For nearly three decades, Patisserie Margo has been built on butter, flour and plenty of early mornings. But owner Margo Bredeson will tell you there is another ingredient that has been just as essential to the bakery’s longevity: community.
Long before Patisserie Margo settled into its home at 4510 Valley View Road in Edina, Bredeson was baking professionally out of a Minneapolis restaurant kitchen. In 1998, after a restaurant where she worked decided to stop supplying baked goods to local coffee shops, Bredeson saw an opportunity. She had years of catering and baking experience – including putting herself through college by baking – but with a husband and four children at home, starting a business required creativity.
A restaurant at 510 Groveland offered a solution: Bredeson could use its kitchen at night in exchange for making the restaurant’s desserts and bread. The arrangement allowed her to begin without the expense of opening her own commercial kitchen.
“It was another business helping a new fledgling business,” Bredeson says. “I don’t think I could have done it without them.”
That spirit of businesses and neighbors helping one another would become a recurring theme in Patisserie Margo’s story. As the bakery grew, it moved through shared kitchen spaces before establishing retail operations, including a long run in Edina’s Grandview area and a decade in Excelsior. Along the way, customers became some of its best advocates.
At the former Edina location, curious neighbors would poke their heads inside while Bredeson prepared wholesale orders. She would tell them about the bakery – and often hand them something warm from the oven. Word spread.
“That is really how the business has been built,” she says. “We’ve never advertised. We never spent any money doing that. The food had to do that for us, and the neighbors did that for us.”
Community support became especially important when the bakery unexpectedly lost its lease and had only months to relocate. Jerry’s Foods stepped in, allowing Bredeson and her crew to use its bakery overnight while they figured out their next chapter. Once again, another local business helped keep Patisserie Margo going.
Then customers stepped up, too.
To finance the build-out of the Valley View Road bakery, Bredeson launched a Kickstarter campaign. The response provided the financial bridge needed to bring the new space to life. This September, Patisserie Margo marked 11 years at the location – a milestone made possible, Bredeson says, by the people surrounding it.
Today, that relationship is visible in the smallest details. Regulars walk through the door to find front-of-house team members already preparing their usual drinks. Staff members know customers by name, and Bredeson describes the bakery simply as “a neighborhood.”
Of course, the pastries keep people coming back, too. Bestsellers include breads, cookies, quiches, breakfast pastries and custom cakes, with croissants, scones and other laminated doughs among longtime favorites. Everything is made from scratch, from caramel and crusts to jams and Danish fillings. The bakery also serves sandwiches on its own breads, rotating homemade soups and an ever-changing selection of focaccia.
Fall brings another reason to stop in. Beginning in October, seasonal favorites return, including pumpkin cranberry muffins, apple turnovers, a maple nut tart and especially popular pumpkin cookies topped with maple glaze. A rotating seasonal macaron will also join the lineup, with its flavor left as a bit of a surprise.
Yet after all these years, Bredeson’s gratitude extends beyond what comes out of the oven.
“My crew, they are amazing, and they make this hub possible,” she says. “The residents here have just been so supportive, and we’re so grateful.”
For Patisserie Margo, community support has never been a marketing message. It is the reason the bakery began, the reason it survived difficult chapters and the reason, nearly 30 years later, neighbors still walk through the door.