Little Flower Candy to open shop

Anyone who haunts Surfas, EuroPane or the Cheesestore of Silverlake probably knows the wonderful cellophane-wrapped caramels and marshmallows made by the Little Flower Candy Co.  They've probably also noticed that, for most of the last year, the candies have been absent from the shelves. Owner and candy maker Christine Moore, we were told, was on maternity leave; she'd also, it turns out, lost the lease on the Hollywood kitchen where she'd been making her confections. Well, her candies are back, and not only in specialty stores and online, but as of this weekend, they'll have shelves of their own. Moore is opening her own shop in Pasadena this Saturday morning, she says, at 7 a.m. I went by to check it out, after finally finding her sea salt caramels (they operate like hard currency in my house) at the Cheesestore and calling the number on Moore's website. The painter was still stenciling the sign, everyone was wrapping caramels like mad and Moore -- happy, overwhelmed -- was scrambling to organize a business in a space she'd found only six weeks before.

It'll be a "super soft, almost underground" opening, says Moore, but there will be espresso drinks (City Bean coffee), house-made pastries -- and plenty of Moore's signature candies. Moore hopes to turn the shop (a 1938 building that used to house Bee's Knees Bakery, tucked midway between Old Town Pasadena and Eagle Rock) into a neighborhood deli eventually, though at the moment she doesn't even have plates. But she's good at improvising: She trained as a pastry chef, not a candy maker, and started making sea salt caramels at home after she quit work (Campanile, Les Deux Cafes) to stay home with her first child (she now has three). With a highchair in her new office, coloring books piled on the cafe furniture she just bought off Craigslist and newly made caramels wrapped in pretty bow-tied bundles all over the kitchen, Moore's new shop already has a welcoming feel. Tomorrow morning, we're all welcome.

Little Flower Candy Co., 1424 W. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, (626) 304-4800. (Click on the website for contact information for other stores that carry the candies, including EuroPane.)

-- Amy Scattergood

Photos by Amy Scattergood

Comments

[alison]

Picholine has been out of business for over a year.

[Loulou]

Wow. That's some good news.

[carey]

Thanks for this update! I thought it was opening last week. I am a die hard fan. Her marshmallows are so amazing also! Just in time for Christmas!!!! Woohoo!