Cero’s Candies owners Pam (left) and Darcy Bishop in front of the future College Hill home of the business.
WICHITA — Ed Cero has been gone from his family’s Cero’s Candies for more than a decade, but his advice lives on.
“Ed Cero had actually written little notes,” says Pam Bishop, who has owned the business with her daughter, Darcy, for two years.
They inherited the notes that Cero left for the previous owner.
“One of his notes was, ‘Never put a candy shop on the north side of the street,’” Pam Bishop says.
The Bishops agree – too much of their chocolate is melting due to the winter sun – and are moving the store from the north side of Douglas downtown to the south side of Douglas at Happiness Plaza in College Hill.
“We’re constantly shifting candy around,” Pam Bishop says.
“The sun beats in and melts the chocolate no matter how cold we keep the room,” Darcy Bishop says.
Instead of holding chocolate right now, one of the store’s cases instead has a big sugar Easter egg Ed Cero made in 1982.
The business, which opened in 1885, has been at a variety of addresses mostly along Douglas on the north and south sides.
Pam Bishop says the store’s current space is a little big for its needs.
Cero’s will move from 2,800 square feet at 1108 E. Douglas to 1,600 square feet at 3429 E. Douglas most likely on Memorial Day weekend.
“It’s got more usable space than we have now,” Darcy Bishop says of the new space.
For instance, a dessert cafe the Bishops tried in a side room at the current space didn’t work out.
“It was a little awkward, so we stopped doing it,” Pam Bishop says.
At the new space, which is a former house where the Bag Ladies used to be, there will be room in the front of the store for tables and chairs. There also will be WiFi.
The Bishops added ice cream sales in summer months after they bought the store. With the move into the College Hill neighborhood, Pam Bishop expects those sales to do better.
“That’s going to be a bigger draw there than it is here.”
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