GetRight's Will Open Its First Brick-and-Mortar Bakery and Plant Shop in Wheat Ridge

"Everyone's trying to go back to normal again, which I don't think is the right move," says Matt Dulin. "I think it's time that we create the new thing. And that starts with everyone re-evaluating the processes and the systems that we've all known."

After working in restaurants for eighteen years, Dulin became one of many now-former hospitality professionals who took the pandemic as an opportunity to pursue a new solo venture. In his case, that's GetRight's, a cottage bakery and plant shop that he co-owns with his wife, Lindsey Judd. The two just signed a lease for the business's first brick-and-mortar location at 6985 West 38th Avenue in Wheat Ridge.

Dulin was introduced to baking sourdough bread eight years ago by Alex Figura, the current co-owner of Dio Mio and Redeemer Pizza; at the time, Figura was running the highly praised (but now-closed) Lower 48. "It's a slower pace than restaurant life," Dulin says of baking's appeal.

After continuing to work on his baking skills, Dulin eventually went on to design a bread program for a restaurant in Arizona and was working on another in San Francisco, but found himself unhappy living in that city. So in 2017, he returned to Denver and got a job at restaurateur Tommy Lee's Uncle, "and that's where it all started to come together," he recalls. "I decided I wanted to set roots somewhere."

Over three years of working for Lee, including helping to open Uncle's Wash Park location in 2019, Dulin refocused his goals. "I wanted to set the tone for who I was in Denver and let everyone know, 'I'm here to stay this time,''' he explains. "I want to be recognized as a good mentor...I want to be a good motivator, I want to be a positive force."
And he was on his way, but "when the pandemic happened, it was just too much for me," he admits. Fortunately, he'd already set up GetRight's LLC in February while still working at Uncle, and had begun to pursue a totally new mission: online plant sales. Inspired by a passion for plants and gardening that he'd developed throughout his twenties, Dulin built a greenhouse and began building an inventory, but that project combined with the stress of working at Uncle in the early months of the pandemic became overwhelming. "So I went to the thing I knew," he says, "which was going back to cooking. And then I found out about cottage baking."

In Colorado, certain foods, including some baked goods, are allowed to be made and sold out of people's homes. Dulin decided to start a cottage business and sold an impressive eighty loaves of sourdough per week his first few weeks, but that number quickly dwindled. "I was like, 'I don't know how I'm going to make it work,' but I'd already agreed to put in my notice at Uncle," he remembers.

Part of the problem was that so many people had begun baking for themselves during the pandemic, and cottage bakeries were popping up all over. "It was hard to get trust from people; everyone was baking," he says. "For me it was like, 'I'm baking, but I'm also a cook. I've been cooking for a long time, so how can I set myself apart from a cottage baker who started during the pandemic?'"

Part of the solution came through Lee and his team at Uncle. The restaurant had gotten permitting for outdoor seating at its Wash Park location, but the space was not being used in the mornings. That led to the decision to start Penn Street Market, which began popping up in the summer of 2020. Dulin agreed to help manage the market; in exchange, he was able to set up a booth stocked with plants and sourdough loaves. "It was this little makeshift restaurant where you can see in real time what works and what doesn't," he explains.

Being able to connect directly with the people who were buying his products gave Dulin a new perspective on cooking for others. "It's kind of this gut check and was super humbling for me, because it's just me making everything," he says. "If something broke down, it's totally my fault."
With a background in savory cooking, Dulin has had to work hard to perfect the skills and techniques needed to expand his offerings beyond bread. "I'm constantly having to fail miserably at everything I'm doing until I figure it out," he says. For example, his canelés, which have become one of his most popular items, kept puffing out of their molds in the beginning. Thankfully, chef Alan Ramos and Caroline Nugent, who also started a cottage bakery during the pandemic that has now become the brick-and-mortar Poulette Bakehop in Parker, offered advice: Dulin was using a whisk, which was adding too much air.

That's just one example of the community of support that's formed among so many food-business startups during the pandemic. "I just continue to find inspiration from all the people around us who are raising the bar for Denver, like Poulette," Dulin says. "Just by trying to genuinely connect with everybody, you start learning the right things and meeting the right people."

That approach is exactly what Dulin hopes to continue cultivating at GetRight's new location, which he's aiming to open by June. Though he originally started looking for possible spaces last year, "If I would have tried this [then], I feel like I would have scrambled a lot more — made a lot of dumber decisions. And I'd probably be trying to do it the same old way," he admits.

Now, though, Dulin's vision is based on expanding his current approach. That includes continuing to do markets and deliveries in order to reach people who don't live in the Wheat Ridge area, and finding ways to uplift the other small businesses near his new location.

He envisions people grabbing coffee from Stylus & Crate next door before picking up pastries and grab-and-go lunch options like sandwiches, salads and picnic essentials at GetRight's. There are possible plans to put a greenhouse on the roof of the small, four-room bed-and-breakfast on the upper level of the building, so that he can offer fruits and vegetables in the shop, as well as adding a new market option to the area. He'd also like to team up with another neighbor, Colorado Plus Brew Pub and Taphouse, to host markets in the back parking lot. "I want to bring the focus on the little guys again," he explains. "Our success has been the market crowds. The more that everyone was supporting each other, the more we were able to find our way through it all. ... Our goal is to continue that."
He's also trying to think ahead when it comes to rising food costs — a problem plaguing every food and drink establishment right now, and one that's definitely affecting the cost of two essentials for bakeries: flour and butter. "I don't think people are ready to pay for an $8 croissant," Dulin notes. Instead, he's "rescaling things and reimagining classics," looking for creative solutions such as using croissant scraps to make loaves that will work for sandwiches. "Starting out as a cook and coming into baking, it's difficult to find the right techniques, but I have the right principles in place," he says.

The space itself is being designed by the same architect who did Uncle Wash Park, Bruto and the Wolf's Tailor. The design is sleek, with retail shelves for plants, a focus on takeout and a small seating area — another decision based on the new normal, which includes the possibility of indoor dining shutdowns and the growth of to-go business.

Along with adding more savory fare, Dulin is excited to expand the pastry possibilities in the new space. Cottage food laws do not allow for custards of any kind, so once he's baking in a commercial kitchen, he can really begin playing with "custard-filled everything," he says.

But mostly, Dulin is excited to have a positive impact in the community. "I don't want to try to make money," he concludes. "I want to try to make a space that people love, and impact a life. For me, to create moments for other people — to be a pastry in a little kid's memory bank — will be a super sweet thing to be a part of."