The wildly popular New York City establishment Magnolia Bakery made its big debut in Holladay, Utah, this week to a large crowd and a long line.
Magnolia Bakery is known for its famous banana pudding, as well as an assortment of cupcakes, cheesecakes and other delectable sweets.
“I think Utah is such a family environment and community here, and that’s what we attract,” Bobbie Lloyd, the chief brand officer and chief baking officer, said.
Lloyd is considered the second founder of Magnolia Bakery. She bought the bakery after it had been open in New York City for 10 years and was responsible for expanding to multiple locations within the city and across the world.
“Anybody along the generational line is celebrating life’s biggest moments, whether it’s birthdays, baby showers, holidays,” Lloyd said. “That’s what I’m excited for, is for people to experience what we do and bring that little spark of, ‘oh, I remember my grandma used to make a cake like this.’ I love it when people say that.”
Magnolia Bakery coming to Utah
Magnolia’s arrival in Utah is two years in the making.
Lloyd met the franchisee of the Holladay Hills location, Kirk Schneider, while on a biking trip in Northern Ireland in 2024.
The two hit it off and shared a love for the iconic bakery — Schneider had been going to the bakery any time he was in New York City for years to get his hands on that banana pudding any chance he could get.
There were still some financial and legal hurdles to getting the New York City establishment to Utah, but Schneider and his team were persistent. They knew Utah would appreciate the bakery.
“In Utah, we like our sugar,” Schneider said. “And a lot of people here know Magnolia Bakery. It’s not new. It has a lot of brand reputation. And so people are so excited to come in and the product is just amazing.”
Before becoming a franchisee for Magnolia, Schneider had spent 39 years as a Subaru dealer in the Salt Lake City area. Now he and his family are thrilled to be involved in the bakery’s Utah arrival.
“We were always very active in the community, and this gives us another vehicle to get right back out there and just to be part of the community again with the business,” Schneider said. “It’s very exciting.”
About Magnolia Bakery
Everything at Magnolia is baked from scratch and with the highest quality ingredients, according to Lloyd.
“We bake from scratch in small batches all day, every day,” Lloyd said. “And so you know when you come into a bakery, we might be out of cupcakes, but there’s some in the oven. They’re coming out. So they’re really like as fresh as can be and real ingredients.”
The bakery is such an icon, it’s even referenced in multiple popular culture moments.
Here are are few of them:
- The main character of “Broad City” stops by the bakery in the show to get some of that memorable banana pudding.
- It also gets a shoutout in “The Devil Wears Prada” when Anne Hathaway’s character grabs a cupcake for her boyfriend for his birthday.
- In “Saturday Night Live,” Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell rapped about snagging cupcakes from the bakery.
What I ordered
While I was at the grand opening of the bakery, I had to try the famous banana pudding, obviously.
And I’ll say that it lives up to the hype. It’s creamy and rich and delicious.
I also tried the pudding of the month, which for June is a strawberry crumble pudding.
They first start by baking the strawberries in the oven. Then they bake a shortbread cookie dough and crumble it up. They layer the crumble and the strawberries into the pudding.
It was also tasty, but I think my favorite is still the banana.
