For 100 years, customers have been traveling near and far for a treat from Bloedow Bakery
Jun. 18—WINONA, Minn. — Longtime staple in the Winona community, Bloedow Bakery is celebrating its 100th anniversary of operations. People come from far and wide to get a tasty donut or fresh-baked bread.
"It's the recipes that we have used for 100 years," said Karen Sorum, Bloedow's office manager. "Nothing has changed as far as I know. From when it first started, the recipes have stayed the same. It might not be the same brand anymore, but it is the same."
Ernest Bloedow opened the bakery in 1924. His eldest daughter and her husband, Mildred and Julius Gernes, bought the bakery in 1941 and it stayed in the Gernes family until 2004 when Hugh and Mary Polus bought it.
Hugh had been a baker there since he was 15 and the Gernes family mentored him until he was ready to purchase the business.
"He learned all the recipes, learned how things worked, inside and out," Sorum said. "He's the maintenance man. He keeps everything running."
It was important for the Gernes family to know the business was being passed down into capable hands.
"I think we would be lost without Bloedow," said Colleen Kennerly, a Winona resident and manager of The Kensington in Winona. "In fact, I remember a Facebook post going around that said what would you miss most if you crash in a plane? I think there were about 75 people who said Bloedow."
Bloedow is a locally-owned business, not a corporation. It's the community supporting other community members, Kennerly added.
"This is traditional, this is family-owned," said Kennerly. "These are my neighbors working here. So I'm supporting their paychecks too."
And the support goes beyond Winona.
"It's all of our customers. People come from all over. We're talking Michigan, Iowa, up in northern Minnesota, the Dakotas, from everywhere," she said. "We cannot say enough about our customers. They are very loyal, they love our products, and they keep coming back."
In addition to its classic items, the bakery also introduces limited items to give customers something new to try, like different flavors of filled donuts, Sorum said.
For some customers, the food comes secondary to the experience. It has become a tradition for some families to visit Winona for the weekend and go to the bakery.
"(My daughter's) originally from Winona but she lives in Eagan now," said Mark Peterson, a Winona resident. "When they come to visit it's like 'oh, we're going to visit Grandpa, we have to go to Bloedow right?' I don't think they've ever come when we didn't come to Bloedow."
It's nostalgic, not only for Peterson and his family but for the community as a whole.
"You remember those days when you were a child and you would come stand outside the bakery because it just smells so wonderful, and people would come and stand in line," said Sorum. "Now sometimes they don't mind standing in line. They get to talk to their friends that they see or someone that maybe they haven't seen in a while."
Celebrating 100 years of being in business seemed like too big of a task on just one day, so the bakery plans to have specials throughout the year to give back to the community.
