COLEBROOK – The French bakery that has become a Main Street landmark will remain open.

Early this morning, Verlaine Daeron, who owns Le Rendevouz Bakery, phoned her partner, Marc Ounis, to say the visa she was denied last month has been renewed for five years.

Ounis said Daeron was told her E2 visa was being renewed because of "lovely letters" the embassy received from people in the North Country area.

"It's nice to read them because they are, how do I say, very, very romantic," Ounis said. The letters spoke, not specifically about the bakery, but about the North Country and how hard it is to make a living.

Ounis, who last month said he would keep the bakery open until he ran out of flour, said this morning he was down to his last sack. But now that the visa has been granted, he will remain open.

Daeron has been in Paris for more than a month trying to obtain the visa and will be there for several more days to complete paper work.

A French national, she opened the bakery with Ounis eight years ago. It has become a destination for people traveling through Colebrook.

Last month, officials at the French embassy denied her E2 visa renewal, saying the business did not make enough money.

The E2 visa, which allows nationals with treaties of commerce with the United States to operate a business, states that the "investment may not be marginal" and that it "must generate significantly more income than just to provide a living."

Local residents launched a petition drive in an effort to keep the business in town.