After 48 years in the bakery business, Bernie Coulombe is looking forward to "taking life easy." The owner of Lindstrom Bakery, which Food & Wine named earlier this year as the home of the best doughnuts in Minnesota, has put her shop up for sale.
The sale was first reported by Axios Twin Cities.
The turnkey business comes with a bonus: Coulombe will stay on for 30 days to teach the next owners how to re-create her recipes.
But that's proving to be a challenge for prospective buyers, Coulombe told the Star Tribune.
"The thing is, they don't know how to bake," she said. "They want me to hang in here and teach them. I said 30 days, and they can't learn it all in 30 days."
By now, Coulombe has her recipes on autopilot. "I can do a lot in my sleep," she said. "But if you've never fried a doughnut, they look easy, but they're a little tricky."
The bakery (12830 Lake Blvd., Lindstrom, 651-257-1374), about 50 miles from downtown Minneapolis, has won accolades over the years for its 80-cent pastry that nails the crisp-on-the-outside-soft-on-the-inside ratio. When Food & Wine compiled "The Best Doughnuts in Every State," Lindstrom Bakery was the Minnesota winner. Writer David Landsel said the bakery is "at the heart of local life."
The bakery is known for more than those doughnuts. The Swedish biscuit rusk is a top seller, and so are the rye bread and fruit cakes.
And for $485,000, the new owner can learn how to make all of them — with some training, anyway.
