Early Years

McGlynn Bakeries have always have used unbleached flour in their products. JT also added calcium and vitamin supplements to his breads and rolls in the 1930's, the first bakery in the nation to do so. JT came up with a rather unconventional advertising campaign to promote his enriched breads. The ad showed two groups of laboratory

mice! One was a healthy group fed with McGlynn bread. The second was a sickly group fed with another brand of bread. The text informed the reader of the nutritional value of McGlynn's vitamin enriched bread. It was through this unusual advertisement that McGlynn's concern for nutrition was relayed to the public.

In 1939, both Burt and his brother Dick were working for the bakery. In 1946 city directory, Mary was listed as an owner, Dick as an employee and Burt was listed as being in the Navy.

During World War II, Burt attended a school for cooks and bakers in New Orleans and served as a baker in the Navy, stationed in the Philippines.

In 1941, JT began using more day and less night hours for his help by adopting a newly developed method of storing products, made up and ready for the ovens, by retarding them in high-humidity refrigeration.

After the war, Burt returned to Minnesota to help run his fathers growing bakery business, which, at the time, had 11 downtown shops and several wholesale routes. But Burt had planned that he would go to college. He'd completed a year of studies before going into the military and wanted to continue toward a degree. He applied to St. Thomas College in St. Paul, Minnesota. But there was no room for him because of all the post war military veterans already enrolled.

"I started working at the bakery for my dad and one day I received a call from St. Thomas College, saying, 'We can get you in now. Classes start on Monday," Burt McGlynn recalled. "My dad said, 'I really need you to help me in the bakery.' He begged me to stay, and I did."

It was the kind of decision that changes a young man's life forever. At the time, Burt McGlynn did not realize how the course of his career would change because of it, but the son never wavered, never looked back. His father needed him. That was all it took. It was the only thing that really mattered.

JT with his sons

In 1954, JT had another brainstorm. He envisioned a way to bring bakery goods to the neighborhood. To make that method better serve the housewives, he again did something entirely new he conceived and built a bakery on wheels, named "Trav'l-Bake.

This required much planning, engineering service, time and venture money. Thru the retarding, self-leveling, and shock absorbing devices, hot baked goods right out of the oven in the Trav'l-Bake, are immediately available to house-wives as it travels, bakes and sells (self-service), at curbside all day long.

Banks started closing on Saturday's in the 50's, and fewer people were attracted to downtown. This hurt business, but J. T. tried another progressive move. He established Trav'l Bake in 1954. Trav'l Bake was a renovated bus housing a bakery. Burt McGlynn, J. T.'s son, drove it through the neighborhoods of St. Louis Park (a suburb of Minneapolis) offering curbside service of fresh bakery goods.

Burt McGlynn wore many hats during his more than half-century career in the bakery business. None fit quite as uniquely as the cap he wore as the Trav'I Bake bus driver in 1954. It was then McGlynn Bakeries introduced one of the many clever innovations tried over the years by this Minneapolis family business, all in an effort to accomplish one single-minded purpose: Please the customer.

The Trav'I Bake bus was quite a sight to see in the 1950's, chugging along the streets of the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park and delivering hot donuts and freshly baked bread to local neighborhoods. This bakery-on-wheels was the vision of Burt's father, a man known for his inventive mind and engaging spirit.

"Fresh hot glazed donuts were our biggest seller. They sold for only 10 cents apiece," Burt McGlynn recalls about the Trav'I Bake bus, which drew so much national attention it was featured on the front page of The Wall Street Journal. "Housewives would come out to buy a loaf of bread. But in some ways, it was kind of scary. A lot of kids would see the bus and come running out into the streets. I was afraid I might hit one of them."

The Ford bus was retrofitted with a propane fueled donut fryer on board, along with an electric oven that had to be kept level. Imagine the disaster if you drove over a pothole while angel food cake was baking in the oven! For about a year, McGlynn drove that bus, bringing donuts, breads, Danish and angel food cake to the suburbs of Minneapolis. The people always knew it was coming once they heard the unmistakable sound of the doorbell chime dinging over a loudspeaker.

