Candy store offers old-time favorites

Remember those wax candy bottles, where you bite off the top, suck the juice out, and then chew the leftover wax, until it makes one big teeth-mark covered wax ball in your mouth?

Well, now it's time to introduce your kids and grandkids to those, and all of the other fun candies from your childhood.

Hi Sweetie, which recently opened along Randall Road in the Algonquin Commons Shopping Center, has them all, including candy-filled flying saucers, candy lipsticks and those yummy candy buttons - the ones where you bite the colored candy off the strip of paper, and a little paper comes with it, but you don't really mind that much because they're so much fun to eat.

Customers travel from up and down the Randall Road corridor to visit Hi Sweetie, where they get a dose of nostalgia and fun in the same visit. When you walk into the store, candy and sugar abound. And there are convenient silver buckets inside for you to fill with your favorites. It makes you feel like a kid again, with the hard-to-find candies from your childhood everywhere you look.

Much of the candy owner Pamela Johnsen carries also travels quite a distance to get here. She carries many European chocolates and candies, as well as sweets from Mexico and Australia. She also has candies unique to different states in the country.

"I try to carry things you can't find elsewhere," Johnsen said.

Johnsen, a grandmother with lots of experience with candy-hungry kids, also has a new section in her store. Inspired by her own grandsons with allergies, she offers some candies that are nut-free, dye-free or milk-free.

Her pint-size customers, she says, are her top priority. Often, she said, children get overlooked in stores. But at Hi Sweetie, they are the main focus.

Johnsen artfully deals with the overzealous kids too, who pile more candy in their buckets than their parents would like to buy. Once they're at the counter, she helps weed out the candy, while the kids keep on smiling at the thought of the sweets they're about to eat.

She first opened Hi Sweetie in downtown Algonquin four years ago.

She said she loved the downtown setting, because it felt more like an old-fashioned candy store. But over the years, she said, many of the other businesses there closed down and she felt a need to move to stay afloat, and picked the busy Randall Road corridor. She opened the new spot in December.

"I had to move to keep going, and being here is an incredible opportunity," she said. "I hope it works out for us."

Many of her old customers, including a man who stops in regularly to get sen-sen, and another who stops in every other week for a pound of licorice imported from Australia, have followed her to Randall Road. But she also has new customers who've found her fun shop, and is hoping to find even more.

Customers who've been dreaming about a candy from their childhood, or of one they tasted overseas, should give her a try, she said.

"If it's out there, I can usually find it," Johnsen said.

In addition to candy, Johnsen also carries nostalgic items, such as large Pez dispensers, and offers other gift items.

She also gives parents a chance to pick up unique goody bags for their kids birthdays, starting at $1 a piece. And soon, she says, she'll start offering birthday parties and scouting events in the new store.

To contact Hi Sweetie, call (847) 458-9898.

Sweet Day sampling: On Valentine's Day, Fresh Market along Randall Road in Geneva is offering you a chance to sample appetizers from a famous New York restaurant.

From noon to 4 p.m., you'll get to try ready-to-serve sweet, slow-roasted peppers with sunflower oil, pine nuts and white raisins from Rao's, a restaurant featuring Southern Italian cooking that first opened its doors in New York in 1896. Rao now sells prepared foods, and you can try them at this event.

Keep 'em coming: Remember, send me or call me with any ideas you have on new or unique businesses or events happening along the Randall Road corridor from Batavia to Crystal Lake.

Amy Williams' column covers all the news of business along the Randall Road corridor from Batavia to Crystal Lake. Contact her at randallbiz@comcast.net or at (847) 894-5036.