Buffalo’s Best Kept Offers Delicious Treats and Some of the Best Architecture in the City
"I learned that this century-old candy shop opened in 1919 by George Kaiser and his wife and moved into a Morton Woolfe–designed building in 1927; it was taken over almost by accident in the 1980s when brothers Phil and Ron Buffamonte saw a for-sale sign, secured an SBA loan, and committed to preserving the landmark. The shop came with original early-1900s machines—vacuum cookers for lollipops, a national starch machine for casting creams, caramels and truffles, an 18' Greer enrober and a 60' enrober—and the brothers had to relearn how to run the equipment and recreate recipes through a lot of trial and error. Learning the art of sponge candy proved the most difficult, but that regional Western New York favorite—a honeycomb-textured confection made by adding baking soda to a sugar and corn syrup blend—is now their top seller at about 400 pounds a day. The operation is large-scale (25,000 sq ft of production space, six 300-lb chocolate melters and a machine that can wrap 80 pieces per minute) and produces truffles, nut clusters, molded chocolates, salt water taffy and 24 flavors of old-fashioned lollipops; the shop is open year-round serving ice cream and candy, sells online and through retailers (including in North Buffalo, Kenmore, Amherst and Cheektowaga), and has been restored while retaining original fixtures like the lighting, candy cases and soda fountain as a listed New York State and national historic landmark." - Tori Allen
