mmmuffins facts for kids

mmmuffins Canada Corporation (MCC)

A mmmuffins store sign in Montreal
Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Restaurants
Founded	1979; 46 years ago (1979)
Number of locations	1 café
Key people	Michael Bregman, Founder
Products	Coffee Bagels Muffins
Parent	MTY Food Group

Marvellous Mmmuffins, often called mmmuffins, was a Canadian restaurant chain. It was famous for selling coffee and delicious muffins. The company started in 1979, and its first franchise store opened in 1980.

Mmmuffins was very popular in the 1980s and 1990s. During that time, you could find a Marvellous Mmmuffin shop in most shopping malls across Canada. By 2019, only two stores were left. One was in Toronto at the Scotia Plaza food court, and the other was in Montreal in the area of Côte-Saint-Luc. The Toronto store closed in 2020.

How Mmmuffins Started

The story of mmmuffins began with Lou Bregman. In 1957, he opened a bagel shop called Bagel King in Toronto, Ontario. He had learned how to make bagels from his father. In the 1960s, Lou opened another Bagel King store at Yorkdale Mall. His son, Michael, often helped customers there on weekends.

By the 1970s, a big grocery store chain called Loblaws was selling Bagel King bagels. In 1977, the president of Loblaws, Dave Nichol, hired Michael Bregman. Michael had just finished his business degree at Harvard University.

Michael's job was to make the bakery section at Loblaws better. He found a bakery in Hamilton that made very large muffins. These muffins were usually three times bigger than other muffins at the time. They also had different grains and ingredients. In 1979, Loblaws tried selling these muffins in two of their stores. They were a huge hit! The order for muffins increased 16 times by the end of that week.

This success made Michael think about opening his own muffin shop. Over the next six months, he created the idea for mmmuffins. He also developed a bakery concept called Michel's Baguette.

The History of Mmmuffins Stores

Michael Bregman and his wife Barbara worked together to create new muffin recipes. Michael's father also helped by changing classic muffin recipes. They came up with five main types of muffins: bran, carrot, chocolate fudge, cornbread, and a basic white muffin.

The very first mmmuffins store opened in December 1979 at the Toronto Eaton Centre. The first franchise store, which is a store owned by someone else but using the company's name, opened on Eglinton Avenue in 1980. In the early 1980s, many new malls were being built in Canada. Michael Bregman was able to get spaces in many of these malls. This helped mmmuffins grow into a national chain. At its busiest, there were about 130 mmmuffins stores!

Mmmuffins was special because it showed its baking carts to customers. This helped customers see how fresh the muffins were. This was a very smart way to sell products at the time.

In 1988, Michael Bregman bought another company called Second Cup. He saw that specialty coffee drinks like espresso were becoming popular. In the early 1990s, he sold mmmuffins and Michel's Baguette.

In 2002, a company called Timothy's World Coffee bought mmmuffins. They kept the mmmuffins stores open under their original name. Later, in 2009, mmmuffins was sold again to Bruegger's Enterprises, Inc.. This sale also included Timothy's Coffee and Michel's Baguette. Bruegger's continued to run these chains.

In 2018, another company called Groupe Le Duff sold Timothy's World Coffee and mmmuffins. A Canadian company called MTY Food Group bought them for $1.7 million. This deal included 30 Timothy's stores and the last four mmmuffins stores.

Jason Brading, who works for MTY Food Group, has said that when the leases for the last two mmmuffins stores end, they will become other types of restaurants. However, he also mentioned that mmmuffins products might be sold in other coffee shops owned by MTY.