During our anniversary day, I had a chance to look back at the past five years. A lot of blood, sweat, laughter and the occasional tear has been spent. We’ve had very long days and some very short nights. One of the things that keeps us going is that the store is always evolving. Last summer, we repainted the store and truly made it into candy land. This summer, we started lighting it up at night. What is always fun to watch, especially since we painted the façade, is the influx of people visiting. We’re becoming a destination. We have had tour groups at times unscheduled simply stop and come in and then there have been times that they have been scheduled…
For example, we’re visited by a national group of high school kids every year. They tour the U.S. each summer. Part of the trip is a search for unique tourist attractions, including kosher food and, yes, kosher candy. They had a ball in here; tasting and looking and tasting and looking some more. One girl even found what she didn’t think existed – gluten-free candy. She ended up buying pounds of jellybeans and chews. It was nice to see how happy she was.
After the kids and my parents (Thanks Mom and Dad for the extra help!) left, I realized just how fun our location here in Skokie is. We’re on the way to Northwestern University and have seen plenty of families stop in at the beginning of every school year or when visiting their students. Actually, we watched the youngest boy of one such family lick the cement posts outside. He thought it was a real candy cane!
We also have a another tour scheduled in November – a group of self-professed “chocoholic” seniors. Each of these chocoholics will enter the sweetest place on earth and feel like a kid in a candy store.