For pastry chefs Laura Cid-Pfeiffer and Luis Perea, owners of the popular BomBon bakery in Pilsen, the idea of opening a candy shop down the street was just icing on the cake.
“A lot of our customers throw parties,” said Cid-Pfeiffer, standing under a tasseled red pinata. “They come to the bakery to buy cake but they needed the candies and balloons for the party. People were always saying, `When are you going to open up a dulceria’?”
While we in the U.S. buy most of our candy in supermarkets and department stores, Mexicans still have a tradition of shops dedicated solely to selling the sweets necessary for a lively party.
At BomBoncita, balloons, party plates and tableware line one wall, almost hidden behind a dangling line of pinatas. But the sugary heart of the store is the array of pops, suckers, chews and crunchables so familiar to the Mexican palate.
Peanut marzipan, mango-flavored lollipops dusted with chili powder, coconut candies and pancake-shaped rounds of caramel are just some of the merchandise, which ranges in price from 10 cents a piece, to bulk candy for $8 a pound, to a pinata-ready, 5.8-pound bag of candies for $13.
The 900-square-foot store is awash in bright colors, and an electric train choo-choos around the store near the ceiling.
“The candy shops in Mexico are very pretty, very colorful, very happy places,” said Cid-Pfeiffer, “so we wanted to create that here.”
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BomBoncita, 1653 W. 18th St., 312-733-3201.
