This B.C. candy store sends customers back to their childhood — and gives back to the community

In Port Alberni, B.C., a small business has been hard at work making candy by hand for holiday consumption.

Brenda Priest, head confectioner at Coombs Country Candy in the Vancouver Island city, approximately 200 kilometres northwest of Victoria, says candy just isn't the same when it's made by machines. 

"Anyone can go buy a Milky Way or a Mars bar or a package of fudge that's been made by a machine, but it doesn't have that same taste ... that's in there when you put your heart into candy," Priest said. 

"When we cook everything by hand, we use our eyes, we use our five senses. We really watch the stages of candy when we get our hands in there. It just adds that little bit of something."

Priest says her favourite part of the job is watching people come in and experience the joy of being in a 1930s-style candy store. Some of their most popular items during the holidays include their hand-pulled candy canes, chocolate stockings and peanut brittle — all made in-house.  

"It doesn't matter whether a person is two years old or 92 years old, when they step in the store, they become a child again," she said.

Priest was one of just three apprentices who studied under Murray Lawlor, who founded Coombs Country Candy, which was founded in Coombs  — a community around 40 kilometres east of Port Alberni — in 1975. He imparted his techniques on Priest back in 2020, when he decided to retire after 45 years of honing his craft. 

One of the things she learned was the shop's unique way of making peanut brittle.

Priest says water, glucose and sugar are all mixed in a big kettle. After bringing the mixture to a boil, peanuts are added, where they roast in the sugars, along with butter. 

The candy is dumped on a marble slab, shaped into a circle, before it's flipped and peeled apart into two halves. From there, the candy is stretched, cooled and cracked into hand-held pieces that are sold in Coombs Country Candy's signature striped packaging. 

According to the shop's website, Lawlor was inspired to open Coombs Country Candy after a visit to Seattle's Pike Place Market and seeing the lasting impact that artisanal chocolates left on visitors to the market. Noting that there were no other chocolatiers in the area, he began developing his craft and opened the doors to his store, specializing in handmade chocolate confections. 

Social enterprise

Lawlor moved the business to Port Alberni in 1993. It's there that Coombs Country Candy found a community, and became an attraction for both locals and tourists from around the world travelling on Highway 4. 

When Lawlor retired in 2020, Community Futures Alberni-Clayoquot, a non-profit that delivers business services in the area, took note of the store's impact and reputation within the community.

Wanting to maintain local jobs and ensure the business stayed in Port Alberni, the organization purchased the store.

According to Community Futures account manager Suzanne Payne, Coombs Country Candy acts as a social enterprise, with profits going back into programs that benefit the community, including entrepreneurial loans and emergency support when a wildfire closed Highway 4 back in the summer.

Despite no longer being family-owned, the candy shop strives to maintain its folksy vibe. 

"We've been here a long time, we're gonna be here a long time," Priest said.