But the changing face of American culture has reshaped the business over the years, especially the fact that in high school lunch rooms - once a place where a range of sweets were sold - candy has largely been banished by districts across the nation. (photo by Ken Blaze)Īlthough Halloween, Easter and the Christmas holiday season are when the majority of us think about candy the most, it is a year-round enterprise for people like Sheiman. The store stocks more than 800 bins of bulk candy, as well as many vintage varieties. “There’s probably $15,000 worth of candy right here.” “We are unique in that we do all three,” explains Scheiman, as he passes by an enormous bin of bagged jelly beans in the warehouse that will soon be on their way to a large grocery store chain. But it’s the wholesale distribution division that pays the bills. So is his online store, which operates under the name Groovy Candies. The retail part of his company is a success. Inside his office, which is filled with toy truck models with candy logos on their sides, Scheiman is all business. Scheiman loves visiting with families - often second- and third-generation customers who visit to grab an ice cream cone, play a round of mini golf and, of course, scour the store aisles for their favorite treats. There’s also Sweeties Golfland, which includes two 18-hole mini golf courses, a 5,000-gallon koi pond and a large gazebo that seats 40. The adjoining Sweeties Soda Shoppe opened earlier this year with a delightful farm-like feel that includes sliding barn doors, chicken-coop lighting and tractor seats on milk-can stools.
There’s also a 30-foot-long display of clear bins filled with jelly beans, as well as oversize lollipop statues, M&M characters the size of toddlers and a beautifully restored 1932 Ford truck that once delivered candy. But the stacks of vibrant candy boxes transform the space into a kaleidoscope of hues. The retail-and-warehouse space is a bare-bones interior filled with the sort of industrial shelving found at big-box home improvement stores. Scheiman moved his original operation from nearby Brooklyn, Ohio, to a $3.5 million complex he opened in 2015. And our last five years have been phenomenal.” But if I can’t pay for it, I don’t do it.
When I bought this 5-acre property in 2012, I had no debt. But at one time I opened 11 candy stores over 10 years - primarily in shopping malls - when I was really aggressive. “I had a really good job and all the perks. “It was a scary move,” says Scheiman, who started with just four employees and now employs 58. in 1982, eventually changing its name to b.a. Thomas Scheiman bought Bag-A-Sweet Candy Co. Scheiman bought a small wholesale company, Bag-A-Sweet Candy Co., in 1982, eventually changing the operation’s name to b.a. in Solon, beginning as a floor sweeper and leaving the company as general manager. Later, he participated in a high school work-study program at Ace Tobacco and Candy Co. A Cleveland native, Scheiman stocked candy in his grandfather’s Italian food store during his summers as a youth. In the center of the towering shelves stands owner Thomas Scheiman.
And, of course, this time of year, there are plenty of Halloween candies, even pumpkin spice-flavored Peeps. Those with higher-end chocolate tastes will swoon over the variety of Godiva and Ghirardelli chocolates. Pez collectors go wild over the sea of dispensers in stock, including a line featuring U.S. Sweetie is a dentist’s nightmare (or dream, depending on how one looks at it). With more than 800 bins of bulk candy, 300 types of soda pop in glass bottles, dozens of Jelly Belly jelly bean varieties and retro candies you never thought you’d see in stores again, b.a. Sweetie bills itself as the largest candy store on the continent. Sweetie Candy Co.’s 40,000-square-foot retail warehouse complex in Cleveland, the budget is history, and it’s not just the kids who have a tough time showing restraint.įeaturing more than $3 million worth of inventory, b.a. Blow the entire allowance on blue raspberry rock candy or save a couple dollars for Reese’s mini cups?īut by the time you wheel into aisle two of b.a. North America’s largest candy store would seem the sort of place where a mother can teach her children about the realities of budgeting.
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