Carroll’s Candies is the kind of shop I love. Small, locally owned, and completely unique to this area. The shop is veteran owned and operated by Allisa Carroll and Tony Hendrickson, who were both formerly in the Navy and have travelled and lived all over the country. They’re trying to bring some of that big city specialty shop feel to our community. They travelled all around Arkansas visiting every candy store they could to try to figure out what they wanted to do to make their store unique.
Their store offers a wider variety of candy than any other candy store I’ve ever been to, and does so while maintaining a reasonable price. While they don’t have a lot of space for foot traffic, the variety of candy on the shelves including international candies, and candies from our childhood which we just can’t find anywhere else more than makes up for this. On top of this they have small batch candies homemade by Tony and from other locally sourced vendors.
Kier Heyl with Allisa Carroll and Tony Hendrickson inside their store Carroll’s Candies
I try to eat plant based where I can and upon learning this, Allisa and Tony did something that no other store I’ve shopped at has ever done. They started stocking a variety of vegan candies and chocolates. That kind of support for their community can’t be ignored. Despite it being a even more niche product in an already niche market they chose to stock it to better serve their community.
I met with Allisa and Tony over the holiday weekend and talked about the challenges they faced when trying to find a space for their retail candy store. Allisa brought up how much rent was in Jonesboro and how it makes it very difficult for a local small business startup to succeed. They had to find a place well outside the beaten path just to afford rent for their shop.
I’d love it if there was some kind of special zoning for commercial businesses restricted to small locally owned startups. Somewhere where there was already a great deal of foot traffic or potential for a great deal of foot traffic. Perhaps the area around Main St. or a plan to revitalize the land where the mall used to be. There could be incentives for developers to build this, but then restrictions on what types of businesses go in there to encourage our locally owned small businesses to grow in Jonesboro. This would serve to increase our quality of life, and in turn attract a better work force to live in Jonesboro.
