One of the newest additions to Saline’s downtown is Eleanor’s Sweets and Sodas. This new sweets shop features a wide selection of candies, as well as a section for Italian sodas. While this new shop has seen a successful start to their business, opening during a shutdown provided some challenges for the new shop as it started business.
The candy shop is located in a building previously used as an attorney's office that had gone vacant. While the location of the building was in a good spot for a new shop, an attorney's office is a “much different physical space than a retail establishment,” said Andrew Tad, who owns the shop with his wife, Karen.
Due to Michigan’s covid lockdown, the planned time frame of renovating the vacant building into one ready to house a candy shop had been pushed back. Once the lockdown finally lifted, finding contractors to renovate as well as the 3 or 4 months it takes to actually renovate the building still needed to happen.
Andrew told us that not knowing when the shop would be renovated and if people would even visit caused the owners to feel uncertain about the future.
The owners felt that they had been able to find something that Saline would enjoy in a candy store, but until they could open, they would not know if their idea was successful or not. With all the delays due to covid, the owners had to wait to see if their hard work would pay off.
Eleanor’s Sweets and Sodas was able to open the weekend before Easter. Their opening weekend was one of their largest weekends still to date, and Andrew said that the feelings that came along with the success of that weekend was “unbelievable” and “rewarding.”
Word about their opening has begun to spread around Saline, causing more people to stop by and check out their variety of sweets and sodas. They are located at 108 S. Ann Arbor Street across from Salt Brewery, and you can visit them any time virtually at eleanorssweets.com.
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