Irvine (Irv) Robbins, born December 6, 1917 has passed away at the age of 90.

Robbins co-founded the chain in 1945 with his partner and brother-in-law Burt Baskin. They’re first store was called The Olympic Store and was located in Tacoma.

After being discharged from the army in 1945, Irv pursued his dreams of opening his very own ice-cream store. This dream came about from Robbins being the son of a dairyman and growing up in the family’s Tacoma, Wash., ice cream store.

BY 1948, Irv and Burt had eight stores. As the stores grew, the profits dropped because the managers didn’t put the same care into them that Irv and Burt had. Realizing that this had to change, the decision was made to sell the stores to the managers thus becoming the first food company ever to franchise their outlets.

Through franchising, they grew to over 5500 stores around the world in only 25 years giving them the honor of the world’s largest chain of ice cream stores.

In a throwback to Irv’s obsession with his stores, he talked about how all companies are the result of such actions:
“You look at any giant corporation, and I mean the biggies, and they all started with a guy with an idea, doing it well.”

Irv may be best remembered for bring such flavors as Rocky Road and Pralines ‘n Cream to his stores. Although advertised as having 31 flavors, over 1,000 have been tried out over the years. Some only lasted for a little while others stayed forever.

Robbins enacted a company policy allowing employees to eat all they want because, Robbins said, “I don’t want my employees stealing.”

In addition to running his business, Robbins lectured on entrepreneurship at USC and UCLA.

Irv retired in 1978 selling Baskin-Robbins to United Fruit Company.