The iconic, family-owned business “is a Savannah tradition as much as pralines and Spanish moss.”
Written by KEITH STRIGARO
Photography courtesy BYRD COOKIE COMPANY
FEW COMPANIES SURVIVE long enough to make it to 50 years, let alone 100. One Savannah-based business, however, has beaten the odds and is celebrating its centennial anniversary this year — and showing no signs of slowing down.
Now run by its fourth-generation family owner-operator, Stephanie Lindley, Byrd Cookie Company, 2024 Runner-Up Best cookies, has grown from a regional cookie bakery to a national leader in the specialty food industry. Producing more than two billion cookies a year, the company owns and operates four bakeries across the U.S. and 26 retail shops throughout the Southeast, including seven in Savannah. They have also partnered with other elite brands such as Delta Air Lines, Bergdorf Goodman and L.L. Bean, and they are now the largest provider of baked goods to Disney World and Disneyland. Clearly, Byrd is on a mission to make the world a little sweeter, one cookie at a time.
The iconic company started from humble beginnings on Saint Julian Street in downtown Savannah’s City Market district. In 1924, Benjamin Tillman “Pop” Byrd Sr., Stephanie’s great-grandfather, began baking his famous Scotch oatmeal cookies. Pop learned the trade while working for another baker, but he eventually bought him out and started baking for himself. Pop packaged his cookies in large apothecary jars and sold them at “two for a penny,” delivering them to stores around town in his Model T Ford.
Demand for the cookies grew, and in 1929, he moved the bakery closer to his home on Norwood Avenue in Sandfly’s residential community. He converted a tin-sided barn into a larger bakery that he named “Byrd’s Famous Cookies.”
As for why he chose to bake Scotch oatmeal cookies, we’ll never know for sure. “The origins of that cookie are still a little bit of a mystery to us,” Stephanie says.
After World War II, Pop’s eldest child, Benjamin Tillman Byrd Jr., took over the company in 1949. Known as “Cookie,” he expanded the company’s product line to include the benne wafer. He also started packaging cookies in square metal tins so that they could be easily shipped. It was a game-changer for the company’s growth, expanding its reach from a 50-mile radius to all over the Eastern Seaboard.
And just as tourism in Savannah began to boom in the second half of the century, Cookie opened the Cookie Shanty, which became a popular destination for both locals and tourists. Gregarious by nature, he wanted a way to greet guests to the bakery and share his passion for baking and Southern history, so he opened a retail shop next to the bakery on Norwood Avenue. “He loved entertaining guests,” says Stephanie. “That was definitely his passion.”
In 1988, Cookie’s eldest daughter, Kay, and her husband, Benny Curl, took over the company and began expanding into the gift industry, making colorful tins that were more giftable. This was also the era when the company expanded its inventory, including the best-selling and award-winning Key Lime Cooler, and moved to its current location on Waters Avenue.
Kay and Benny’s middle child, Stephanie, grew up in the business and learned all the aspects of the bakery, but she never thought she would run it one day. “I always knew I wanted to be in business,” she says, “but taking over the bakery didn’t cross my mind until my dad suggested it.”
In 2011, Stephanie became the owner-operator and has focused on growing the company and making it stable to survive another hundred years. During her tenure as CEO so far, she has propelled the company by acquiring other beloved Southern brands, like Selma’s Cookies and Kermit’s Key Lime Shop, to expand Byrd’s offerings to include rice crispy treats, soft-batch cookies, brownies and key lime pies.
Byrd even has a fifth-generation leader lined up. Stephanie’s son, Jamie Lindley, 34, serves as the company’s vice president of operations and will take over the company when Stephanie is ready to step down. Jamie originally wanted to be a doctor like his father, Savannah neurosurgeon Jim Lindley, but in college he realized medicine wasn’t for him and instead joined the family cookie business 11 years ago. He takes great pride in his relationship with the company’s employees, “giving people an opportunity and seeing them grow,” he says.
It’s this feeling of family that permeates the entire company of 275 employees. “Without a doubt, it all goes back to family,” says Byrd’s president, Geoff Repella, who is unrelated to the Byrd family but has been with the company for 24 years. “It’s not only the Byrd biological family, it’s the family-oriented culture here. We bake with the freshest ingredients, but our secret is definitely our people. They love what they’re doing and are proud of what we’ve all accomplished.”
And in some ways, despite being a century old, Byrd is just getting started. Earlier this year, the brand opened its 25th retail location — and seventh in Savannah — at the high-profile corner of Broughton and Drayton streets. And Jamie recently welcomed his daughter, Ellie, introducing the sixth generation to carry the Byrd name into the next century. “I think the people who grow up and live in Savannah take as much pride in us as we do in the city we’ve been in for a hundred years,” Stephanie says. “Byrd Cookie Company is a Savannah tradition as much as pralines and Spanish moss.”
