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Irv Robbins
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Irvine "Irv" Robbins (December 6 1917 – May 5 2008) was a Canadian-American entrepreneur who co-founded the Baskin-Robbins ice cream parlor chain in 1945 with his partner and brother-in-law Burt Baskin.
ins was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. His father, Aaron Robbins, owned a dairy and The Olympic Store ice cream business at 954 Court C in Tacoma, Washington, USA.
Robbins grew up scooping cones in his family's ice cream store for customers who always seemed to be having a good time.
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Encyclopedia
Irvine "Irv" Robbins (December 6 1917 – May 5 2008) was a Canadian-American entrepreneur who co-founded the Baskin-Robbins ice cream parlor chain in 1945 with his partner and brother-in-law Burt Baskin.
Early life
Robbins was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. His father, Aaron Robbins, owned a dairy and The Olympic Store ice cream business at 954 Court C in Tacoma, Washington, USA.
Robbins grew up scooping cones in his family's ice cream store for customers who always seemed to be having a good time. He recalled that he often "finished a day's work happy" and wanted that same feeling when he started his own business.
Irv Robbins attended the University of Washington in Seattle and graduated with a degree in Political Science. He served in the U.S. Army as a Staff Sergeant in California, during World War II and was discharged August 1945.
Business career
After getting out of the Army in 1945, he soon opened the Snowbird Ice Cream store on December 7, 1945 in Glendale, California. Robbins cashed in a $6,000 insurance policy given him for his bar mitzvah to start the business.
Burt Baskin owned a men's store in the Palmer House in Chicago, and married Robbins' sister Shirley in 1942. He had enlisted in the Navy and was released from service early 1946 and came to California, where Robbins convinced him that selling ice cream was more fun than selling men's ties & shirts, and within a couple of months he opened Burton's Ice Cream at 561 So. Lake Pasadena, California.
By 1948, the five Snowbird and three Burton's shops had been combined into a single enterprise, and they had devised their 31st flavor -- Chocolate Mint. The partners came to the conclusion that because of the new stores they had opened, they were devoting less and less time to each individual store. "That's when we hit on selling our stores to our managers," Robbins said in the 1985 Los Angeles Times story. "Without realizing it at the time, we were in the franchise business before the word 'franchise' was fashionable. We opened another store and another and another. . . ." They made an agreement with the new store owners, which became "franchise agreements" and they became the first food company ever to franchise their outlets. Little did the McDonald's and Burger Kings of the future know, but the idea took hold in other retail establishments, and the age of "franchising" was underway.
In 1953, they renamed the company Baskin-Robbins, deciding the order of their names with a coin toss. The "31 flavors" concept was introduced that same year to bring attention to a deep menu that featured a flavor for every day of the month.
Baskin-Robbins had 43 stores by the end of 1949, more than 100 by 1960 and about 500 when the ice cream empire was sold to United Fruit Company for an estimated $12 million in 1967. Six months later, Burt Baskin died of a heart attack at 54. Robbins stayed involved with the company for 11 more years and retired in 1978. 25 years later Baskin-Robbins had become the world's largest chain of ice cream stores, with 5,500 outlets around the world.
Baskin-Robbins is now a part of Dunkin' Brands.
Personal life
Robbins married Irma Gevurtz in 1942, just before he went to serve in the U.S. Army. Robbins and Irma had three children: Marsha, John and Erin. (John Robbins is a renowned author of books on health, the environment, and social justice.) John rejected the family's ice cream business and criticized the U.S. meat and dairy business as he advocated for a diet that was sustainable and healthy in his bestselling book "Diet for a New America". Baskin and his wife Shirley had two children, Edie and Richard.
Robbins died on May 5, 2008 at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California, according to his daughter, Marsha Veit of Mount Kisco, New York. He had been in ill health for some time, she said.
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