Candy store owner Lillian Turano has always loved sweets. In fact, when she was five years old, she ate all the candy canes that were about height from her family’s Christmas tree.
“I was getting into trouble, actually,” said Turano, whose mother’s name, by the way, is Candy Group. “I love anything sweet.”
Now she is the owner of the old candy store Sweets on High, which opened on October 1 in Wadsworth. Her goal is to bring back an old-fashioned candy store to downtown, similar to the former closet Caroline used to take her children to when they were little.
“We wanted to bring that old-fashioned, downtown feel to Wadsworth,” she said.
Turano set up a pop-up candy store for a week in May in a storefront space owned by her friend Rhonda Abbott, who runs Opal Dragonfly in downtown Wadsworth. It went well, she said, and asked Abbott about renting the place to open a candy shop full time.
The TikTok video Gianna made — which shows them buying pool noodles, spray paint, cellophane and balls to create big lollipops, gumballs and more — drew 1 million views in four days. Turano said the sweets on High’s TikTok account now have 1.6 million views and 12,000 followers, which helped bring kids to the store.
“There’s a lot of candy that comes across on TikTok, so we’re trying to make sure we carry what it is,” Turano said.
This includes retro satellite chips, which are candies in the shape of flying saucers filled with assorted candy beads. This is the candy bought by 10-year-old Kate Love of Wadsworth, and it goes straight to what she calls a “Tik Tok candy bar” for Turano.
Sweets on Hay at Wadsworth is a family effort
Husband Aaron and kids, college student Blake, and high school students Brayden and Gianna all helped outfit the candy store, Turano, 48, said, including painting fun pastel stripes on one large wall.
“They all put blood, sweat and tears into this place,” said Turano, who grew up in Akron and now lives in Wadsworth.
The store, located at 110 High St. , to be friendly to children. When the kids stopped by after school on Wednesday, Turano asked them how their school year had been going so far. I also encouraged them to take a quarter off a plate near the register to help themselves to a large gumball from one of the many gumball machines in the store.
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Kids can also play retro video games for free, including Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and more. Before opening, Turano was asked if she would put a limit on the number of children allowed in the store.
The answer was not at all. Turano’s goal was to create a space where children feel welcome.
“It’s all about getting them to have a place they can enjoy themselves,” she said.
She recounted the sweet scene of two children leaving the store recently with a candy cigarette in one hand and a fun soda in the other.
“This is the next generation of kids doing what we did,” Turano said, enjoying themselves at the neighborhood pastry shop.
Older “kids” have fun in the store too. Two guys in their 20s recently stopped by and bought some of her soda flavors, including corn-butter and pickles-flavored sodas. They sat at the store’s lime-green counter near the large front windows to savor the unusual flavours.
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“They just sat there and laughed their heads off,” Turano said.
On opening day October 1, Torano already sold out of the pickle-flavored soda, which has since been restocked.
Desserts at peak hours and more
Sweets on High is open from 11am-7pm Tuesday through Friday and 11am-4pm Saturdays.
At this shop, you can get everything from bubbly cigars to Pet Tarantula Jelly Belly Gummy candies to vintage Nik-L-Nips—small bottles of wax that kids bite down on the top to get to the liquid candy inside. Old-fashioned chewing gums include Beemans, Black Jack and Clove, with a clove flavour.
Kids can buy four treats for a dollar from behind the counter, ranging from mint pies to Swedish fish. Others are three for one dollar, including Vintage Lemonheads, Boston Baked Beans and Charleston Cheese. Candy bracelets and necklaces cost 49 cents.
Sweets on High also offers international candies, including Pulparindo from Mexico, which features real tamarind fruit, and Smarties from Canada, which are actually chocolate.
“If you can find them at a gas station, you probably won’t find them here,” Turano said of her store’s unique offerings.
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The shop owner said that the average price of candy in the shop is $2.
Sweets on High also offers ice cream, including FatBoy ice cream sandwiches and Kit Kat ice cream cones, for $1 to $1.25.
“We try to make sure everything is very kid-friendly,” Turano said.
Future dessert plans might include a hot chocolate bomb making tutorial
Turano has always been cunning and always loved sweets. During the pandemic, I started offering virtual hot chocolate bomb making lessons.
I also started making freeze-dried candy by slowly freezing and reheating the candy while removing its moisture. This causes the candy bars to appear like Skittles and become very crunchy and light, with intense flavour.
Turano, who expects approval soon from the Ohio Department of Agriculture to sell freeze-dried candies in her store, will make them with a freeze dryer in a commercial kitchen at Radiant Life Church in Wadsworth.
Newer candy like Nickelodeon Slime and Smarties Squeeze Candy on the Sweets on the Shweets on the High shelves
Turano also took the advice of her three children and stocked up on some modern and popular candy. They include Nickelodeon Slime, Smarties Squeeze Candy in a tube, and Graffiti Splash candy, which you squirt in your mouth and change the color of your tongue.
“Anything sour is very popular,” she said.
On Wednesday, 7-year-old Harper Fink of Wadsworth opted for a bright pink toilet of Sour Flush candy, which features a lollipop “plunger” for dipping powdered sour inside the bowl. She also chose a large candy necklace.
“I love those,” Harper said.
So what’s an old Turano favorite?
“Nostalgia, Idiot Weaver gives me everything back,” she said.
She said the dessert, which comes in five fruity flavors, is the consistency of large sweet pancakes but not sour.
Arts and restaurant writer Kerry Clawson can be reached at 330-996-3527 or [email protected]