Who among us doesn’t love a sweet treat now and then? By extension, who doesn’t like going to the many chocolate shops in Buffalo Niagara and allowing their inner child to run free through the aisles searching for some treat to satisfy your cravings? Everyone’s got some favorite sweet. Even if they hide their sweet tooth for most of the year, they still have it. Some like ultra-sweet chocolate that seems to make your pearly whites scream as soon as you bite into the thing. Others are more subdued with their sweets, preferring bitter 90% dark chocolate over anything else. The point is the gap between people’s desired way to satisfy a sweet tooth is vastly different from person to person, and the only way to make sure your craving can be adequately taken care of is going to a nice candy store. It’s a good thing then that there are so many chocolate shops in Buffalo Niagara that it’s hard to keep track!

A successful candy store needs one of two things to ensure its success when it comes down to it, those being either a vast assortment of different candies of all kinds, or it needs to be some type of specialty place. A place with some sort of classiness about it, focusing on more specific items. I prefer the latter, and to satisfy my candy needs, I tend to go to the Fowler’s on Elmwood. Now let me make this perfectly clear right off the bat, when I said “a classy place,” I’m not referring to a place with diamond chandeliers overhead with $10,000 chocolate fountains and $200 handmade chocolates from Switzerland, along with other difficult to pronounce candies from around the world. No, I’m talking more of an old-school vibe, a throwback chocolate shop in Buffalo Niagara, if you will.

When I go into Fowler’s, the lights are always dim giving the sense that this is a sophisticated type of place (at least that’s what I’d like to believe; otherwise, they’re pretty conscious about their electricity bill). The candies (most of which are chocolate) are all hand wrapped along with the candy themselves. This ensures you’re going to be paying more than a pretty penny, for the entire package. Still, as the saying goes, “you get what you pay for.” For a person like myself who occasionally enjoys a fine piece of chocolate or some other treat off the beaten path, I feel it’s always a justifiable expense. It’s rather bare-bones, but that’s an aspect I admire. If you’re there for candy, you’ve come to the right place. If you’re looking for toys and arts and crafts to go with your sugar rush, then tough luck.

Whether it’s candy bars or chocolate filled with rich creams with French-sounding names, (pro tip, if you want to be perceived as being at the height of sophistication, make sure the products you’re selling have some sort of French-sounding name), Fowler’s is sure to have something that, after laying your money down on the counter and picking up your selection, will have you feeling like you made a good investment in your taste buds (with the battle scars on your wallet to prove it).

In my experience, candy stores are somewhat akin to drug stores. You go to a drug store to pick up medicine, but subconsciously you go to candy stores for that jolt of happiness the candy provides, which by its own merits is medicine within itself. Candy is the eternal pick me up. Even if you’re having a downright terrible day, popping a quick sweet in your mouth will momentarily dissolve away your troubles.

In moderation, it’s a good way to unwind and enjoy a few moments of your day. That brief sugar rush you get is like a mild drug that can give you just the right amount of pep in your step to make sure you get through your day without curling up in a ball and having a crying fit before closing time (you know we’ve all been there). I’m not saying that candy helps to stop you from burning out, but an occasional trip to the candy store certainly has its benefits (just don’t overdo it, the sugar crash is no joke!)

Perhaps the truly remarkable thing about chocolate shops in Buffalo Niagara is that no matter how old we are, we momentarily get a chance to be kids again. We get to be awed and interested in new things and old favorites, and every time we take a bit of our chosen sweet treats we get to relive a bit of that same great feeling we experienced when we were younger.

Is candy the true fountain of youth? Perhaps not, but maybe the candy store is a means in some small way to retain that feeling of youth. A treat slowly dissolves in your mouth with every bite and the stresses of everyday life seem to dissolve with it to be replaced with a momentary bliss. Maybe that’s all youth is? Who doesn’t want that from time to time?

So if you have a sweet tooth, that’s either of the more common variety or more exotic, why not check out one of the great chocolate shops in Buffalo Niagara? At worst, you’ll get to treat yourself to something sweet, and at best, you’ll feel like a kid again. Seems like a sweet deal to me.