Allan Appel Photo
One night, after a 10-hour work day, Kim Tran realized how much she missed Kẹo dừa, a caramelized, sticky “coconut cluster without the chocolate” that she ate growing up in her native Vietnam. So she Googled “owning a candy store.”
The Google search led to a location search — and ended with a candy shop in New Haven. A woman who came to the United States with the vision of becoming an engineer stumbled instead into a vocation that was, in many ways, a whole lot sweeter.
Tran is the owner of CandiTopia, a retro-style candy and confections shop on upper Chapel Street that, after a few last-minute hiccups, opened to sugar-crazed New Haveners in early August.
For the Vietnamese-born civil engineer, who came to the United States with her family in 1992 and went on to attend the University of Vermont, the shop — despite its absence of Kẹo dừa — has brought part of her childhood right back to her adult home of Connecticut.
She recalled that journey in an interview with host Betsy Kim on WNHH radio’s “Law, Life & Culture.” The were joined by Winfield Davis, Jr., executive director of the Town Green Special Services District, to talk about the steps to becoming a small business owner in New Haven.
“I think that we all have to consume some sugar sometime during the daytime,” Tran said to Kim during the interview. “I did a lot of research myself back in the early days before I even thought about owning a candy store. I thought about ‘what do I have? What do I need? Where do I get the cases? How do I get furniture? Where do I get candy supplies?’ All kinds of things.”
Lucy Gellman Photo
She did the requisite research with the state. She also watched her sisters open and maintain Sweet Thing and Candylicious in Burlington, Vermont. She made her way methodically through what she remembers of miles of legal paperwork, food-related regulations and business jargon.
What made her keep going?
A clear and precise end goal.
“I think the process before you go into the business is you have some concept, some idea, of what you need,” Tran said. “It’s all different in every business … You want specific information. You don’t need a general guideline. That would help a lot.”
Part of that, she added, is keeping a finger on the business’s pulse, listening to employees, and acknowledging that there’s always room for improvement.
While she still works full-time as a civil engineer in New York, she spends Monday and Tuesday nights at the store, using that time to check in and receive valuable feedback from her employees.
“I have wonderful staff at the store who manage and run the store day to day, from morning to night,” she said. “I basically want to share my shift with my staff, so that they don’t have to close every single night — so they can spend time with their family and loved ones. I know that I have a full-time job, but the candy store is also my business, and I want to share that with my staff.”
This interview is part of WNHH-LP’s “Open For Business” series on immigrant business owners and leaders in the nonprofit community. “Open for Business is sponsored by Frontier Communications. Frontier is proud to be Connecticut’s hometown provider of TV and internet for your home and business. The phone number is 1.888.Frontier; find more info here.