Still, not all great experiments translate into big profits, and the Trav'I Bake bus was retired after only a year. Trav'l Bake was featured in many publications including the front page of The Wall Street Journal! However, the effort was not cost efficient and closed within a year... and Burt was thrilled that he did not have to drive "the bus" anymore.

JT was always looking for new bakery locations. From 1919 to 1958 there were many locations. Some were wholesale routes where there were no McGlynn employees. Other locations had McGlynn employees in a market or supermarket. And some were a true McGlynn Bakeries location. It has been difficult to track all of these locations, but you can find a list here.

In addition, armed robberies were common in the early years and the bakeries were robbed often. In one case, the same robber hit McGlynn's and a competitor several times in one month. And several locations were damaged or destroyed by fire. None of the fires began in the bakery, but with tight locations and slower fire response, the fires would spread quickly.

Supermarkets were starting to spill into the suburbs of Minneapolis by 1950, when the city was home to about 600,000 people and was larger than Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, San Antonio or San Diego.

Two factors, in particular, were pinching the retail bakery business. More local supermarkets started carrying baked goods, although on-premise baking was rare. Then banks stated closing on Saturdays, resulting in fewer customers heading to the city on the weekends.

"When the banks closed, there were a lot of reasons people didn't go downtown," McGlynn says. "Saturday was a bakery's biggest day, and we found that our sales were going down. My dad felt like the whole thing was changing. He thought we were going to go broke. I had a different idea."

In 1956, JT was going to close the bakery and he came to Burt and said, "Burt I think we need to close the bakery." Burt said, "I've got some different ideas; do you mind if I buy the business and keep it going?" JT turned it over to Burt; it was really a struggle early on. JT had 13 retail stores when Burt bought the business from him - eight or so were located in downtown Minneapolis.

Burt McGlynn realized that the expansion of more supermarkets could open the door for someone to supply them with fresh baked goods. "In 1956, I bought the business from my dad. JT was given the title of Honorary Board Chairman. Then, we started going after different types of business. I figured I could get fresh bakery products into the bigger stores in the suburbs." Thus, McGlynn Bakeries switched gears from a primary retail focus to more wholesale distribution. It was a struggle to grow sales, open new locations and change the business model. But Burt was still opening new stores like these two:

New Location in June 1957

Miracle Mile - St. Louis Park

Nicollet Ave Location Ad November 1957

New Wholesale account, October 1958

In 1958, McGlynn Bakeries was still struggling under Burt's leadership and hard work. Then, a competitor, George Emich of Emrich Baking Company approached Burt through his General Manager, about buying McGlynn Bakeries. Emrich Baking serviced mostly restaurants and hotels with bakery goods. This was before McDonald's and fast food, so there used to be many independent restaurants. Emrich had virtually all the wholesale restaurant business throughout the Twin Cities and had just decided to go into retail type bakery products. Emrich Baking believed McGlynn Bakeries would be a good fit.

In November of 1958, Burt sold the business to Emrich Baking Company and went to work for them, remaining as President and General Manager of the McGlynn unit. Even JT remained as honorary Board Chairman of the unit.

Six weeks after the purchase, Burt decided he didn't like working for anyone else.

As usually happens in a buyout, Emrich began making changes to the management of the company in the spring of 1959.

In late 1961, Mr. Emrich telephoned Burt and asked where he had been; he hadn't heard from him for a while. By this point, Burt was already contemplating his next move. Shortly thereafter, Burt resigned to begin a new venture. There was a silver lining in Burt's two years at Emrich. One of Burt's accounts was Applebaum's Food Markets. Emrich's did business in a couple of Applebaum stores in St. Paul and Burt had become business friends with the Applebaum's. This was a relationship that would become instrumental to Burt's future success. It was time for Burt to do something new.

Article from March, 1962.

The Early Years 1919-1961