From Crooks to Cooks
By: Robert L. Friedly
Photo By: Kevin Friedly
If only Bernadette Dufour Bauer had been there to offer him a slice of her buttermilk-based, coconut Italian cream cake, Dillinger might have been willing to rethink the vagaries of the criminal life. But she wasn’t. And he didn’t. Anyone who doubts the veracity of that story can read of the episode at the beginning of chapter 4 in Dary Matera’s 2004 biography, John Dillinger. To try the cream cake you simply have to deposit yourself at Dufour’s, at Washington and Audubon Rd., for lunch on a Tuesday through Saturday. And if you wonder why a Dufour (French Canadian) would be whipping up a great Italian cream cake, you need to know that Bernadette, who works out front, and brother Dan, with the white hair and apron to match, who works in the back, had an Italian mother, who raised them on peasant-style pastas at the family home on the circle east of Irvington United Methodist Church, not 100 yards from the present-day restaurant. Bernadette and her sister Maria, now living in Louisiana, founded the restaurant in late 1997 after experimenting with on-street pastries at the Irvington Halloween Festival. Dufour’s presaged the current renaissance of Irvington’s small business on Washington Street. Mom taught all the Dufours to cook. Father supplied restaurants and hotels. Dan was a cook in the army and now runs a catering business. Bernadette Dufour is a Hoosier first, last and always. The family first lived on Michigan Street near Emerson. She attended Scecina High School, has been a parishioner of Lourdes, went to Marian College, graduated from IU, operated with her former husband a general store-hardware-deli in Clay City, southwest of Indianapolis, and then farmed near Huntington in the northeast, while volunteering in the Dan Quayle Museum. Bernadette estimates that 80 percent of her breakfast and lunch customers (she is not open for dinner) come from outside of Irvington, which surprises her a bit. She feels like Irvingtonians ought to be the bulk of the business. She says there is no rhyme or reason as to what days business will be best. Though she offers a full breakfast menu, the hours 11 until 1:30 draw the most diners. A variety of pastries and sweets stare out from the counter glass, wooing patrons —stuff that she calls “gooey.” Though she offers fancier fare, the people’s favorite, Bernadette believes, is a glorified grilled cheese sandwich on “big fat Texas toast,” with a blend of Swiss, muenster and cheddar cheeses — “real cheese,” she says. It figures: the name Dufour means “of the oven.” To see a photo of Bernadette in the early years click HERE |
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