Taylor’s Bakery

Dennis Orville (D. O.) Taylor, born in 1877 in Goodman Ridge, Indiana, founded Taylor’s Bakery in 1913. His father died when he was two years old. As a young child, Taylor worked alongside his three older brothers on the family farm. This work became permanent when he quit school after the 6th grade. Taylor came to Indianapolis at age 18, after his mother’s death.

In Indianapolis, Taylor found work at a grocery store which gave him the idea to start a small food business from the home he shared with his wife Amy Eleanor Taylor. He moved the business out of his home after he bought a grocery store in the Mapleton neighborhood at 38th and Illinois streets on February 13, 1913. This was the start of the Taylor Grocery Store.

Taylor’s daughter Virginia, son-in-law James Allen, and grandson John joined Taylor working at the grocery store in 1952 when John Allen was 8 years old. He learned the business from the ground up by mopping the floors, washing dishes, and then accompanying his grandfather and father on delivery runs.

The grocery store focused on gourmet items that Virginia Allen procured in New York City and bakery items that James Allen focused on in the retail bakery section. The latter section specialized in scratch-made custom cakes. Notably, Taylor’s Bakery made a 150-pound birthday cake for President Dwight D. Eisenhower during an Indianapolis visit on October 15, 1954.

D. O. Taylor died in 1962, leaving ownership of the bakery to his daughter and son-in-law. That same year, grandson John Allen graduated from high school and left for Indiana University. However, during his first semester at the university, his father James Allen became ill. John Allen came home to run the bakery and never returned to Indiana University. The second and third generations of Taylors operated the bakery.

The Allens opened a second Taylor’s Bakery at 62nd Street and Allisonville Road in 1968. James Allen retired from the bakery on February 24, 1972, leaving the business to third-generation heir, John Allen and his wife Nancy.

During the 1970s, John Allen made attempts to collaborate with like businesses and expand to northern parts of the city. First, Allen worked with local floral company McNamara Florists as a way to enter the wedding market beginning in 1972. Second, in 1973 he closed the original bakery in downtown Indianapolis that his grandfather had opened. Third, Allen opened a location at the then-burgeoning commercial corridor of 86th Street and Ditch Road in 1976—a location which he later shuttered in 1991.

In 2001 Allen’s sons Drew and Matt joined the business as vice-presidents after they graduated from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. They expanded the business by opening a location in Fishers, Indiana in 2003. Though the elder Allen remained at the bakery until his retirement in 2019, his sons had effectively been running the business without his oversight since 2012.

John Allen died in February 2022; his wife Nancy had died a month earlier. In February 2023 the fourth-generation owners of Taylor’s Bakery sold the business to Burrows Holdings LLC. The transaction included the sale of the two shops at 6216 Allisonville Road in Indianapolis and 8395 E. 116th Street in Fishers. A condition of the sale was for Burrows Holdings LLC to retain all 50 employees working for Taylor’s Bakery.