Oser Communications Group

6 SNACKING NEWS October 2018 SNACKING NEWS SNACKING NEWS SNACKING NEWS Pittsburgh-Based Candy Shop Celebrates Fun and Delight BY ROBIN MATHER A floor inlaid with pennies in the ice cream parlor at Grandpa Joe's Candy Shop's flagship store in the Strip District of Pitts- burgh, Pennsylvania, might be the best metaphor for owner Christopher J. Beers's success. The floor was a wacky idea that came to Beers out of the blue. It took a fair amount of planning, but some serendipity came into play, too. It cost more than he ex- pected – more than $1,000, "or $2.14 a square foot," Beers points out. It was much more work to finish than he thought it would be, and his trusted employees helped with the work. And yet the floor, with its giant ice cream cone motif made of shiny new pen- nies just inside the door, and its carefully designed border of darker, older pennies, is a stunning success. Customers remark on it the minute they enter the ice cream parlor, one of three side-by-side store- fronts in the Strip that Grandpa Joe's oc- cupies. Grandpa Joe's Candy Shop is also a stunning success. Beers opened the store in the Strip, Pitts- burgh's functioning warehouse district and a popular tourist destination because of its ethnic grocers and restaurants, in 2012. "I chose this neighborhood because the area was missing a candy shop," the 39-year- old Beers says. Back then, the store occupied only one storefront. But as years passed, and neigh- bors retired or went out of business, the store expanded to occupy three storefronts at 2124 Penn Avenue, the Strip's main drag. With two floors, the store stocks 265 kinds of soda from around the country, and more than 750 candy bar brands, for wholesale and retail sales. The upstairs is devoted to bulk candy packaging, but the downstairs, with its floor-to-ceiling dis- plays and its creaky wooden floors, is a maze of candy, toys and novelties, includ- ing a bacon-scented stick-on mustache, squirrel underwear and other oddities. This location may expand soon, Beers hints. The store even has a full stock of Necco confections, though Necco closed sud- denly in July. Beers's face creases into a slightly wicked smile when he announces this business coup. "Heard the news, called my supplier, and bought everything they had in stock," he says. Today, Grandpa Joe's has six stores and a distribution center in nearby Robinson, Pennsylvania. With stores in Beaver and Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania; Chillicothe, Middletown, and Miamisburg, Ohio, Beers employs about 55 people, and says the average store is around 2,100 square feet. "Some are as small as 900 square feet, and the largest is about 3,000 square feet," he says. "I expect to have 10 stores by the end of the year," Beers says, with most in western Pennsylvania and neighboring Ohio. "I hope to open another six to 10 next year. I'm trying to double the size of the busi- ness every year, and so far I've been able to do so." That he's been able to grow the business so quickly and so profitably is nothing short of remarkable. "I have zero debt and no bank loans," Beers says. "I've never taken a penny from anyone else." He says the key to his success has been to "have a positive attitude and work real hard." Though he and his wife, Jennifer, have three daughters – Mia, 9; Hailey, 7; and Alexa, 4 – Beers says he and his wife agreed long ago that he'd run the business while she runs the family. Not that he's to- tally hands-off with the girls: As we sat to talk, he fielded a phone call about trying to run down a replacement accessory for Mia's American Girl doll. Business as a Source of Fun Beers has an easy smile and a droll sense of humor. "I can be that guy in a business suit," he says, as he talks about the kind of business stuff he clearly doesn't care for much. "But I can also be that guy with the whoopee cushion in my back pocket." Beers is often both at the same time, one suspects. He says he has been obsessed with candy since he saw Gene Wilder in the 1971 movie Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. It was not just the candy, he says, but the imagination and the wit of the can- dies in the movie that caught his fancy. The Everlasting Gobstoppers. The lickable wallpaper. The Fizzy Lifting Drink. They appealed to the boy growing up in the Pocono mountains in northeastern Pennsylvania, so it's not surprising that the boy grew into a man who tired of the restaurant business, put away his culinary degree and decided to open his own candy paradise. Even now, Beers's easy-going public persona cloaks a mind that never stops thinking about the business. "My wife wants to turn out the lights to go to bed, and I'm still scrolling through posts on Facebook to