Imagine our surprise today when we saw a gleaming new outpost of Williamsburg candy shop Handsome Dan’s occupying the storefront that 30-year-old A-1 Music vacated in January.
“I didn’t tell anyone,” said owner Daniel Levin (who yes, could be considered handsome) of yesterday’s opening.
Even if it hasn’t hit the internet, word is officially out amongst the kids across the street at P.S. 19, who bum-rushed the store after school today. They looked like — well — kids in a candy store as they swarmed Levin and listened to his advice on how they, too, could become taffy tycoons.
For grade-schoolers on a budget, the store stocks throwback sweets like Big League Chew (five varieties!) and Lemonheads; for locavores, there are chocolates from Nunu, Fattycakes, Fine & Raw, and Mast Brothers; and for cacao connoisseurs there are (for the first time) products from Bonnat and other European chocolatiers. (For the drunks who wander in when the store is open late on weekends, Levin recommends Pop Rocks.)
This location — right across from another newcomer, Schnitz — is twice as big as the one in the Bedford Avenue mini-mall and offers a whole lot more room than the stand at Hester Street Fair, which means that in addition to homemade cotton candy (blue and pink are currently on offer, with flavors like earl gray and rose coming soon) and sno cones (coming in the next weeks) Levin will roll out new offerings like fresh-squeezed lemonade. As if selling bottles of Moxie wasn’t enough.
Handsome Dan’s, 186 First Ave., bet. East 11th and 12th Sts.