Five Things We Will Learn
- Why recessions can actually be one of the best times to start a business.
- How refusing to take “no” as the final answer opened supernatural doors for the “Bun Lady.”
- Why a clear “why” — in her case, time with her children — fueled every major business decision.
- How creativity and perseverance turned an underperforming McDonald’s and a risky bakery into a nationwide success.
- How calling, prayer, and passion can turn business into ministry that impacts lives for generations.
Why Recessions Can Be the Best Time to Start
“Recession is the best time to start a business.” That sounds upside down, but Cordia Harrington’s life proves it.
Serving on the Federal Reserve Board, she saw a chart of America’s 19 recessions and 19 recoveries. Only then did she realize every one of her businesses had begun in the middle of a recession. She didn’t time the market; she simply obeyed the opportunities in front of her.
Her insight: in any new business, you’re going to make mistakes. If you launch in a recession, you make those mistakes while things are already tight — then grow stronger as the economy comes back.
She points to simple marketplace reality. When money is tight, people trade fine dining for affordable, consistent food—like McDonald’s. That “down-market” moment can actually be the perfect time to build something that will ride the next wave of recovery.
For Cordia, recessions weren’t walls; they were training grounds.
When God Gives You a Thought, “No” Is Not the Final Answer
Cordia believes many of the deep desires and ideas that won’t leave us are not random—they’re from God.
So when she feels a God-given thought—“You should try this… you should build that…”—she doesn’t treat a human “no” as the final word.
That conviction carried her through one of the most defining chapters of her life: becoming a baker for McDonald’s.
She was told no 31 times.
She kept asking.
She found new people to talk to.
She went to fresh interviews, refused to quit, and kept following that inner “true north.”
Why? Because she knew in her heart that this path would let her:
- Build a meaningful business
- And spend more time with her children
That combination — calling from God + clear purpose for family — made “no” a speed bump, not a dead end.
A $600 Start: Real Estate, Barter, and Grit
Before she was “the Bun Lady,” Cordia was simply trying to solve a problem in real estate.
She already had a real estate license on the side and wanted to buy a property. When her agency told her she’d have to pay both the listing and sales commission, she thought, That’s ridiculous. I’ll just start my own agency and be the agent.
So she did — with $600 total, all of which went into signs.
To make it work:
- She bartered for office space with a local doctor who had an empty space in a mall.
- She leased chairs for $1.50 a month and desks for $3 a month.
- She opened the doors, and just like that, she was in the real estate business.
It was scrappy, humble, and risky. But it grew. And that early experience taught her that lack of capital doesn’t have to stop a God-breathed idea. Creative problem-solving and courage can bridge the gap.
A Single Mom, a Golden Ticket, and the Real “Why”
By 1986, things had shifted. Cordia was now a single mom, working hard but also longing for more time with her children.
That longing — “How can I make money and spend more time with my kids?” — became the driving force behind everything.
During that season, she sold a house to the new McDonald’s owners who had moved to town. She discovered you could own a McDonald’s. She hadn’t grown up around wealth; she wore her cousins’ hand-me-downs and was the first in her family to go to college. Ownership felt far away—until she saw it with her own eyes.
She saw their lifestyle:
- Weekends with their kids
- Time on the lake
- A nice car
- Margin and flexibility
And she thought: I can do that. This is us.
But back then, McDonald’s ownership was the “golden ticket.”
- 50,000–60,000 applicants a year
- About 100 openings to buy a franchise
To even be considered, you had to go through intensive training. Cordia decided to try anyway—not from greed, but from a desire to build a future where she could work hard and be present with her children.
Training Through Tears: 2,200 Hours for Free
McDonald’s required about 2,200 hours of training, where she would work every position in the restaurant—and do it without pay.
So she:
- Sold real estate by day
- Hired a college student to spend nights at her home with the kids
- Drove an hour and fifteen minutes to Little Rock for training
As she drove toward the dawn, leaving her children behind, tears would stream down her face. She questioned herself: What am I doing?
But she kept going because she believed:
Owning a McDonald’s would ultimately give her more time with her children, not less.
It was sacrifice with a purpose. She wasn’t chasing a brand; she was chasing time with her family and a way to steward her calling.
Her First McDonald’s: Empty Parking Lots and a Fruit Truck
Eventually, she was given the opportunity to buy the Effingham, Illinois McDonald’s.
She:
- Borrowed $250,000 on a handshake from her banker, who trusted her.
- Put in $200,000 of her own, the down payment on a $1.65 million purchase.
- Loaded her furniture into a fruit truck and moved from Russellville to Effingham.
But once she got the keys, reality hit. The seller’s eight children—who had been the management pipeline from supervisor down—were gone.
On day one, it was just Cordia, Terry, and Mary. Between the two of them, she jokes, they barely had a “full set of teeth,” but they were the only ones who knew how to count the drawers.