see what my competitors are doing," he confesses. Beers says he uses social media, like Facebook, to promote Grandpa Joe's Candy Shop, just as many business owners do. But he also looks at the photos that his competitors post. Perhaps they have brands that he should be carrying, he says. On Instagram, he searches by geo- graphic location near his stores to see what consumers are saying. When he's consid- ering a new location, those customers' In- stagram accounts can help him understand what they might want. In fact, "staying alert and fluid" is part of his business strategy by design, he says. "We never carried fidget spinners because I totally missed that," he says. "But the guy across the street (from the Strip District store) made a lot of money with them." Still, his Necco products buy is a great example of what he's talking about. Another example is found in the ice cream parlor. The ice cream hasn't been its best seller, as Beers points out. So he swapped out about half the ice cream of- ferings and replaced them with something else. "Edible raw cookie dough is hot right now," he says, and customers love buying a scoop or two to eat as they stroll the Strip – it doesn't melt in summer's heat as ice cream does. Top Tips for Retail Success Retailers should consider their displays, he says. "I always say 'stack it high and watch it fly.' You need to have a lot of what you've got. You don't want to look like you're going out of business." And they should listen to their cus- tomers. "One day I got a call from a guy who wanted to know if we carried the little marshmallows that go into cereal," he says. "We didn't – I didn't even know such a thing existed! But I made some calls and found a supplier, and now we sell 280 pounds of those little marshmallows a week." Retailers should never hesitate to work closely with suppliers. "I demand that manufacturers keep me in the loop," he says. "I buy big and they appreciate that." But more than anything, he says, re- tailers should set up their stores for "the experience and 'wow!' factors," Beers says. That Grandpa Joe's succeeds in both is evident in hundreds of online re- views. "Great candy store, especially for the hard-to-find favorites," says one. "Also a great selection of sodas in every flavor you can imagine and some hand- made chocolates and an ice cream counter. Throw in some fun novelty items and you can't go wrong here. Per- fect for all ages." Part of the Community A big part of Grandpa Joe's Candy Shop's role in the community is generosity, Beers says. "We say yes to every donation re- quest," he says. "We take part in commu- nity events and festivals, too." He notes that the company's Dilly Pickle Cotton Candy was such a hit at the end of a community charitable run that the company ran out on the first day. (Want to try it yourself? You can buy a 1.2-ounce tub for $4.95, or anything else that Grandpa Joe's sells, at www.grandpajoes- candyshop.com.) It's natural to wonder which of the many candy bars his stores carry is his own fa- vorite. "I didn't carry Three Musketeers bars for the first two years because I knew I'd eat them all," he says, laughing. But nowadays, his favorite is California candy manufacturer Annabelle's Rocky Road S'mores bar – which the store carries. "I really love chocolate and marshmallow," he says. Apparently, Beers listened carefully when Gene Wilder sang "Pure Imagina- tion" in that long-ago movie: "Anything you want to, do it. Want to change the world? There's nothing to it." He listened, and he believed. n known as the star of the Discovery Chan- nel's "Dirty Jobs" and CNN's "Some- body's Gotta Do It." Educational sessions this year include small-operator modules on developing in-store training, preventing complains and handling unhappy customers, devel- oping employee incentives, positive up- selling, growing your customer base through gasoline, store, and car wash pricing strategies, and getting the most out of managers. Other sessions include "Be-Friending Social Media," "Improving the Execu- tion of Fresh," "Foodservice Trends: Now, New, Next," and "Meal Delivery: Partner, Do It Yourself or Something Else?" The NACS Show attracts more than 23,500 buyers and sellers in the con- venience and fuel retailing sector. The "Cool New Products Preview Room" features products in seven categories: Green, Health & Wellness, New De- sign, New Flavors, New to the Industry, New Services and New Technology. The Tech Edge program partners with industry organization Conexxus to showcase new tech products and solu- tions appropriate for convenience store owners. For more information, visit the NACS website at www.convenience.org. n NACS Show Continued from Page 1

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