Growing up in the Poconos in Pennsylvania, one of the most challenging questions that could be posed to Alyssa and Kim Theodore was "what do your parents do?"
"Our parents never worked 9-to-5 jobs," said Alyssa Theodore, 30. That isn’t to say they didn’t work: The many occupations for their parents included running a restaurant inn and bar; running a daycare center; operating a fireworks shop; selling used restaurant equipment and restoring European sports cars. If that wasn’t enough to keep them busy, their father was also a licensed plumber and electrician.
"Whatever niche they could fill, they would," she said.
Alyssa and Kim Theodore have taken that philosophy to heart. They own and operate The Sugar Cube (210 N. Lee St., 703-548-2868), a candy store dedicated to providing classic candy while broadening the horizons of its sweet-toothed clientele.
"We grew up in an entrepreneurial family, and we always wanted to open up a business that was pleasurable and fun; something that we really loved," said Kim Theodore, 25. "We are a full retail confectionary, carrying everything from gummies to gourmet truffles."
Those gummies are displayed prominently in an eye-catching 36-foot window pane on the storefront. It’s the kind of visual invitation that generations of candy stores have used to entice young and old to indulge in their sweetest temptations; it’s also the kind of sight that’s increasingly difficult to find in urban settings whose candy options begin and end with supermarkets and 24-hour convenience stores.
"I think the neighborhood candy shop never went away," said Kim Theodore. "In metropolitan areas, they may have suffered from the fact that everyone had a grocer on the corner. But in our hometown, we had just over 11,000 people and we supported — and still support to this day — two small candy shops."
KIM GOT HER start with candy at 13, when she landed her first job with a hometown candy shop back in the Poconos. Until they embarked on their confectionary odyssey, she was working in library services while her sister was in publishing. With Alyssa Theodore already living in Alexandria, they decided to open up a store in Northern Virginia.
It took them a year to settle on a location before opening The Sugar Cube last December. "We weren’t initially looking at Old Town. We didn’t know if Old Town was coming or going," said Kim Theodore. "So we looked at a number of different places, but when we sat down and thought about how we wanted to build our business and who we wanted to see walk through the door…we wanted to make it a family place, where the neighbors would come out and walk around and be a part of the business. We wanted to be part of this community."
After being priced out of King Street, the duo found the right space and an agreeable location on N. Lee Street. The store is filled with candy from today and from years past, as well as some small-production confectioners from around the nation. The retail room is large enough where they could one day expand into other treats such as soft-serve ice cream.
Perhaps due to her previous experience in the industry, Kim Theodore also came up with the name for the shop. The sisters would constantly brainstorm potential monikers, ranging from candy-centric ideas to using the names of relatives in the title. One day, back in the Poconos, it came to Kim: "When I was home visiting, my mom asked me if I wanted sugar in my tea. I said ‘only if you have a sugar cube.’"
A RECENT POLL by the Vienna-based National Confectioners Association showed that candy is considered to be a cornerstone of family tradition, with 89 percent of respondents claiming that candy was featured prominently in their winter holiday celebrations.
Alyssa Theodore wants The Sugar Cube to serve those seeking to keep both family and candy traditions alive. In addition to modern confections, the shop is featuring an increasing number of "old school" candies — Mary Janes, Necco wafers, sugar babies and bottle caps, among others. She said the shop even wants to feature candy from as far back as the 1920s; there is surging interest in confections with names like Cherry Mash and Idaho Spud.
"I see the resurgence as part of larger continuum," she said. "For a while, candy had been lost in the mass market world. But there’s a big resurgence with chocolate. There’s a real renaissance going on. It started with people taking a more artistic approach to chocolate, playing with more exotic flavor combinations and higher cacao content. It’s proved very popular, and it’s gotten to the point now where Hershey’s has even released a line of truffles."
Alyssa Theodore likens The Sugar Cube to a great local wine shop: It has all the labels you love, and a few it hopes will broaden the horizons of its community of customers.
"We like to steer a middle road between just grabbing a candy bar from the rack at CVS and the $40 boutique chocolate. There’s a place for it," she said.
"We think of our shop as cute. It’s elegant, but not stuffy. It’s fun."