It’s all in the family at Duluth's Best Bread

By Tony Bennett

It was clear that Duluth's Best Bread was going to be a family business, even before the families had truly come into the picture.

"Let's put it this way," said Alicia Lillegard, the spouse of Robert Lillegard, who with his brother Michael Lillegard opened the bakery in the Lincoln Park neighborhood in 2015, "Robert and Michael were signing the papers for the bakery building that we are currently in the day our firstborn daughter came into the world. Robert missed the birth and everything!"

Today, Duluth's Best Bread has become a smashing success, with a new location opening in downtown Duluth that also boasts a family-run Airbnb upstairs. While Robert and Michael are the co-owners, Alicia and Michael's wife, Christine, are the heartbeat of the whole operation, as are the kids they have been raising amongst the ovens and the flour. For them all, it's an all-hands-on-deck situation.

Michael got the bread bug when he was in college and decided to build a brick oven with his dad. Hundreds and hundreds of bakes later — and with the flexibility that youth affords — he decided to try and make baking his life.

"I was 23 and figured now was a good time to take a chance on such an endeavor," he said.

"We bought our first premises a year later in mid-2015, which is when work became very involved and stressful. I knew Christine during this time, but it wasn’t until I was able to sleep through the night without working — or having nightmares about work — that we began dating. She came to the bakery to weed the landscaping, and I took this as a very promising sign of a possible future. We married in 2018 and had our daughter Rosalie in 2021."

"I definitely inherited my role as the baker's wife," Christine said. "It was perfect timing because, before then, Michael was totally overworked, and it would have been really hard to function in any sort of relationship. By the time we got married, he had a decent amount of staff and could work more-reasonable hours, which was really beneficial for us."

Early on, Christine said, "I spent a lot of time at the bakery with Michael doing random helpful things and trying to be a support system. The first summer we were married, we had a partnership with Endion Station that required us to be at the bakery by 6 a.m. every weekend — and let me tell you, I am so glad we don't do that anymore, but at the time I tried my best to enjoy the adventure. I can't be there quite as much now, but we view ourselves as a team and try to be there to support each other when and how we can."

Robert and Alicia met when she was still in college.

"She didn't really start to like me until we started speaking in German," he said. "She was more fluent than I was, so it forced me to shut up and listen, for a change."

It's "all in the family" for the Lillegards as mom Christine often brings 6-month-old Rosie to work with her, delighting customers and staff alike.

Three kids later (the latest was born in March), they're deep into a journey that has found them fully integrating work and family.

"The best part of owning a family business," Robert said, "is that it's a family business. I end up working with my brother and sometimes his wife — if I'm lucky, one of them brings baby Rosie in her pretzel onesie. Or I stand at the counter with Mercedes" (who is 5) "helping customers, or maybe Ruby" (she's 7) "gets to roll out pretzels with our extremely patient manager, Tonetta. I guess occasionally where it gets tough is if we're hanging out at my parents' house and we're still talking about business, or my wife is telling me I should really be more on time with XYZ business task. So, that's hard to separate out."

"I talk about work with Christine more than she would prefer," Michael admitted. "Rosie distracts most of my staff whenever she comes. Most of the production stops while she smiles. I really depend on Christine’s support. She’s emotionally supportive and is willing to help me in all possible ways, and she is never resentful when I have to put in long hours."

With everything they do, Christine said, they try to remember that they're on the same team.

"For me," she explained, "that means being willing to run to the store for an ingredient we're short on, helping Michael make almond croissants late on a Friday night before a holiday, coming in early to help package boxes, or sometimes just folding the bakery laundry and walking it to work with the baby to cheer Daddy up on a busy Monday."

Alicia's taken on the mantle of "delivery driver." Every other week, she takes a full day to drive around to 50 or so Northland locations to drop off orders.

"I'm a math major," she said. "For me, this is easy. I can handle spreadsheets. I can look at maps. I'm also high-energy. I can get out of the car, run the box to the front door, ring their bell, and run away. Some people are like, 'I've never seen her. She's a ninja.'"

At Duluth's Best Bread, the growing Lillegard clan has figured out how to make things work. Everyone's got their jobs. And, as the business itself continues to expand, it certainly seems like the next generation will be poised for a handoff when that time comes.

"It's pretty busy," Christine Lillegard said, "but we've made it work fairly well by just being willing to help each other out." D