Life was simple and tight:
- She lived in an old rental house with weak plumbing—if the kids flushed the toilet, all the cold water vanished and she’d be scalded in the shower.
- The community did support the store, but it wasn’t the easy lifestyle she had imagined.
Traffic was thin. The interstate location wasn’t saving them. So she did what entrepreneurs do: she got creative.
Creativity on the Highway: CB Radios, Free Meals, and 88 Buses a Day
This was pre-smartphone, CB radio days. Cordia grabbed a microphone and started talking to truckers and bus drivers.
Her pitch was simple:
“If you’ll stop your bus, I’ll give you a free meal if you bring your people.”
The buses started stopping.
Then came another God-inspired idea:
What if I bought the Greyhound bus franchise?
She did. She moved the Greyhound stop onto her parking lot. Soon:
- 88 buses a day were pulling through
- Her store became one of the top 40 McDonald’s in the U.S. in sales
What began as an empty parking lot turned into a high-traffic hub—because she refused to accept lack as permanent and kept asking, What else can we do?
From “Bun Committee” Joke to Global Vision
In her local McDonald’s co-op, Cordia was the only woman. When it came time to assign her to a committee, the men joked, “We’ll put you on the bun committee.”
They meant it as a light joke. She embraced it as an opportunity.
Four times a year, she would leave her restaurants and visit bakeries, work on pricing, and learn how the global McDonald’s system worked:
- Sesame seeds in Guatemala
- Flour prices in Russia
- The complexity behind something as simple as a hamburger bun
She’d come back and give long, enthusiastic reports—so long that her colleagues would eventually say, “Okay, enough, enough.” But during those trips, God was enlarging her vision.
Then she heard that McDonald’s wanted diversity in their supply chain. In that instant, she knew: That’s me.
She decided she would become their diverse baker.
The Bun Lady Is Born: 31 Interviews and a Picture with a Flour Mill
Cordia went into full pursuit mode. She:
- Started making phone calls
- Created interviews
- Went to a flour mill in Tontopoulos, near Effingham
- Put on a white outfit, stood in front of the mill with a Cardinals Hall of Fame baseball, and took a photo
She sent that photo with the ball to McDonald’s with the message:
“I want to be your Hall of Fame baker.”
She repeated this kind of creative outreach for four years.
The funny part?
She didn’t know how to bake.
But she knew she could:
- Find people who did
- Run the business
- Learn what she needed to learn along the way
She understood that McDonald’s was extremely strict: 38 characteristics for every bun. Loft, texture, quality—everything had to be perfect.
Finally, in January 1996, after about 31 interviews, she got the nod.
Building the Bakery: Risk, Recession, and God’s Timing
McDonald’s needed a bakery between St. Louis, Paducah, and Memphis to serve a particular region.
From her time on the bakery committee, Cordia had seen a smart European setup:
- Put the bakery right next door to the distribution center,
- So the baker doesn’t need trucks; the product simply flows next door into the DC and onto the fleet.
She found a distribution center in Dixon, built the bakery beside it, and:
- Broke ground in June 1996
- Opened in April 1997
Spiritually, it felt like fulfillment. Practically, it was terrifying.
The bakery opened at the bottom of a recession.
- Same-store sales for McDonald’s dropped 38%
- That meant bun demand crashed
- She only had about 22 hours of production a week but needed 40+ to keep people and operations viable
She was “lucky” to keep her restaurants during this season; she didn’t sell them until after the bakery was built.
When she did sell the restaurants, every penny went into what she called the “what if” account—money she used each month to cover payroll and survive.
Once again, recession became a refining fire, not the end of the story.
Surviving the Crash and Scaling the Vision
The turning point came when Pepperidge Farm gave her company the account to bake buns for KFC under the Pepperidge brand.
McDonald’s graciously allowed it, and her husband developed a smart pricing protocol that:
- Benefited McDonald’s operators
- Added volume to the plant
- Made survival and growth possible
From there, the business began to scale.
Over time, what began as a single bakery grew into:
- Nine plants
- 2,700 employees
- Production lines capable of
- 1,000 buns a minute at one plant
- 2,000 croissants a minute at another
If you eat a breakfast croissant at Burger King anywhere in the United States, chances are they made it.
All of this flowed from a single idea she refused to let go of—even when it was hard, lonely, and risky.
Business as Ministry: Creating Opportunities, Making a Difference, Impacting Lives
Cordia doesn’t see her company as just a commercial operation. She sees it as a ministry with three goals:
- Create opportunities
- Make a difference
- Impact lives
She teaches her associates that if leadership takes care of them, they will take care of the customer. Whether they:
- Stay a short season and go on to law school
- Or spend a lifetime building a career in the bakery
Her heart is to help them succeed.
It remains, at its core, a family business—with many family members involved. But in 2019, just three months before COVID, Arbor Capital of Chicago entered the story at an American Bakers Association convention.
