Opening next week: Eye Candy Store & Vintage Market
It’s been over a decade since the Bitterman family had a retail candy outlet in Kansas City. Next Thursday, October 4, the Bittermans will open the doors to Eye Candy Store & Vintage Market, a combination candy shop and vintage market — at least 25 local vendors selling a variety of antiques and collectibles — at 3107 Gillham Road.
Today, the store’s manager, Toni Hicks, was completing her current project: painting the store’s logo on the front of the cafe au lait-colored building. The structure, said Marilyn Bitterman, was once three buildings, back in the 1930s when this stretch of Gillham was a vital commercial neighborhood. “The front part was, we think, an automobile dealership.”
The picture windows on the west-facing wall were closed up with concrete blocks years ago, but the main room is still surprisingly sunny. The antique fixtures from the original Bitterman’s store are already in place and are slowly being filled with cellophane bags of candy.
