Photo by Kate Morris
Photo by Kate MorrisCandy shop owners seek to satisfy customers tastes
Just off the Square sits a small store containing shelves stocked with candy bars, bacon-flavored items and nearly every flavor of soda available.
Sweet Tooth Candy & Cafes owners Elvis and Anna Lee Marte said they pride their eclectic shop on carrying something for everyoneincluding baby boomers in search of hard-to-find candy from their youth.
The colorful candy store opened in February in the space where 3rd Squirrel Record Shop was once located. The building was built in the early 1900s to house the Church of Christ, Elvis said, but was sold and converted into retail spaces.
Although he admitted to being a chocolate fanatic, the idea to open a candy shop was actually inspired by retail spaces in the Dominican Republic.
The way it works is instead of having big stores, every family owns a little a convenient store, he said. On every corner you will see a little store packed from wall to wall, and you will be taken care of by the ownerhe works 12 to 15 hours a day, and thats how he feeds his family.
He decided to attempt the concept in Georgetown.
We went to one of the bodegas [in the Dominican Republic] about five summers ago, and I told my wife, You know, we can do something like this but a little more fancy without leaving the essence of an old mercantile where youre taken care of by the owner, he said.
The store started with three shelves, Elvis said, and every day he said he would make sure it had new merchandise. Since opening in February Sweet Tooth has grown four times larger than it started, he said.
Everything is by customer request, he said. If someone asks if I [have] a candy, I will go hunt it down myself.
Sweet Tooth has more than 300 different bottled sodas for sale in the shop, including unique creations by Elvis himself, a self-proclaimed soda aficionado.
We do a special homemade soda every day, and were known for our homemade root beer floats and our Square Dance Mojito, he said. Its fresh pineapple, organic mint from El Monumento and carbonated water.
He said his store has one of the largest selections of sodas in Texas and has more than 25 different root beers in stock and 23 types of cream soda.
The store offers choices such as Buffalo wing and sweet cornflavored sodas. Elvis even offers a soda called Kitty Piddle by Always Averys Beverages, which is an orange and pineapple-blended soda.
The store is also stocked with novelty items.
We [offer] everything that is baconwe [have] bacon soda to bacon mustaches, he said. Bacon Band-Aids to bacon gum ballswe try to make sure theres nothing out there that is bacon [-flavored] that we dont have.
The walls are hidden behind candy jars and stacked candy bars, which Elvis said he makes sure to purchase from various locations throughout the world to offer customers from overseas a little piece of home.
Elvis said he also focuses on stocking the store with candy similar to what was available from the 1920s to the 1950s such as wax lips and Turkish taffy.
We have everything for everybody from just gummies to old-fashioned candy to the newer sour stuff, he said. If its out there, we should have it.
- Sweet Tooth Candy & Cafe
- 1102 S. Austin Ave., Ste. 107
- 512-864-9800
- www.sweettoothcandycafe.com
- Hours: Sun.Thu. 11 a.m.7 p.m., Fri.Sat. 11 a.m.9 p.m.
