A visit to Wertz Candy Shop

It was snowing as I drove down the one-way street in downtown Lebanon, PA. I managed to parallel park the car (on the left side of the street no less), squish through a foot of slushy snow, plug the meter, and headed for Wertz Candy Shop. I opened the door and was instantly transported back to childhood. This closet-sized shop held treats of every kind, from the beautiful upscale almonds to sugar plums to caramel corn popping in the big stainless drum.
There’s everything you can imagine and more – in barrels at your feet, piled on top of counters, high on the shelves around the perimeter of the shop and beautifully displayed in old-fashioned glass cases. One can only imagine all the faces of the children that have peered through those glass cases in the last 70 years.

And then there’s the chocolate – there were the usual creams, nuts, truffles and turtles. But there are also blobs, molasses coconut strips and chocolate covered bacon with sea salt. You just never know what Bill will come up with. This family has fun with chocolate and was recently featured on “Dirty Jobs” with Mike Rowe.

It was quite a hopping place while I was there – people were buying all sorts of candy tucked into every corner of this shop – some people were from far-away places like Spokane and others were from town – like the Chief of Police. That’s when I suddenly remembered that parking meter which had probably expired….the Chief gave me a token, I put it in the meter for the next car and left Lebanon, munching happily on opera fudge.

Oh, you say you’ve never heard of opera fudge? Well, you can learn about that and so much more on our Chocolate Covered Romance Tour February 27 and 28 at The Artist's Inn. We’ll spend the day traveling around tasting chocolate with Lancaster County Tours. For details see www.artistinn.com/ChocolateCoveredRomance.htm.