Our Story

In 1922, three brothers - Paul, Fred and Albert Jubelt bought an existing bakery in Mt. Olive, IL. After a few years, Albert died and Fred opened his own bakery in Granite City, IL.

Paul ran the bakery himself along with his son, John, who began helping out at the tender age of 12, driving the truck to make wholesale and house-to-house deliveries.

In 1950, John married his sweetheart, Iris Dawkins, and was soon drafted and sent to Korea. Upon returning home, he and Iris opened a new store in downtown Litchfield. Over the next 40 years, more stores were opened in the surrounding area including Springfield, Carlinville, Taylorville as well as other towns. Along with the stores, the bakery served many independent area grocers.

After helping in the business since the age of 14, John and Iris's son Lance joined the family business full time after graduating from college in 1977.

A New Direction

In order to meet customer demand, in the late 1970's we started selling prepackaged vending type sandwiches in our Litchfield store. Deciding to expand our lunch business, John made a deal with the owner of a new concept restaurant in Litchfield, "Stick and Dip", to provide instruction and recipes to get started in the food business. From these recipes came some of our original favorites: The Unburger, Pimento Cheese Salad, and Ham Salad.

After some sessions in the test kitchen at Bunn Capital, we were armed with the recipes for Vegetable Beef Soup, Chicken Noodle Soup, Cream of Broccoli Soup, and Cheese Soup. Some years later when John was cooking soups, he accidentally dumped the Cream of Broccoli in the Cheese Soup, and our biggest seller was born! Although we do not claim to have invented Broccoli Cheese Soup, 28 years ago Broccoli Cheese was far less common than it is today!

As food became a bigger part of the business in Litchfield, John, Iris and Lance began to look for a larger place with parking. When the Burger Chef building on Route 66 became available on the growing west side of Litchfield in 1989, the family decided to take the plunge and open a restaurant. Soon we were flipping pancakes and frying French fries.

As John used to say, "If we hadn't gotten into the restaurant business, we wouldn't be here having this conversation." As 1989 drew to a close, the start of a new decade brought changes in the bakery business. With the introduction of supermarket bakeries, big box stores, as well as changes in American lifestyle, the independent bakery became a dying breed. Family bakeries across the country were folding and many of the independent grocers we served struggled to stay open.

At the start of the new millennium, our bakery was struggling, John was in failing health, and Lance was battling a chronic illness. John passed away in August 2003 and soon after that we began closing stores. In May 2007, Lance passed away.

A New Chapter

Shortly before John's death in 2003, John and Iris's daughter Jeanmarie returned home from Chicago, where she lived and worked for 20 years. After Lance's death, Iris and Jeanmarie made the decision to close the Mt. Olive store and the wholesale routes. In January 2008, Jeanmarie purchased the business from Iris, starting a new chapter in out 86th year.

Although this chapter is still being written, Jeanmarie has begun baking in the Litchfield store daily so that danish, cinnamon and King Caramel rolls, pastries, bagels, cookies, bars and pies are always fresh.