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It
all began in 1880 when Anna Maria Faust, Merridee's
grandmother, came to Minnesota from Sweden,
bringing her most precious recipes, a sense of tradition
and an uncompromising set of values for high quality
food. She worked as a cook in St. Paul and was at one
time the head cook for the Pillsbury family.
Anna Maria always wanted to have a bakery of her own.
She enjoyed good conversation, good humor and good coffee,
which she brewed all the time. Anna Maria passed
on this heritage to her granddaughter,
Merridee.
Merridee Erickson grew
up on the family farm near Winthrop,
Minnesota, baking breads, pies and sweets with her
mother. Saturday was bread-baking day,
and by the age of nine she was doing
most of the baking herself. Merridee attended the University
of Minnesota where she studied Food Business. While there,
she met and married Tom McCray. In 1973, Merridee and Tom
moved to middle Tennessee. In 1981 Merridee began retailing
her fresh-baked goods from a little log cabin in Fairview.
As word spread, she was asked to open a shop as part of
the historic revitalization of downtown Franklin. An
old hardware store warehouse on Fourth Avenue, that was
once
a harness shop, became the home of Merridee’s Breadbasket
in the spring of 1984.
Jim and Marilyn
Kreider met Tom
and Merridee McCray in the
spring of 1994 when they
were in Franklin visiting
from Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Merridee had recently been diagnosed with cancer and she and her family
were searching for someone to carry on the bakery. When Merridee and
Marilyn met and talked they realized they shared similar backgrounds:
both had grown up on dairy farms and lived the “farm life” which
revolved around family, hard work and lots of good homemade food.
Shortly after Merridee passed away in the fall of 1994 the Kreiders
moved south
and purchased the bakery. |
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The
Kreider’s changed little about the bakery except
to expand the menu and eventually added more space,
first in 1998 and then again in 2005. Everything
is still made from scratch, the old-fashioned way
- resulting in not only great taste but a nutritional
product as well. You won’t find any
pre-made mixes in this bakery – just bags of
flour, whole grains and sugar, flats of eggs and
cases of real
creamery butter. It takes a lot of loving care to
transform these staples into the delicious pies,
brownies, cookies and breads you will find on the
shelves every day. The menu includes the ever-popular
chicken salad sandwich as well as tuna salad, egg
salad and pimento cheese sandwiches, and a variety
of grilled specialties all served on fresh homemade
bread. In the fall of 2006 a full-service espresso
bar was added, offering an extensive menu of old-world
Italian style specialty coffees and espresso drinks.
Merridee’s
also features a daily variety of homemade soups,
quiches,
fresh
salads
and delicious
desserts of pie, brownies, cakes and cookies.
Merridee’s Breadbasket has been featured in Southern
Living
Magazine, on
Tennessee
Crossroads, the Food
Network’s “Best
of Baker’s
Show” and has received The
Review Appeal’s Top
Dog award for Franklin’s
Favorite
Bakery, as well as the Sizzle Award from Franklin's Southern
Exposure Magazine.
Come and see why Merridee’s
continues to be a favorite place for local folks and visitors to gather and
share
good food, good conversation and good coffee.
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