McMillan’s Bakery in South Jersey, noted for its doughnuts and fruit cake, puts its building up for sale

The days are numbered for McMillan’s Bakery, a South Jersey staple since 1939 for overfilled cream doughnuts and other baked goods.

The family of matriarch Arline Biemiller — founders George and Evelyn McMillan’s oldest daughter, who died a year ago at age 85 — has put its building on Haddon Avenue in the Westmont section of Haddon Township up for sale. Last week, the listing advertised an asking price of $1.3 million, including two apartments on the second floor, but the price was later removed.

Meanwhile, as the family posted Tuesday on Facebook, the bakery is open and has no timetable for its closing. The listing is for the building and not for the business.

“We are hoping to stay open for as long as possible throughout the duration of the sale process,” the statement said, adding that the family “would love to be a part of at least one more holiday season with all of you and your families.”

It would be tough to imagine Easter without McMillan’s iced, egg-shaped pound cakes or the Christmas season without its fruit cakes, which are shipped nationally. One of Biemiller’s daughters divulged a secret to the fruit cake in a 2012 interview: The fruit is soaked for a week in Grand Marnier.

Biemiller was “the glue that held our family business together,” the family statement said. She and her husband, Gary, who died in 2011, ran the bakery, now in its fourth generation. The couple’s South Jersey home, the Triple Kay Farm on 23 acres in Gibbsboro, is also on the market.

Family-owned bakeries today have their challenges, including competition from supermarkets and discount stores and their volume pricing. The opening in 2011 of a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop only a scone’s throw from McMillan’s green awning did not seem to undercut at least McMillan’s doughnut business — or enthusiasm for the product.

A member of the Biemiller family did not respond to a text message Wednesday seeking further comment, and the broker handling the real estate listing did not reply to messages.