At Sophia’s Candy Corner in West Lebanon, owner Sophia Lowe believes the adage “like a kid in a candy store” applies equally to adults.

“I find the adults come in and they are so excited because they remember what it was like to go to an old-time candy store,” Lowe said at her Glen Road location where her car, painted with candy colors, was parked out front.

Lowe’s decision to open a candy store came after a difficult period when her mother, with whom she had shared her idea, died of COVID-19.

“I told my husband I have got to do something else and this is what I want to do,” Lowe said. “The day I stopped teaching I opened this. It has really grown. The community seems to welcome it.”

There is no shortage of sugary treats in the Upper Valley, which is as replete with rows of convenience-store candy and freezers of supermarket ice cream as anywhere else in America. But Lowe’s shop, along with Ava’s Candy Counter, in White River Junction, and Something Sweet, in West Lebanon’s Powerhouse Mall, thrive on providing uncommon sugar experiences.

The three businesses are similar in that they aim to satisfy a sweet tooth and rely heavily on word-of-mouth advertising, they also look to distinguish themselves with differences in their product offerings. Sophia’s, for example, makes its own freeze-dried candy, and Ava’s rolled ice cream topped with candy pulls in customers.

‘Like a family’

Val Malmgren and her late husband spotted a vacant kiosk in the since-closed Diamond Run Mall in Rutland in 1989 and took a chance on it, opening their first store.

A few years later, the Malmgrens spotted the vacant space in the Powerhouse Mall when they came for dinner. When the Rutland mall closed in 2019, so did Something Sweet but customer loyalty remained.

“We have been here 34 years. On any day, we can see people come in here from Rutland,” Malmgren said, adding people from Connecticut and Massachusetts often stop on their way north and again on their return trip home.

Malmgren’s daughter, Melissa, said she still delivers candy to customers in Rutland.

Malmgren said they once had nine Something Sweet locations in three states but decided to downsize as they got older and now only have the Powerhouse Mall store.

While a number of businesses in the Powerhouse Mall have come and gone, Malmgren said they continue to do well.

“Because we know our customers,” Malmgren said one Saturday standing behind display cases filled with hundreds of mostly chocolate candies in different flavors and textures, including their most popular, something called a “turtle,” which has nuts mostly covered in chocolate.

“There is one customer who comes over from New York every summer and when he walks in, my daughter will say, ‘are you still eating those?’ and she tells him what they are. He can’t believe we remember. We are like a family here. Everyone knows everyone.”

Malmgren has survived through some recessionary times, including the Great Recession of 2008, and lately has seen chocolate prices soar. But she said, even when times aren’t good, people like to treat themselves every so often.

“No matter what goes on, when you come in here, you are not going to deny yourself a piece of candy,” Malmgren said.

Diverse offerings

At Sophia’s, Lowe stocks about 800 different candies, including sweets that can be scooped out of large jars — similar to what she remembers as a kid growing up in Littleton, N.H., where Chutters claims to have the longest candy counter in the world.

There are other offerings that Lowe believes are unique and in demand, such as international candies from Mexico, Great Britain and Sweden, to name just a few.

Lowe’s 27 years of teaching inspired her to stock international candy to meet the desires of children from different cultures.

“I thought it would be cool to have a place where they could get something they know,” Lowe said about the international section. The “normal” candy available in grocery, department and convenience stores is not a big seller in her store and she stocks very few of those items.

Sophia’s also has a wall of freeze-dried candy and ice cream that Lowe makes in the store using a freeze dryer she bought from her landlord. The freeze-dried products such as M&Ms and Milk Duds have a completely different appearance and a crunchy taste after all the moisture is removed.

Continued growth

“Downtown White River Junction changed dramatically in 2016, ‘17 and ‘18,” owner Jamie Fletcher said inside Ava’s, on Gates Street, across from Northern Stage. “There were a lot of new businesses, but really nothing for kids.”

At the time, the storefront was Fletcher Creations run by Scott Fletcher, Jamie’s husband.

“We called it ‘Candy Corner’ because it was in the corner of the store and then the candy took over everything,” said Jamie Fletcher, who also sells her homemade macaroons and rolled ice cream. “It is nice to feel nostalgia where we can find it. We all went to a candy shop as a kid, maybe with our grandparents or parents. It is just a moment to slow down a bit.”

There are as many as 80 jars on the shelves at Ava’s, named for Fletcher’s youngest daughter, who also is an unofficial market tester as she knows what kids like, said her mother. The business survived through the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 with curbside pickup for Easter baskets. A few years ago, they began serving the rolled ice cream and it “just took off,” Fletcher said.

Rolled ice cream starts with a liquid base of either chocolate or vanilla poured on a circular metal surface set at around -22 degrees. Using two metal spatulas, Fletcher works the mixture before carefully spreading it out in a square and then running the edge of a spatula down the square to divide it up into sections. She then rolls up each section, drops them vertically into a cup and puts on the toppings.

Not long after she began Ava’s, a friend in advertising advised Fletcher to put money into inventory instead of ads.

“ ‘Word of mouth will be your best marketing tool,’ ” Fletcher said she was told. “Every year it gets better. Every year, people know more about us and we continue to grow.”

Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.