Schwartz Candies

Schwartz Candies was founded in 1939 by Al Schwartz. He purchased an already established business, which was not only a candy shop, but a restaurant as well. The store, originally located at 127 West 72nd Street in Manhattan ( between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues ), found a permanent home at 131 West 72nd Street in the mid-1940's. In the beginning, Schwartz Candies served everything from ice cream to sandwiches to filet mignon. Al started learning the art and skill of candymaking, along with operating the business. But running the restaurant brought Schwartz Candies near bankruptcy. When Al and his wife, Etta, had the opportunity to buy the 2-storey building at 131 West 72nd Street, they reopened only as a candy store. Schwartz Candies has focused on homemade confections ever since. Along the way, with great diligence, Al derived the recipe for the chocolate covered marshmallows that are still the hallmark of Schwartz Candies more than 60 years on. Schwartz Candies has always been a family affair. Al and Etta and their two elder daughters, Helene and Muriel, worked in the business from its inception. Etta passed away prematurely. When Al remarried, his second wife, Bertie, was a fixture at the store. Muriel eventually opened up her own stores, first in Manhattan, then in Flemington, New Jersey. By the middle 1970s, as Al and his longtime staff were aging, some changes needed to be made in the business. One major change was the purchase of an enrober, a chocolate-covering machine. For more than thirty years all of the candy at Schwartz Candies had been dipped by hand in the traditional fashion by skilled women with very nimble fingers. A hand-dipper poured a puddle of warm, tempered chocolate on a marble slab. With a clean hand she tossed a nakedmarshmallow into the puddle.