A gift for confectionery
What began as a casual conversation a few months ago between Sonia Rose store owner Sonia Holbrook and one of her wholesalers crystallized last month into a new confectionery shop in downtown Lancaster.
Mary Ellen Kauffman, owner of Bonbonnière, is now a neighboring shopkeeper at 50 N. Queen St., as well as a supplier of the fabric flowers Holbrook incorporates into the purses she makes and sells.
Sonia Rose once occupied the space across the hall where Bonbonnière just opened, but moved last September to the larger space formerly occupied by Bella Boo.
Calling on Holbrook in the new space, Kauffman was curious about what would become of the old space.
“She asked me, ‘What would you like to see over there?’ ” Holbrook recalled, pointing to her former location, “and I told her a candy store.”
Something clicked in Kauffman. She likes candy — butter caramels from Minnesota, freeze-dried fruit covered with chocolate, handmade chocolates shaped like sailboats and crisp little cigar-shaped Yoku Moku confections from Japan.
“We decided to open a store with what we always bought as a family,” Kauffman said. “We have brought to Lancaster candy that was a favorite in the family for years and years.”
