The Candy Kitchen

♪♪ What can I get for you?

♪♪ Man: Two scoops of chocolate and a medium strawberry shake.

When you have someone that walks in the door that just says, oh, and their eyes light up and they say.

It's just like I remember 20 years ago when I came in here.

They haven't changed a thing.

They just have this comfort, but joy at the same time.

It's just -- it's just amazing.

When we were little kids, my grandma, on our birthdays, my grandma would walk us downtown and she walk us down to the Candy Kitchen.

Lynn: Here's our ice cream that's here if you want.

You want something?

We always say in some of our advertising a step back in time, and we're old fashioned service meant something.

And I think that's what we still try to provide today.

This building was built in 1856.

It was one of the first buildings built in Wilton.

There was a soda fountain put in here at some point after that, we suspect probably in the 1880s.

And then Gus Nopoulos actually reopened that soda fountain that had been in here and closed, and he reopened it in 1910 as the Candy kitchen.

It's just been here forever, and it's been an icon in the community.

I mean, the Nopoulos family running it since 1910, you know, has established for this community a consistency, which is amazing.

♪♪ And we spent a lot of time here with George and Thelma Nopoulos over the years, helping Thelma with lots of projects.

When it came time that this was, there was something to happen to the Candy Kitchen, where George Nopoulos died in 2015, Thelma didn't know what to do and she thought about tearing the building down and just liquidating everything.

And that's when Brenda to step in, but Thelma always kind of wanted it to be just left intact.

And that was our promise that we would leave it intact and celebrate the legacy of this family.

You said black raspberry?

Today I got a -- what is it?

It was a black and white, you know?

And because I said, boy, that looks good.

What's that?

It was good.

[ Laughs ] It was good.

I thought, oh my, that that's pretty rich for an old lady.

You know?

Brenda: I love making the banana split probably because it does take a little bit more time, but it's almost artistic.

I love to make a drink, a soda, a phosphate.

And the reason I like that is because in the menu we have, I don't know how many different flavors we have that we can make.

I love that experimentation.

Does that taste like 7 Up?

-It's better.

-It's better.

Oh, perfect.

It's a nice place to come and take the kids.

You know, without the Candy Kitchen -- the little ones love to have you come down and have an ice cream.

If you want to experience something that's truly unique that you don't see every day and really is the foundation of all other restaurants you've ever been to, come to a place like this.

Thank you guys.

Thanks for coming.

We'll see you next time.

♪♪