Last Minute Shoppers Can Find the Sweetest Gift

If you waited until the last minute to do your holiday shopping, if you are trying to help Santa stuff the stockings, if you are looking for that perfect hostess gift and you are going to need to have it all wrapped up and ready to go, you can get that all done in one spot -- Windy City Sweets.

Located in Lakeview, in the same location since 1983, John Manchester, who owns the store with his wife Jill Manchester, says that there are plenty of people who come out to the candy store for last-minute gifts.

One of the store’s best selling items is the Windy City Sampler.

“It’s the best handmade chocolates that we make all in one box,” Manchester said.

Among the offerings are S’mores, English toffee, caramel nut patties, caramels with sea salt, dipped oreos and dipped pretzels.

“We probably doubled or more in sales this year,” Manchester said of the item. “A lot of people like it because again, it’s all hand-made chocolates.”

Windy City Sweets, which was voted the best candy store in Chicago by Chicago Magazine this year, creates its chocolate creations by hand. Around the holidays, Manchester said they are pouring chocolate creations everyday. And they are creating items that are specific for both Hanukkah and Christmas.

“On the Hanukkah side it’s a little more specialized because we are looking at not only a kosher product but also a pareve product,” he explained.

A pareve product is neither meat nor dairy.

“By having a non-dairy chocolate you can have meat with the meal and also chocolate as a dessert afterwards,” Manchester said of the specialized product.

In addition to specialized ingredients, the store is pouring chocolate into molds specific for Hanukkah, including a dreidel and Star of David. The milk chocolate used in these items is kosher. They also carry Hanukkah Gelt.

“We do the Gelt in milk and in dark and the dark is pareve,” Manchester detailed.

On the Christmas side of things, Manchester said the store is pouring shaped molds that are simple, one-piece designs, such as one of Santa’s face. In addition, they have two molds that are multi-pieced creations -- a sleigh and a tree.

The sleigh has five different pieces that are poured and glued together with chocolate,” Manchester said. “The tree is four to five solid pieces.”

The tree stacks together with rings that gradually decrease in size.

“People may use either as a centerpiece or as a place setting, as a cardholder,” Manchester explained. “There’s probably about 2 and a half inches tall and 5 inches long and 2 inches wide.

“You can actually put things inside the sleigh.”

Both items cost around $10.95, Manchester said.

In addition to holiday-themed, shaped chocolates being created around the December holidays, Manchester said Christmas time increases the demand for peppermint-flavored products.

“We do a white chocolate with peppermint and a dark chocolate with peppermint,” Manchester explained. “Peppermint is the big flavor for Christmas.”

For those who are headed to Windy City Sweets for hostess gifts, it is one-stop shopping.

“A lot of people come in for hostess gifts and we have boxes they can put (those gifts) in,” Manchester offered.

The store also creates gift baskets of items selected by customers for hostess or corporate gifts.

For last minute Christmas shoppers, the store is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Windy City Sweets will still accept speciality orders, but the store needs at least two business days to put together speciality chocolate items.

Windy City Sweets is located at 3308 Broadway in Chicago. They can be reached by phone at 773-477-6100 or on the Web.