nothin Retro “Canditopia” Opens on Chapel Street | New Haven Independent

Retro Canditopia” Opens on Chapel Street

Its name indicates the future. Its signature offerings are storied candies from decades past.

The name is Canditopia,” a store that opened for business Wednesday at 1022 Chapel St. selling Sugar Daddys, Abba-Zabba, Chiclets, Zotz, Astro Pops, Razzles, and a jawbreaker as big as a bocce ball.

Owner Tran taking the measure of business with a bubble gum yardstick.

There are also a lot of traditional-looking chocolates too, But the store, with its bright, Saturday-morning TV program colors, signs that urge you to Get Real. Get Jelly Belly,” and bag-your-own-now ‑and-worry about-the-dentist-later shopping style, has a special appeal for kids …

… well, let’s face it, to anyone who has molars and a tongue and a yen for sugar.

The modest-sized store takes the place of Peter Indorf Jewelers. Indorf retired in December. The landlord, Yale University Properties, has entered into a lease for the new candy shop with first-time business owner Kim Tran.

A Milford resident and civil engineer working in New York City, Tran said she is a consumer of anything-sugar. She was specifically was inspired to open a candy store by the fun she saw her two sisters having running similar businesses in Vermont and Massachusetts.

I got this great location. I’m ready to rock and roll, ” she said.

The store was already a hit with its first customers, three friends — Avery Royster of Bethany, Jasmine Taylor who’s a student at Southern, and West Havener Natashya Fernando (pictured first in the line), who were in town to hang out and to see what’s up in New Haven.

Fernando said she was looking for something chocolatey and nutty,” but ended up with a bag of peach and apple gummies and fruit gems.”

Taylor called herself a weird” consumer of candy who does not like chocolate all that much. I love things fruity,” she said, displaying a bag of the stuff, as she waited in line for Tran to activate her cash register equipment and check out the first customers.

Astro-Pops, anyone?

Still mulling what to buy deeper in the store, a reporter found Jane Dennett.

When I displayed the miniature Sugar Daddy I had latched onto, Dennet launched into profound memory: You could put Sugar Daddys on the stove, get it soft and melty and then drizzle it over vanilla ice cream.”

Back at the cash register, Tran said she has taken off a week from her engineering duties to get the store rolling. She has no intention of quitting her day job; she has hired one full-time staffer and is looking for two part-timers to add on.

When someone expressed an interest in the giant jaw breakers (pictured) in a the canister nearby, Tran showed her engineering chops. She said she had researched the largest commercially available Jaw Breaker, and found that one with a five-inch diameter was the limit.

She seemed disappointed that she could not obtain those — most of her suppliers are not local but from out of town — but happily settled for the five immense items that sat, as a challenge, it seemed, by the register.

Those are four-and-three quarters inches,” she said. From an engineering — and candy — point of view, that’s close enough to five, she added. It will take you at least one year to lick that,” she said.

Meanwhile, just a few storefronts up Chapel, at 1046, Renee Liven and Naomi Lehrer, two long-time employees at the Wave Gallery, which also sells candy, were arriving for work and opening their door beside a large window display of chocolates.

Wave, which also rents from Yale University Properties and which has been in business for about three decades, sells candy but also jewelry, clothing, among many other items.

It [Canditopia] won’t be much of a problem,” said Liven.

The difference between what they will sell and ours is that ours is artisan chocolate by award-winning chocolatiers,” added Lehrer.

Yale spokesman Patrick O’Brien said that the build-out at Canditopia had gone efficiently, with a new floor put down and also new sinks as required by code for the handling of food.

Then he proceeded to purchase some Razzles.

Why Razzles?

In [13 Going on Thirty,” he explained, Jennifer Garner eats it, and your tongue’s supposed to turn razzle red.”

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