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The History of the Delano Bakery...

Cornelius and

Genevieve

Jacobson

Cornelius ("Kerney") and Genevieve Jacobson first opened the original Delano Bakery in 1948.  Kerney was a cook in the army during World War II, and upon returning from the war, he and his wife, Gen, along with their 4 year old son, Dale, opened the famous “Delano Bakery” in Delano, Minnesota.  

 

The bakery quickly became very successful, and for the next 40 years, Kerney and Gen made countless loaves of bread for all the schools in the area, hundreds of thousands of doughnuts for all their regular customers from locals to non-locals, and thousands of beautifully decorated cakes for graduations, birthdays, and especially weddings.   Kerney would do all the baking and Genevieve would decorate as many as 15+ wedding cakes in a single weekend.  In over 40 years, neither of them missed a single day of work.   They stayed very busy and the bakery only continued to become more well known and well-respected.  Genevieve remembers the day she realized they had baked over one million loaves of bread.

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Gen and Kerney had 3 kids - Dale, Diane, and Lila.  Their only son, Dale, was his parents apprentice from the beginning.  He would shadow his father at the bakery and learn everything his parents did before taking over the bakery  when his parents were ready to retire.

Dale was born and raised in a bakery.  

His father was a baker.  His mother was a famous cake decorator.  He‘s been working in a bakery his entire life.

Genevieve was  famous for her elegant wedding cakes.

The original Delano Bakery remained open for almost 50 years before finally closing it’s doors in 1988, when Dale and his family moved from Delano to Forest Lake, Minnesota, and Dale accepted a job working as a Pastry Chef for Byerly’s.  

 

He worked for Byerly’s for nearly a decade. In that time, he elevated their Bakery and pastries to a whole new calibur.  

He raised the bar for Pastry Chefs everywhere.  

(Byerly’s was selling their cheesecakes for $13 when Dale first started... and when he left, they were selling more cheesecake than ever before, at $55 each. Over 400% increase in profit.)   

He knows how to run a bakery.  

1980

Kerney feeding his grandson an apple at the original Delano Bakery

Genevieve was  famous for her elegant wedding cakes.

Dale eventually left Byerly’s to start his own bakery again.  The "Jacobson Bakery" in Forest Lake.  

The Jacobson Bakery soon formed a partnership with Saint Agnes Baking Company in St Paul, and for the last 23 years, has provided pastries and desserts for restaurants, pubs, hotels, and events all over the Twin Cities, and for customers from the Minnesota Wild to Luciano Pavarotti.

 

Saint Agnes closed it’s doors at the end of 2017, and the Jacobson Bakery lost the partnership.  

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The bakery is now seeking new business and looking for new partnerships to expand the business.  

 

Rebranded to the original Delano Bakery once again, The Delano Bakery (Jacobson Bakery) continues to make the best pastries and desserts, at the best price, anywhere. 

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It is a family business through three generations, The Delano Bakery celebrates 80 years this year.    

Gen & Kerney Jacobson with some of their  wedding cakes.

They would make as many as 15 wedding cakes in a single weekend.

Craig Jacobson started helping his dad, Dale Jacobson, in the Delano Bakery before he was tall enough to even see over the countertop.  

Chad Jacobson frying cake doughnuts

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