, the 2023 James Beard Award semifinalist has temporarily closed the bakery at 3350 Brighton Blvd., but he hopes to reopen this weekend serving Portuguese and Venezuelan pastries, croissants and cookies baked in small convection ovens.

“I have to replace the bread oven, so we’re going to lose our bread business for a while,” De Sousa said. “That type of equipment in the U.S. is a lot of money, but it’s also four months out before I can order one, which will be an interesting few months.”