Dodie Green, co-owner of St. Paul Bagelry, dies at 58

Dodie Green and her sister bought the St. Paul Bagelry in 2007 and built it into a beloved local brand with two retail locations and a sprawling wholesale business.

When toasted, the shop's signature "everything" bagels pleasantly fill a room with the scent of onion, garlic and sesame seeds, and the menu offers handmade sandwiches packed with fresh eggs and vegetables.

But she didn't put on airs. Asked years ago for her favorite restaurant, she said it was Chili's.

"That's just sister Dod," said her sister Peggy Teed, laughing. "She loved nothing more than chips and salsa and ranch dressing, and she wouldn't think of saying something else."

Green died early Tuesday morning at the age of 58.

She grew up in St. Paul, the seventh of Patrick and Mary Duffy's 10 children. Her father was a trucker and shipping supervisor, and her mother was a stay-at-home mom who sent her children on adventures all over town via bus.

She was a "Derham Dolly," her sister said, and graduated from the Catholic girls school Derham Hall before it merged with Cretin in the 1980s. In 1980, she married Jamie Green. They had three sons.

In 2001, Green and Teed, the fifth sibling of the 10 in the Duffy family, started a Maui Wowi coffee and smoothie franchise. It was a mobile cart that moved all over the Twin Cities and "was in all the arenas."

They wanted a retail space for the franchise and heard that the St. Paul Bagelry was for sale. They visited and decided to buy the business. Mike Sherwood started it in 1995, and then sold it in 2004.

"Within months we fell in love with having our own thing, that this wasn't a franchise," Teed said.

In the years between Sherwood's ownership and the time Green and Teed bought the business, it had fallen on hard times, Teed said. They worked hard to get back to Sherwood's recipes, made with natural ingredients. For five years they ran the Maui Wowi and the Bagelry, and then they focused on the Bagelry alone.

Green and Teed were best friends and split the duties of ownership easily, Teed said.

"Dodie loved numbers and order and did our books and our payroll and everything," she said. Teed focused on marketing and building the business.

"She always liked to say I was her Lucy and she was my Ethel," Teed said, referring to the characters from Lucille Ball's TV show "I Love Lucy."

Green's husband, Jamie, and sons Jimmy and Jason managed the Roseville location, a block from St. Paul. Her father, Patrick Duffy, still goes there seven days a week at age 92. And the business has expanded. In 2017, they added a second location, on Nicollet Avenue in south Minneapolis.

The wholesale business, which sells to most co-ops in the Twin Cities and a handful of hotels, restaurants and coffee shops, grew to nearly half the business, compared with 5% when Green and Teed took over.

Green died in her sleep, her sister said.

"We still don't have full answers except for natural causes," said Teed. "She had a wonderful day on Monday and a wonderful evening, and she didn't wake up on Tuesday. She's my baby sister so it's nothing we ever thought or imagined, ever."

She was loud, devoted to her church, a great listener, a big hugger, a dancer and singer who gave her granddaughter too many Popsicles, her family said.

She is survived by her husband of 40 years, three sons, one granddaughter, her father and seven siblings. A memorial service will be held on Friday, Feb. 28, at 2 p.m. at Emmanuel Christian Center in Spring Lake Park.