A providential table assignment sat the Arbor leader next to her. He said:
“Why don’t you grow with my money instead of yours?”
They scribbled an agreement on a napkin.
Sixty-seven days later, the deal closed without a single change. She calls it divine intervention.
With new capital, they:
- Grew to about six times their former size
- Had the freedom to hire the best engineers in the world
- Shifted from “Can we survive?” to “How do we build at scale?”
It’s the fruit of years of risk, obedience, and faithfulness in the small things.
Leadership, Family, and the Art of the “MAC”
Leading a large company is hard. Leading a large company with family members involved is harder.
Cordia admits she has made every possible mistake in this area. Out of that pain, her family developed something they call a “MAC” — a Mature Adult Conversation.
The rules are simple:
- If there’s tension or conflict, someone calls for a MAC within 24 hours.
- Everyone has permission to speak truthfully, but with a tone that’s respectful.
- The MAC moves the issue into a more objective space, instead of letting it fester in raw family emotion.
It doesn’t mean no one gets hurt; it means they take responsibility for healing and clarity.
In business terms:
- Her best feature is being an encourager—finding the good in people and situations.
- Her worst feature is managing, because she naturally wants to say “yes” and look for ways things can be done, instead of drawing hard lines.
She listens to many opinions, but her team knows: at the end of the day, she will make the decision. That combination of humility and decisiveness has served her well.
Fear, Regret, and Integrity
Cordia is honest about her fears and regrets.
For years, her greatest fear was that she would go broke right before her eyes. She’s lived through moments that felt close to that—when new ventures launched and the “pool” suddenly dried up.
Her deepest regret? Hurting a family member when a business venture forced her and her brother apart. The good news: they later reconciled completely. The pain was real, but God restored the relationship.
When asked about the greatest virtue in business, she points to one word: integrity.
She intentionally surrounds herself with people who walk in high integrity. If someone doesn’t, they don’t continue in partnership. For her, character is not optional; it’s foundational.
Passion, Enthusiasm, and the Secret of “Historic Preservation”
What is the key to her success—the thing that made “the Bun Lady” the Bun Lady?
She points to passion and honest enthusiasm:
- She genuinely loves what she does
- She loves creating opportunities for others
- She loves connecting people and helping them reach their dreams
That passion is sustained by intentional self-care. Every week, she has a two-hour block on her calendar labeled “Historic Preservation.”
It’s not about restoring a building; it’s her code word for:
- A massage
- A facial
- Quiet time to rest, decompress, and reset
That rhythm helps her preserve her best self for her family and associates. She admits she’s not always at her best—and when she’s not, it’s “ugly”—but she fights to keep her inner life healthy so she can keep giving.
Entrepreneurship as Calling — At Any Age
Cordia founded her first bakery at 43 years old—an age when many people are settling into routine, not launching large-scale ventures.
When asked where the courage came from, she pointed to Ray Kroc, who bought his first McDonald’s at age 55.
Her message:
Your age doesn’t matter.
Energy, determination, and obedience to God’s calling matter.
She believes entrepreneurship is, for many, a calling—something woven into who you are. For years, she prayed she could just be “satisfied,” because she always wanted to build, improve, and rearrange things.
When she joined YPO (Young Presidents’ Organization), she discovered she wasn’t alone. She had simply found her tribe: people wired by God to create, build, and never fully settle.
Advice for Women (and Men) Who Want to Build
When asked what she tells women facing obstacles in business, her answer applies to both women and men:
- Live your dream. Don’t silence the God-given desires in your heart.
- Learn to balance work and health with rhythms of rest (like her “historic preservation” time).
- Be willing to take major risks if that’s what it takes to pursue what God has put in you.
She also shares the best advice she ever received:
Be yourself, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Early in her journey, a McDonald’s leader wrote that she would come across “excited and enthusiastic, but she’s smart too.” In other words, people might misread her passion. She chose to keep showing up as her authentic self, trusting God with how people saw her.
The Eternal Perspective: What Happens When This Is Over?
Cordia often talks about business as ministry and dreams about organizing women entrepreneurs on group trips, helping them learn from each other and see real-life examples of success. She doesn’t see retirement as an end—just a transition into more ways to invest in people.
But when asked the bigger question—What happens when this is over?—her answer is simple and joy-filled:
Heaven. I can’t wait.
She looks forward not just to more projects on earth, but to eternity with God. For her, success isn’t just bigger facilities, more bakeries, or more brands served. Success is:
- Obeying God’s promptings
- Loving people well
- Creating opportunities
- And finishing this life ready to step into the next
Her story reminds us:
When God gives you an idea, don’t stop.
Recessions, “nos,” fear, and failure are not the end.
With faith, courage, creativity, and perseverance, success is in your future—and the impact can touch thousands of lives.