As a child, Lilac Bakery's owner Chris Atkinson, his mom Linda and sister Jennifer, made weekly trips to the bakery counter at Eaton’s department store in downtown Winnipeg where they loved to treat themselves to a variety of old-style classic baking.
With a love of his mother's delectable baking, such as her Dream Cake and New Yorker recipes, Chris realized that there was a niche for the classic, scratch-made baking of his youth. With his business experience in sales and marketing and his mother’s decades-long talents in baking and product line development, Chris decided to combine their talents and open his own bakery. And so Lilac Bakery was born in the fall of 2008, with Chris as owner/operator, Linda as head baker and Jennifer as baker's assistant. Since then, Lilac Bakery has grown to become one of Winnipeg's top dessert bakeries.