Burt Baskin

Burt Baskin (December 17, 1913, Illinois – December 24, 1967, Studio City, Los Angeles) was the founder of Baskin-Robbins. He was the son of a Jewish American businessman who owned a clothing store. He attended the University of Illinois and graduated in 1935. After graduation, he joined his father’s clothing business. Later, he opened his own men’s clothing shop on the ground floor of historic Palmer House Hotel in Chicago. During World War II, he served in the US Navy and was assigned in the Southwest Pacific.

He met Irv Robbins when he began dating Robbins' sister in 1941. He soon married into the family, became good friends with Robbins, and the two men decided to go into the ice cream business. At the suggestion of Robbins' father, however, they each opened separate stands, so that each man could better understand the responsibilities of running their own business. Baskin opened his Burton's ice cream stand in 1945, while Robbins opened a shop called Snowbird. They each had several stores by the time they merged in 1948, forming the company that was renamed Baskin-Robbins in 1953.

The company had 43 stores by the end of 1949, more than 100 by 1960 and about 500 when the ice cream empire was sold to United Fruit Company for an estimated $12 million in 1967. Robbins stayed involved with the company for 11 more years and retired in 1978. Twenty-five years later, Baskin-Robbins had become the world's largest chain of ice cream stores, with 5,500 outlets around the world.

Baskin died from a heart attack at his home in Studio City, California on December 24, 1967.