About Us
Our Story
In 1922, 3 brothers – Paul, Fred, and Albert Jubelt bought an existing bakery in Mt. Olive, IL. After a few years, Albert died and Fred opened a second bakery in Granite City, IL.
Paul ran the bakery in Mt. Olive 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. Eventually the Granite City store closed.
In 1950, business was booming and Jubelt's expanded with another store in Taylorville, IL. 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 in 1952. Over the next 40 years, more stores were opened in the surrounding area, including Springfield, Carlinville, Staunton, Gillespie, as well as other towns. Along with the stores, the bakery serviced 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 70’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 recipes for Vegetable Beef Soup, Chicken Noodle, Cream of Broccoli, 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 don’t 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 came available on the growing west side of Litchfield, 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 the conversation. As the 1980’s 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 mass store closings in small town business districts, the independent bakery became a dying breed. Family bakeries across the country were folding. Many of the independent grocers we served struggled to stay open.
At the start of the new millennium, 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 had 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 our 86th year.
