Closing up shop: Cake, candy, party supply store to shut doors April 29
For 47 years, area cake maker and candy creators could rely on Mary's Cake, Candy & Party Supplies in the Bon Aire Shopping Center for all their needs when the mixing bowls, pastry bags and candy molds came out of the kitchen cupboard.
But telltale lines of customers snaking through the plaza denote the upcoming closing on April 29 of the longtime confection supply shop.
“It's been our life. We hate to close,” said manager Tina Villaire. “It's like closing down the girlfriend club.”
She said many customers have been coming in for years to buy supplies for communion, graduation, wedding, birthday and other cakes as well as molds, chocolate and other supplies for making candy.
“We have a wonderful group of women,” Villaire said. “We really treasure them.”
The reason the stalwart small business must close, Villaire said, is the inability to get supplies from manufacturers.“We just thought it was time to close the store because if you don't have the main staples, there's no sense in us being here,” she said.Villaire said her manufacturers, who blame the coronavirus pandemic for their inability to provide product, said the situation will get worse before it gets better.“We just can't get the product,” Villaire said. “It's so hard to say, 'No, we don't have it' when it's something they need.”Villaire and her mother, store owner Mary Ball, are clinging to hope that the supply market will improve and the store can reopen in some location.“We don't want to give people false hope,” she said. “We're just going to see what happens.”She said some customers have been coming to the shop for years and are like family, while others come in for the first time as they initiate a hobby of baking and decorating cakes or making candy.“We kind of take them under our wing and get them through it,” Villaire said of newbies.Both professionals and hobbyists frequent the store for supplies, she said.“We had a couple people on Friday who said, 'We've never been in your store. It's great,' and I'm like, 'Oh my God, we're closing!'” Villaire said.
Butler County customers will have to order online or travel elsewhere to find another store with such extensive cake and candymaking supplies.“It's going to be a little tough for them,” Villaire said sadly. “We have specialty stuff.”She said it's tough to watch customers load up on supplies for their sugary crafts because many are trying to plan ahead and buy items for future events.“It makes me feel overwhelmed for them,” Villaire said.One of those customers is Mary Ann Williams, of Middlesex Township, whose cakes, cupcakes and dessert tables are well-known to many in the county and beyond.“I'm devastated,” Williams said, summing up her feelings on the store's closing. “I've been buying there for 35 or 40 years. I buy everything there.”One facet of the shop she always appreciated was the ability to buy the number of boxes and amount of packaging she needs instead of buying in bulk, which would require a warehouse.When Williams worked at a Butler bakery, she visited Mary's once or twice a week.As a one-woman baker, she still drove up to the store once or twice a month.Williams stood in line for 45 minutes Monday, which was the first day of Mary's going-out-of-business sale.The store only allowed a set number of shoppers inside, and more would be let in as people checked out and left.“It was cold,” Williams said. “I should have brought a warmer jacket.”
Williams returned again Tuesday, snapping up cupcake wrappers and liners, display items for her dessert tables, an extra deep cake pan she had her eye on and other merchandise during her two-day haul.“I just went crazy,” Williams said. “I got as much as I could carry to the register, and I was trying to hurry because people were standing out in the cold.”Williams said she appreciates not only the merchandise she was able to buy over the years at Mary's, but also the women who worked there.“Everyone on the staff has always been so helpful and kind, and if they open a store again, I hope they let me know,” she said.Villaire returned the sentiment to her many customers.“I guess I would say thank you so much for your friendship and support,” she said.
