Our Story

For as long as I could remember, I had been unhealthy.

It started with stomach aches and over the years progressed to a laundry list of serious health issues. Each doctor I saw wrote off my symptoms with the last one telling me it was because I was a mom. After hearing doctor after doctor say that there was nothing wrong with me, I started believing it. Yet, just existing was excruciatingly painful. I had a hard time getting out of bed. Sitting and standing felt like being stabbed with knives. I had so much bloating and inflammation that I could put on a pair of jeans one day and the next I couldn’t even pull them over my legs. My joints felt like they were filled with cotton balls, making it nearly impossible to open my daughter’s sippy cup. Brain fog, heart palpitations, nausea, severe digestive issues, and the list goes on.

I finally hit a wall of desperation. I couldn’t attend my daughter’s ice-skating party because dizziness wouldn’t allow me to see straight. It was time to call in the experts. I grabbed my phone, located the search bar, and typed in Google. I was clawing for answers. After typing in a list of symptoms and searching feverishly, the common denominator was gluten. Really? Could a component in food be my problem? The answer was “yes.” I was suffering from Celiac Disease.

On January 4, 2014 I stopped eating gluten and changed my life and the lives of my family forever.

We began a journey to better health through food. I opened Lettuce Heads Organic Produce Co-op to provide fresh, organic produce to my local community. I was able to feed our family of seven in what was considered a food desert at the time. The co-op opened the door to sharing my recipes through in-person cooking classes. I connected with a functional medicine doctor to share my knowledge of healthy cooking and feeding a large family on a budget. This quickly led to more classes at a local health food store. Through these classes, I was able to connect with people and hear their struggles. So many of them wanted me to come to their kitchen to cook or bake for them. I filed those requests away in my mind. And, it is a good thing I did because those requests would be the basis for what would become Sweet Elizabeth’s Organics.

The first year living with Celiac Disease left me reluctant to bake at all. Since going gluten and dairy-free, baking was a whole new ballgame. It was challenging to find the right combination of ingredients to create the desired texture and taste without the bad aftertaste common to many gluten-free baked goods. Additionally, my goal was to pack as much nutrition into everything I made, even cake.

The inspiration behind Sweet Elizabeth's Organics came from a simple birthday request from my 9-year-old daughter.

She requested a coffee cake. I didn't even know she knew what a coffee cake was. I tried to persuade her to choose something I knew I could successfully make. Sophia was adamant about her birthday request for a coffee cake, so I obliged under one condition, no matter how it turned out it still needed to be eaten.

I'll never forget the feel of that hot pan coming through the oven mitt, the comforting aroma of sweet apples and spicy cinnamon, and the look of that gorgeous Apple Cinnamon Coffee Cake as I pulled it out of the oven. This coffee cake had complex flavor, just the right texture, and very few ingredients with most of them being nutritious. I was so excited to have created a healthier version of coffee cake that was free from top allergens. I couldn't wait to share the recipe at my cooking classes. That's when the lightbulb went off, “nobody wants your recipe, Elizabeth, they just want you to make it for them.”

On January 2, 2017, Sweet Elizabeth's Organics was born.

By the beginning of 2018 Sweet Elizabeth's was thriving by most accounts! We had created a concept that was both desperately needed, and not readily available. We understood our customers and their needs and our business was exploding because of it. Unfortunately, without the right systems in place, this kind of growth in such a short time came at a great personal cost. My health was declining due to the constant stress of running a business and the physical work of baking. And my family was suffering.

All work and no play.

With Scott and I both working at the bakery full-time (as in 60+ hour weeks) quality family time was rare, and our 5 kids became disconnected and distant. They retreated to their separate electronics and started talking about how much they missed their family and friends in Florida (where they had grown up). As a result, we made the very difficult choice to leave the business that we had built from the ground up with a plan to replicate our bakery success back in Florida. The thought of leaving was devastating, but our kids always come first and this felt like the right move for them.It wasn't until a heart-breaking conversation with a deeply supportive customer/friend that I realized I couldn't walk away from our Colorado Springs community. We were more than just a bakery, we were a safe place for our customers to find food and baked goods to feed their families. With the difficulty in finding allergy-friendly food, we couldn't leave our loyal customers had been with us from day one at the farmer's markets. So, we kept our bakery in Colorado Springs and opened the Florida location at the beginning of December 2019.

The next chapter of our story is a tragic one, just like so many small businesses around the country.

