One of the empty retails spaces downstairs from my where I live was rented out several weeks ago. In its place arrived a new candy store which opened up last week.
It’s a specialty store for sure but retailers that are related to food or food service do fairly well downstairs. I’m not a big candy person but I decided to check out the new store on Saturday. I was really surprised by their wide selection. Any grocery store can stock candy and chocolate bars but this store had items you normally can’t get. They had stuff imported in from the US and the UK.
While I don’t eat a lot of candy, I do enjoy gummy candies, especially the cola flavoured ones. I ate a ton of Coke bottles when I was a kid. In this particular store, they had imported in several soda related gummies. I chose to buy two bags of Dr. Pepper and grape Crush gummies. They were about $3 a bag, so I was my expectations were high.
On my way back up to my apartment I also stopped off at the dollar store. I was going to get some Coke Zero but I also noticed they had restocked their supply of generic Coke bottle gummy candy. They had these in about two months ago and they were really good. At $1.25 a bag, it was also a good deal.
When I got back home, I had two bags of expensive gummies and one cheap bag. Which would taste better? I tried the Dr. Pepper ones first. I was met with instant disappointment. They didn’t really taste like Dr. Pepper. It didn’t really taste like anything. I then opened up the bag of grape Crush gummies. Again, I discovered disappointment. They didn’t taste like grape Crush at all! It was just a semi-sweet gummy.
I saved the best for last, the dollar store Coke bottles. I knew these would be better and they were. As soon as you bite into them, you get that cola taste. At nearly a third the price, the dollar store stuff came through in the end. It’s not often that generic brand food from the dollar store tastes better than the brand name stuff but in this case, it was true.
I’m kinda hesitant to return that candy store now.