Burt Baskin

Burt "Butch" Baskin (December 17, 1913 – December 24, 1967) was an American Jewish businessman who co-founded the Baskin-Robbins ice cream parlor chain in 1946 with his partner and brother-in-law Irv Robbins.

Business career

Burt Baskin owned a men's store in the Palmer House in Chicago, and married Irv Robbins' sister Shirley in 1942. He had enlisted in the Navy and was released from service early 1946 and came to California, where Robbins had been operating Snowbird Ice Cream in Glendale. 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. The idea took hold in other retail establishments, and the age of "franchising" was underway.