The opening of the Florida location got off to a good start. There was a huge need in both Colorado Springs and Lutz. We had so much support! But, we had invested most of our savings to make it all happen. When C*v*d hit, it was crushing.

It was such a confusing time. No one knew what was going on, and we saw the state-to-state discrepancies so clearly during this time. I had been traveling back and forth between Florida and Colorado, and Colorado shut down much earlier. We went to a take-out model immediately, but it just wasn't enough. We couldn't possibly keep up with the expenses of both locations with our Colorado bakery shut down to walk-in customers (literally overnight).

During the early stages, there was no assistance in place, and we had no idea how long any of this would last. With travel restricted, we weren’t able to travel between our two locations. We couldn’t sustain a Colorado business that we couldn't even visit. We were faced with an impossible choice: stay open and go deep into debt with no idea what the future would hold, or shut down our flagship bakery without even getting to say goodbye.

Our hearts were broken, but we knew what we had to do. Our wonderful staff packed up a pod with all of the equipment from the Colorado bakery and shipped it to us in Florida. Opening that pod brought me such grief. I fell to the ground and cried. Everything I had built and worked so hard for was gone, and the pieces were just sitting there packed in a box. We had not established a large enough customer base when the shutdown happened in Florida, and without staff, it was just Scott and I doing everything we could to keep Sweet Elizabeth's afloat.

At this point, my dietitian told me that I was in adrenal fatigue from the constant stress and I had to make some drastic changes to preserve my health. So, we closed the brand new Florida location and moved all of the equipment into our garage.

Hitting Rock Bottom

I knew in my heart that Sweet Elizabeth's wasn't done. Scott and I converted our spare bedroom to a bakery and focused on wholesale accounts to make ends meet, but this felt like a rock bottom for us. My vision of Sweet Elizabeth's has always been a thriving community! It's never been about just baking. It's about being part of our customers' lives and memories and providing healthy, nourishing food for their families.

Shortly after this low moment, I began to pick up the pieces and start the healing process. I did so much personal work and eventually found a small business grant to apply for. We were awarded a $33,000 grant through the SBA's Restaurant Revitalization Fund (a life-changing amount for a small business like ours!). This money was enough to allow us to rebuild. And, with the money came an opportunity to re-evaluate where we wanted to rebuild.

We took the time to listen to our hearts, the answer became clear: Colorado Springs is home. These are the kind, caring, generous humans who helped us grow from a farmer's market booth to a bakery, and then a bigger bakery and cafe! They are the beautiful people who rallied around their small businesses so fiercely through the pandemic. There was no other place we could see ourselves.

The decision to come back to Colorado Springs felt crazy. I can't think of a better word for it. It was scary to come back after such a wild series of events. But at the end of the day, we just knew we weren't where we needed to be. We decided to trust our intuition and go back to the place that felt like HOME.

In another ridiculous turn of events, our $33,000 grant was revoked the same day our home sold in Florida. After the SBA lost a lawsuit, the funding awarded to minority, veteran, and women-owned businesses was withdrawn from thousands of small businesses like ours.

At this point, we were already committed! We decided to trust that we were on the right path. We packed up our house in a torrential downpour. Our house flooded, the sale fell through, and we missed out on the house we planned to buy in Colorado. Long story short, we ended up in an RV we borrowed from Scott's parents and spent a month and a half living in it with our 5 kids, 3 cats, and a dog! Haha! We can laugh now because it's over;).

It can be so hard to trust your intuition and learn how to believe in your own choices, especially when faced with extreme challenges. Now that we're settling back in, it's so clear to me that we made the right choice!

Our Comeback

Our old bakery/cafe space sat vacant since we left. In August of 2021, we were able to negotiate some amazing upgrades to the space and sign a 5-year lease. We re-opened our bakery on February 11, 2022 and don’t plan to move anything or anywhere for a LONG time, friends! 1625 W Uintah Suite K in Colorado Springs is home.

We remain an online retailer of stellar, allergy-friendly baking mixes. We also continue to provide easy-to-follow recipes and accompanying videos to showcase the simplicity and versatility of our mixes. Visit our recipes page.

Sweet Elizabeth’s is more than mixes and a bakery. We are a family run business, where Scott, I, and our children work side by side. We only make food that we would eat ourselves. We understand food allergies, intolerances, autoimmune disease and healthier lifestyle choices. We “get it.”

— Elizabeth Durham