A FAMOUS candy-making business has shuttered after more than 100 years of service.
Inkster, Michigan's beloved Corden Chocolates usually closes between Mother's Day and a date in September, but chocolate maker Nick Corden said this year is different.
He can't work with chocolate in the summer heat and humidity at the family business that he took over many years ago so that's how he has conducted things for the last 25 years, Corden told Detroit Free Press.
While the shop is closed for the season, Corden said he used that time to fix equipment in need of repair as he still uses equipment that's been in the family possibly longer than him.
He uses the caramel cutter that his grandfather used and the chocolate enrobing machine his dad had.
Corden also uses his dad's funnel - a piece of equipment he holds dear.
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This month, he closed the sweet spot the Saturday ahead of Mother's Day as usual but will not be opening up again until the end of the year.
"Usually it's after Mother's Day because I'll have some stuff that I don't want to have for the summer," Corden said.
"And on Monday and Tuesday, we'll open up and sell it to people that are part of their summer stash."
After 105 years in business, the Corden Chocolates store with the stemmed red cherry for the "O" in the logo closed for good following Mother's Day weekend.
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"Yes, I am closing the building facility here," he said.
"I would like if possible ... I don't know if it is to continue making chocolate and offering it to longtime customers and family members on a little smaller scale."
Corden, 66, has had an annual routine for the last 15 years at the shop.
He said that, once he prepared for reopening Labor Day, he was at the shop six to seven days a week for 10 to 12 hours all the way through Mother's Day.
The chocolate maker would even work on Saturdays and Sundays during the months of November and December.
The Corden Chocolates building on Michigan Avenue, Corden said, is a little tired and he drives a long way to and from work.
"There's a lot that goes into a day, putting chocolate on top of something is the easy part," Corden said with a laugh.
The building is for sale, but the business is not, he explained, though he said he'd entertain selling some of the recipes he and his dad tweaked.
"I have some people interested in that if they want to go off and do it so long as I can still make whatever little things that I want to make my little workshop by myself, and still sell it under the name of Corden's," he said.
As Corden Chocolates fans have learned about the closing, people all over the U.S. have been overwhelmed with shock.
"Everybody is coming from everywhere," he said.
"People have been coming in and talking and everybody had such kind words for me and my dad. It's been good."
Corden said he started getting calls from people in Maryland, Arizona, and Washington once the news spread.
NOSTALGIA
One woman said she had been coming to Corden's for years - starting at the original store in Detroit with her aunt and uncle and now, at the Inkster store with her daughter.
"It's the nostalgia of it all," Lisa Vega, 54, said.
"You feel like you are being taken back to yesteryear. And the chocolate is so wonderful."
Corden's family started making chocolate in a different Michigan city more than a century ago as the business' site describes Nick Corden as "a son of a chocolate maker, who was the son of a chocolate maker."
Sam Corden came to the U.S. from Greece and opened a small Detroit shop in 1918.
"But the location didn't last long because they got into the Senate District location," Nick Corden said.
That location opened a few years after the original and was known as the Senate Sweet Shop, he explained.
"The Senate Sweet Shop is what everybody remembers in the Senate commercial district, which was a great block," Corden said.
He said his father, Evans, eventually took over the shop and opened the Inkster location between 1965 and 1966.
Corden's late father and mother, Marie, maintained both shops for several years but closed the Senate Sweet Shop in the late 60s and concentrated on the Inkster location, according to the candy maker.
Evans Corden is described on the company's website as being the stimulus for growing the business.
"He was the true genius of the family, who could play with chocolate the way Mozart could play with music," the website says.
Corden Chocolates isn't the only retailer that has shuttered this month. Numerous businesses were being hit by a wave of closures around the U.S. deemed a "retail apocalypse."
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Even people who may not be candy fans have found themselves heartbroken as a beloved furniture store closes its storefront in a major U.S. city after opening months ago.
A famous restaurant has also been forced to close its doors after serving loyal customers for more than 70 years because of a fire.
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