Bankrupt three times, he built a Czech butcher chain and Lego record

Czech entrepreneur Miloš Křeček has gone from a failed business newcomer to the owner of a chain of butcher shops with a turnover of hundreds of millions of crowns — and holder of a Guinness World Record for the largest private Lego collection on the planet. A childhood hobby has grown into a whole network of themed museums across Czechia.

Křeček got his first box of Lego bricks from his parents for his fifth birthday — and, he says, he “never wanted anything else” after that. He earned his first money as a child picking cherries, apples and apricots and selling them at collection points, and later took on various odd jobs. He saved up, and from the age of fifteen started buying Lego sets himself — with no idea that over the next three decades he would amass a collection of more than 12,000 models.

His professional path, however, had nothing to do with bricks at first. The decision about his future career was made at the family dinner table: his father, who worked at the state enterprise Pramen Maso, sent his son to train as a food-shop assistant specialising in meat and sausages. The gruelling study regime — getting up at four in the morning and hard physical labour — later turned out to be a good school of entrepreneurship.

Křeček started his own business right after 1989, but before finding his footing, he went through three failed ventures in a row — selling plastic toys, a second-hand electronics shop and a small grocery store. All three ended in collapse. The turning point came when he was about 23: he saw a newspaper ad for a sausage shop for sale in Smíchov, Prague.

He had saved about 130,000 crowns, while the owner was asking more than a million. Křeček offered a deposit and promised to pay the rest within three months — the money came through friends and his father, who became his business partner. That is how the Miloš Křeček KK chain was born; today it has 150 employees, nine shops in Prague and its own meat-processing plant in Klícany, and also supplies canteens, restaurants and hotels.

As the meat business grew, so did the Lego collection — so much so that an ordinary flat could no longer hold it all. “It just couldn't be tolerated at home any more, Lego was everywhere,” the collector laughs. Together with his wife, also an avid collector, with whom he tours Europe's flea markets hunting for rare pieces, Křeček decided to open a museum to display part of the collection.

The first branch of the museum opened in 2010 on Národní třída in Prague, and foreign tourists showed up on opening day itself. Many friends tried to talk Křeček out of the idea, since he had no money for advertising, but public interest exceeded all expectations. Some collectors even sent him Lego sets for free — in exchange for nothing more than museum tickets.