A candy shop and soda fountain that closed in downtown Belfast at the end of last month will soon reopen under new owners.
Steve Ashey, who lives in Stockton Springs, has bought the Chocolate Drop Candy Shop business and plans to open it again on Nov. 30, he said in an interview. He will be running it alongside his partner, Rebecca Trimble, with help from their sons.
They won’t be making any major changes to the business. They plan to keep leasing the space at 35 Main St. where it has operated for 15 years under previous owners David Brassbridge and David Crabiel.
Neither Ashey nor Trimble have run businesses before, and they said that it was something of a spur of the moment decision to jump into this one.
“He picked me up after work and brought me over here and said, ‘Hey, see that [storefront] over there? That’s mine,’” Trimble said.
Ashey formally took over the business two weeks ago, and he’s now completing all required inspections and licensing. “I haven’t slept too much,” he said. “There’s too much to do, and I’m too excited.”
Starting out, the pair will offer a limited inventory during the winter season and only expect to open three or four days a week. They plan to keep working other jobs for now. Ashey has spent 14 years harvesting clams, and noted that he will miss it once he’s running his new business full time. Trimble has worked in retail and at the Harbor Hill Center long-term care facility.
While they don’t plan to change the decor or general aesthetic, they do plan to abandon the retro uniforms typically worn by staff in soda fountains — or “soda jerks,” as the workers were called — that Brassbridge and Crabiel had embraced.
“We’re keeping everything as ‘the same’ as we possibly can,” Ashey said. “The biggest change we’re going to make is that we’re not going to do the soda jerk uniform. The Davids pulled that off. They’re great. That’s wonderful.” With a laugh, he added, “I cannot pull that off.”
Ashey and Trimble anticipate adding staff during busier seasons and will also enlist Ashey’s son, 18-year-old Stephen Jr., to help run the place — just as Brassbridge’s children had previously worked there.
Ashey does plan to sell some new items, including fudge and more types of candy. He also plans to offer hot chocolate and possibly other warm beverages during winter, and is open to other suggestions.
“We’ll expand once things start to warm up, and then it will be a seven-day work week,” Ashey said. “Winter, things are slower, no sense to sit here all day and wait for things to happen. It’s all new to us. We’re just trying to take it one step at a time.”
