Family Ties

MEGHAN WITT – LIFESTYLE AND BEAUTY EDITOR

On the corner of Main and 5th street in downtown Grand Junction, there’s a hard-to-miss rainbow awnings. The well-known candy store was launched in 2012 by Elise and her husband Ben Hall, and its became a staple around town. Elise Hall never envisioned herself being a businesswoman. She grew up in Basalt and raised her family there too. But when it was time for her kids to enter high school they wanted the full experience. They wanted the feeling of attending a big high school and during this time Elise’s father was also retiring to Southern California. Elise and Ben decided up and move in with her father. At this point, she was a full-time nurse. After her kids graduated high school and college, the Halls were wondering what’s next.

“We don’t think we can retire in California, it’s too busy there, “she said.

But what inspired Elise to think about opening her own business was her cousin Annie. Annie owned and started the Aspen Candy store. Annie knew there was an opening on a corner that was for sale. The Halls didn’t hesitate and they interview to buy their lease, they got the lease and CandyTime Shoppe was created. In a short amount of time, the Halls quiet their jobs and moved back to Colorado, and embarked on a new journey. Both Ben and Elise had very little business experience. Ben knew the back end and knew enough to get their business off the ground.

The first location was on the corner on 500 Main, right by the Hog and the Hen, which happens to be the Hall’s sons’ business. The first couple of years of Candytime Shoppe, went well. They were able to get customers, able to keep it operating, and it was overall huge success in town. At the time, there was an opening for a bigger space.

 “We weren’t in a place to buy it or even get into it,” she said.

 But fast forward a couple of years, the new space was fully renovated and then put back on the market. The Halls decided to move to the bigger space so they could expand and they moved into that new space two years ago.

They wanted to start selling ice cream, have a fudge station, and still offer so many other candies they knew it was time to expand a look for a bigger space.

“We have over 130 flavors of sodas.”

They have just recently moved within the last 2 years.

The Halls are looking toward their future. They are looking towards retiring in the coming years. With family ties, their son Cooper and his wife Mary are moving their business to CandyTime Shoppe and run both businesses together in one space.

2020 was hard, especially for small businesses. Sadly, at the beginning of the lockdown, CandyTime Shoppe had to shut its doors for two months. Hall said that everyone on her staff was shocked, saddened and hoping for the best. It was hard on her, she missed her community, and her regular customers. She also missed seeing the Monday morning rush of people filling their candy bags full of unique sweets. She missed the after-school rush of children flooding her store wanting ice cream. Something that really made Elise proud of opening a candy store was seeing all different age ranges finding candies of their liking.

“You have candies for toddlers, 1-year-olds to 100-year-olds that all find something they love here,” she said.

           As the restrictions loosed up a little, so did CandyTime Shoppe middle of May. They would open their doors slowly with very limited hours. They followed all the COVID-19 guidelines that were in place. But once the word got out business has been back to normal, it’s been busy ever since. When it comes to her employees, she thankfully didn’t have to completely layoff anyone, but during the early stages of the pandemic, she furloughed the majority of them because of the shutdown. She thankfully was given a grant to help pay for those couple of months without business, which helped her with rent.  

           When Elise Hall looks back on her life, she never expected herself to be running a candy store, let alone being a businesswoman. She knew it wouldn’t be easy and with her determination and hard work, she knew she could make her store feel memorable and make want to come back. But with retiring up next, she can’t wait to see how her son and daughter-in-law run it. She plans on giving them full control. But that won’t stop her from checking in once in and while. She’s extremely happy to hand over the keys to her son and let him shine.  

            Just recently, the Hog and the Hen moved in with Candy time. Mary and Cooper who own the Hen and the Hog made the executive decision to combine with Candytime and share the same location.

“Combining into one store reduce the amount of costs, including employees, rent,” she said.

Since this decision was made has greatly benefited both businesses.

“It has brought in new customers for the candy store and the deli that might not have walked into one of the business,” she said.

Both Halls are happy with their decision in keeping the family business going.