Sweet tooths rejoice: Evans Candy Company opens
Owner Kelli Evans checks out a customer at the new Evans Candy Company store on Main Street in downtown Clinton during Saturday’s Fall Antique Festival. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
Kelli Evans, who has been hard at work the past few weeks decorating and stocking the store at 226 N. Main St., said she was pleased with the great turnout the store received on its first two days in business, Friday and Saturday.
On both days, the store was bustling with customers looking over the large selection of candies and special soda pop flavors.
She and her husband, Phil, are operating the store, which is in the space formerly occupied by Signs Unlimited, next door to Dogwood Carpentry.
“This is something I’ve wanted to do for a really long time,” Evans said. “There’s not a lot that goes on here for the kids, and I thought this would be a fun place for kids to stop in and not have to spend a lot of money.
“We’re looking for the feel of the old fashioned mom-and-pop candy stores,” she said earlier. “We will have all kinds of candy, especially a lot of the old kinds – sort of a blast from the past. We will have bottled soda pop, with all kinds of funky flavors, even a dill pickle flavor.
Evans stocked more than a dozen special soda pop flavors, and recently received a 1,475-pound shipment of soda mostly in bottles. Some flavors will be available already chilled for single-bottle sales.
There also is a large variety of taffy flavors offered, although the apparent local favorite flavor, banana, won’t be in for at least a couple more weeks, Kelli Evans said. Some of the flavors include spicy peppers.
“We asked on our Facebook page for people to tell us what their favorite taffy flavor was, and it was overwhelmingly banana,” she said. “It’s so popular that our distributor has it on back order, and we won’t get any for two or three weeks.”
Still, there is so much candy in the store – of all different types, shapes, and favors – that it would be hard for anyone to come in and not find something they like, or something they connect to their childhood.
And that’s what Evans is aiming for: besides making new fans of today’s candy favorites, also bringing back candies of yesteryear for those yearning for nostalgia.
“We truly have something for everyone,” Evans said. “We even have a selection of sugar-free candy.”
Evans Candy Co. will be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. The store will be closed on Sundays and Mondays.
Evans Candy Co. also plans to have an online store, which probably will debut sometime in January, Evans said.