Island of Misfit Candy

February 24, 2006 4:24 PM

After reading Steve Almond's "Candyfreak," I'm curious about candy seconds stores.

Have any of you been to a store selling choclate seconds? What did you get? And -- most importantly -- are there any in Seattle, preferably north of the ship canal? I'd also appreciate suggestions for Seattle candy stores that sell obscure, regional chocolates. I know they're available online, but I'd like to browse in person.

posted by The corpse in the library to Food & Drink (13 answers total)

Best answer: Dilettante Chocolates has an outlet/seconds store in Seattle. It's across the street from Garfield High School. When I went to school there, we used to buy huge (5 lb.) discs of chocolate left over from their truffle-making. They also have (or at least had) very cheap bulk candies (e.g. gummy bears), and often had packaged candies that had been damaged or melted, at steep discounts.
posted by mbrubeck at 4:30 PM on February 24, 2006

There's also an almond roca store in the area that sells "manufacturing bloopers".
posted by clarahamster at 5:04 PM on February 24, 2006

I've been to one in Indiana. I'd post a link if I could remember the name, but was along US-30, just east of Merrillville. It was a factory/outlet store for their manufacturing plant on the premises. The "seconds" were just like their regular chocolates, except for aesthetic differences like a swirl that didn't fall the right way, or a truffle that was irregularly shaped. Still quite yummy!
posted by SuperSquirrel at 5:33 PM on February 24, 2006

I'm not sure either of these gets to your area, but I have two thoughts:

Pepperidge Farm Thrift Stores sell seconds from everything their parent company Campbell's makes, including Godiva chocolates.

Secondly, Fannie May stores have reopened. In the 80's they sold bags of seconds. They were randomized bags with a jumble of whatever didn't come out right. Yummy, with a bit of intrigue
posted by NortonDC at 5:36 PM on February 24, 2006

Fannie May used to have a seconds shop on Montrose (?) Avenue in Chicago under the El. It was really a regular shop, I guess, but they had lots of seconds. They had them separated into bags based on what they were. I think they also had mixed bags, but it's been a long time and my memory fails me.

Google local has lots of returns for Candy & Confectionery
posted by FlamingBore at 6:05 PM on February 24, 2006

Second the Dilettante shop. I used to go there all the time. You can get great little paper bags of broken candy for fifty cents and alll sorts of weird chocolate seconds for cheap. It's a great place to go around the holidays because they have a ton of overstock. It's right on the 7 and 48 buses I think, and it's easy to park there.
posted by jessamyn at 7:54 PM on February 24, 2006

It happens to be a little south of the ship canal but the chocolate here is fantastic! warning Mozart music
I was there once, 25 years ago at least,and I remember it as the best I ever had.
posted by hortense at 8:43 PM on February 24, 2006

There's a Pepperidge Farms factory in Logan, Utah that's a popular place to stop on the way to or from Idaho.

You can buy big bags of Mint Milano cookies there dirt cheap. And goldfish, and whatever else you'd ever want.

And Logan is such a nice little mountain town, it's hard not to feel great while you're there.
posted by SlyBevel at 12:28 AM on February 25, 2006

The Brown & Haley outlet store, which clarahamster mentioned above, is a fabulous source of cheap chocolates, and a necessary stop on any road trip down I-5.
posted by ottereroticist at 1:10 AM on February 25, 2006

SuperSquirrel - That sounds like the South Bend Chocolate Company's plant, but I think Claeys(sp) might have a store out that way as well?
posted by Orb2069 at 7:34 AM on February 25, 2006

Don't know any near you, but most chocolate factories will have a seconds store. These might be for employees only.

The only one that I've seen that was open to the public was Hershey's in Smith's falls, Ontario. While it mostly sold perfect candy bars in outers, it also had bulk broken chocolate bars for very little.

I used to go to the Rowntree's factory store in York, England, when I was little. It was amazing; broken unglazed Smarties for pennies a pound, imperfect biscuits (Kitkats, and my favourite, Breakaway). Often you'd get chocolates with unusual fillings; apparently it's cheaper run a new filling on top of an old one and scrap some production than to stop the line and clean out the fondant machine.
posted by scruss at 8:19 AM on February 25, 2006

So... can a person get the factories to ship seconds to one's retail store? 'cause I'm thinking a "Broken Candies" store could do pretty well in my neighbourhood...
posted by five fresh fish at 11:42 AM on February 25, 2006

I've been to a Russell Stover factory store in Missouri, somewhere along I-70.

If anybody knows if See's has one of these stores, please post details!
posted by Rash at 11:55 AM on February 25, 2006