A few hours after departing Paisley Park, Susan told me she had a second, secret destination in store for me. Not only did she make sure my phone was fully charged, but she insisted I bring my GoPro camera with me too, as this was guaranteed to be the highlight of the trip. The gravel parking lot and tall, yellow silo connected to a long metal building did not reveal what was inside. It wasn’t until we approached the building that I saw a sign identifying the building as the “largest candy store in Minnesota.”
The candy store is large in multiple ways. For example, the building itself is very long, but also tall. Different candies have been organized by type into different rooms, and each room has tal, vaulted ceilings with things to look at.
Each room’s theme was unrelated to the candy. There was an underwater room, a princess room, and Harry Potter room. The largest room in the store was the silo we had seen from outside. The entire room had a sci-fi theme, with everything from a Tardis standing in the middle of the room to a model Millennium Falcon hanging from the ceiling. Above our heads, life-sized figures from Star Wars, Star Trek, and Guardians of the Galaxy peered over us.
“Is this what you wanted me to see?” I asked.
“No, not yet!”
There were so many things to look at and see that we realized we hadn’t spent any time at all actually looking at the candy. It goes without saying that the store has pretty much every kind of candy you can imagine. The sci-fi room had, among other things, a large collection of Japanese and Korean snacks. We found large sugar-free areas, and even an area with candy cigarettes.
While browsing through the Pez display, Susan grabbed my hand. “It’s about to start!” The two of us walked quickly toward the back corner of the store, where I found myself face to face with… a band. Not just any band, mind you — this was The Confectionaires, with Jesse Jelly Bean on lead guitar, Corey Candy Corn on keyboards, Marty M&M on sax, Sammy Snickers on drums, and the Licorice Trio (Laurie, Lulu, and Lily) on backup vocals. This was about to be amazing! An LED clock counted down the seconds until the show was about to begin.
And then, this happened:
This was the performance Susan made sure I brought my good camera for. “It looked more impressive on the website,” she later admitted. Believe it or not, we waited another five minutes to watch the band perform a second time.
Definitely by design, the sci-fi room and band are located about as far from the entrance/exit as you can get, meaning once you’re there, you’ve got to walk through a mile’s worth of candy to exit. We picked up some unique chips, cookies, and snacks to take back to the AirBnB with us. The store was definitely something to behold, and if you’re in the area you should definitely stop by to see it. Just don’t go when you’re hungry!
