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Baking on Selkirk Avenue since 1937
89 years in Winnipeg. This page keeps two things apart: what the bakery says about itself, and what public records say about it.
In the bakery’s own words
A Winnipeg tradition
Our bakery has been providing customers with old country, kosher baking since 1937. The Gunn’s Bakery family has established a level of quality product and service that has made the bakery one of Winnipeg’s most celebrated Institutions. Famous for our handmade breads, bagels, cookies, pastries & cakes, it’s no wonder our products are the staples of many Winnipeg traditions.
Whether you’re shopping for the family & friends, planning for an event, or just grabbing a snack for the road, we have the product to suit your needs.
What the public record says
Everything in this timeline comes from two published pages, named under each entry. These are their statements, not the bakery’s. Bakery to confirm every entry
- 1920s
A baker arrives in Winnipeg
According to the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba’s Endowment Book of Life, Morris Gunn came to Winnipeg from Poland in the mid 1920s and worked at Buchwald’s Bakery. Florence joined him in 1930, and they married on her arrival.
Source: Jewish Foundation of Manitoba.
- 1937
The bakery opens on Selkirk Avenue
According to the Manitoba Historical Society, in 1937 baker Morris Gunn, his wife Florence, and their children moved into a one-storey brick building on Selkirk Avenue and started a bakery there. The Society records that the building at 247 Selkirk Avenue, 18 feet by 70 feet, had first been occupied by grocer Israel Badner, who lived in a residence attached at the rear.
The Endowment Book of Life tells it this way: the family moved into the back of a rented building on Selkirk Avenue in 1937 and opened the bakery in the front, baking the European style familiar to the neighbourhood, with bagels, rye and pumpernickel among the breads it names.
Both pages call the bakery a first, in different words. The Manitoba Historical Society: “the first Kosher bakery in western Canada.” The Endowment Book of Life: “the first kosher bakery of this style in Western Canada.” These are the sources’ statements, not the bakery’s or the certifier’s. Bakery to confirm: which wording, if either, it uses
Source: Manitoba Historical Society; Jewish Foundation of Manitoba.
- 1940s
To 247 Selkirk Avenue
The Endowment Book of Life says the business outgrew its first space within about five years, and that “shortly afterwards” the family bought the building at 247 Selkirk Avenue, where the bakery stands today. It gives no exact year.
The two sources differ here: the Manitoba Historical Society describes 247 Selkirk Avenue as the building the family moved into in 1937. Bakery to confirm: when the bakery came to No. 247
Source: Jewish Foundation of Manitoba; Manitoba Historical Society.
Winnipeg in the bakery’s first years: the corner of Portage Avenue and Main Street, downtown, on a postcard dated 1940. Not Selkirk Avenue. Public domain. - 1973
The founder
Both sources record that Morris Gunn died in 1973.
Source: Manitoba Historical Society; Jewish Foundation of Manitoba.
- 1979
A full renovation
According to the Endowment Book of Life, after several expansions the bakery was completely renovated in 1979. The Manitoba Historical Society likewise notes that the building “has been heavily renovated from its original appearance.”
Source: Jewish Foundation of Manitoba; Manitoba Historical Society.
- 1987
A Master Baker certificate
The Endowment Book of Life records that Arthur “Fivie” Gunn, a son of the founders, received his Master Baker certificate from the Retail Bakers of America in 1987. The same account says of the founders’ daughter Betty that “her special recipe, which of course is called Betty’s Chocolate Almond Commish, has been a customer favorite for a long time,” and that for many years the bakery’s logo included the words “Quality and Cleanliness Guaranteed.”
Source: Jewish Foundation of Manitoba.
- Today
89 years on
The bakery’s own site says it “operates 24 hours a day”, delivers Monday to Saturday and supplies retail partners across the city.
Bakery to supplyWho runs the bakery today, the milestones since 1987, awards and press, and photographs: the founders, the storefront through the decades, the bakers at work. Nothing about the present-day ownership is stated on this page because it has not been confirmed.
Sources
- Manitoba Historical Society, Historic Sites of Manitoba: Badner Building / Gunn’s Bakery (247 Selkirk Avenue, Winnipeg) (page revised 29 April 2023). Read on 8 October 2026.
- Jewish Foundation of Manitoba, The Endowment Book of Life: “The Gunn’s Bakery Story” (undated; the text speaks of the bakery “70 years later”). Read on 8 October 2026.
- Gunn’s Bakery, gunnsbakery.com: home page and FAQ. Read on 8 October 2026.
The historical pictures on this page come from Wikimedia Commons and are described under each one; none of them shows the bakery. Full credits are at the foot of the page.