A sweet tooth isn’t required to enjoy one of the newest businesses to hit Main Street in Pleasant View, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. Sweet on Main is a new concept that swirls candy and community together into a new confection that will be hard to resist when doors open at the end of May.
Owners Darrelle Beaudry and Kyle Strane said they have a unique concept to set their shop apart from the malls, convenience stores, and big box retailers: Sweet on Main is a place for people to connect and enjoy a sweet reprieve from the hustle-and-bustle of life.
“No matter what your age, the shop is there for everyone,” Beaudry said. “We wanted to create a playful space where locals, students to seniors, could not only meet but arrange to display art, play music on the big porch and highlight products from area artisans. We’ll have various workshops available and create some fun happenings for socializing. We’re open and flexible to craft a space that can fulfill various needs, we’re evolving.”
Bright splashes of color greet customers as they walk into the Candy Room, the first of four rooms in Sweet on Main. Fuchsia walls and glittery butterflies form the backdrop for a cotton candy machine and shelves with rock candy and jars of sweets. Also coming soon to the Candy Room: popcorn balls and frosting shots. No cake is required, she said.
Next is the Bubble Room, which focuses on the fizzy of every kind. Bubble gum is found here, along with bubbles to blow and those to fill the bathtub.
Beyond the effervescence is the Meeting Room, a place for companies large and small to come together. The room offers a more business-style format that will have PowerPoint capability for meetings of various sizes.
Off the meeting room is the Party Room, where young and old can celebrate. Beaudry said patrons can rent the room for their own party, or she can help with some creative party planning, party favors, birthday crafts, and games for the kids. With a degree in early childhood education, Beaudry has worked with children for ten years and has lots of ideas.
At the center of the room is one of the most interesting lighting fixtures you will ever see: a bubble gum chandelier. Created by Beaudry herself, it used to be an ordinary brass light. But a little color and some creativity transformed it into a rainbow that customers want to crane their necks to look at again and again.
So how is it that a couple in their 50s are opening a community-centered sweet shop? Beaudry said she has always loved candy. As a four-year-old, she cherished family trips along the coast of New England, which almost always involved a stop at a small candy shop where she could fill a paper bag for a quarter.
Beaudry came to see candy as an equalizer, whether she was educating children with special needs, serving as an executive assistant at Harvard Law School, or working closely with researchers at a Switzerland-based pharmaceutical company.
“I would set out a bowl of candy wherever I worked, and it was always a way to connect,” with young ones just enjoying the sweets at a very basic level, to adults recalling fond memories of when they had last enjoyed treats like these, she said.
About three years ago, Beaudry and her love of confections would face a most unusual test. She woke up one morning a profoundly changed woman having lost her hearing and ability to balance. Beaudry experienced what would later be diagnosed as a rare form of sudden sensorineural hearing loss that included the loss of smell and taste.
“It was so incredibly strange and scary. The doctors were even challenged. It’s been a journey and a process of recovery to establish a new normal but I have and I believe things happen for a reason and it’s led me here to my family, my wonderfully supportive husband and the Pleasant View community. I have never been so happy and peaceful,” she explained.
Sweet on Main is located at 1105 Main Street in Pleasant View, Tenn., and is expected to open at the end of May.
