Family-Owned Candy Store Closes After 45 Years On Avenue B

EAST VILLAGE — A mom-and-pop candy store closed its doors on Thursday after some 45 years on Avenue B.

Raul Candy Store, owned by Raul Santiago and his wife Petra Oliviery, has been on Avenue B since 1974, when Santiago said he purchased the business for just $1,500. Rent was $100, according to Santiago.

After decades in the neighborhood, the couple is closing the candy store's doors at 205 Ave. B between 12th and 13th Sts. and retiring to spend more time with their family. Thursday, the family spent their closing day giving away remaining candy for free.

"The whole thing is bittersweet for all of us," said Diana Santiago, daughter of the candy shop's owners. "It's been our whole lives. It's hard to let go."

Santiago said neighbors she hadn't seen in years who remember the store when she and her siblings were just children came to say their goodbyes.

"It's time to retire," said Oliviery. She said that after decades of work and at 70-years-old, it was time for she and Santiago, 75, to spend time going to the senior center, the park, the beach, and visiting their kids, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, now mostly in Massachusetts.

Carlos Hernandez, the eldest son, remembered feeling like the cool kid in elementary- and middle-school since their parents owned a candy shop.

"She was like the neighborhood mom," Hernandez said.

The owners' children reminisced on spending time after school in the candy store with their parents and the days long gone on the Lower East Side — running through the fire hydrant's water on the avenue before cops shut it off and playing pinball machines and video-games at the nearby the Boys' Club of New York, another neighborhood mainstay that listed its property for sale last October.

"You can't go anywhere else and buy penny candy," he said. "Now, [the neighborhood has] changed a lot."

Tragedy, too, struck the family over the years. In 1980, an apartment fire above the the store's previous location at 190 Ave B. killed their youngest son and his friend, just toddlers at the time.

"That's gotta be one of my worst day's ever," said Hernandez, who was a teenager at the time.

But on Thursday, more than 100 people came to celebrate the bittersweet goodbye, one family member estimated.

"They're sad to see [Raul] go," said William Hernandez. "They've come here for years."

By the late afternoon the shop's shelves were largely cleared and family and friends joined for food neighbors cooked for the family and music.

"It's generations and generations of kids that have been through this store," Carlos Hernandez said. "And that's a big part of why people don't want him to leave. It's like a novelty for people to come here."