Candy Surprise
American Sweet Dreams
American Lolli & Pops
Candylicious
American Candy Shop
Candy World
Americandy
Kingdom Of Sweets
Candy Shop
American Candy Shop
American Sweets & Souvenirs
If you wanted Oreos, Hersheys, funky flavoured Pop Tarts, Cheetos, Milk Duds, assorted Nerds, Apple Jacks, Kool-Aid, Cocoa Pebbles, Hubba Bubba, Mountain Dew, Sour Jawbreakers, Hostess Twinkies, Jelly Belly beans, French Toast Crunch, Cookie Dough, Goldfish Crackers, Fanta Berry, Jolly Rangers or a bag of Chile Limón Lay's Potato Chips, you didn't have far to walk.
But Westminster council have since got tough with these "low quality occupiers", seizing counterfeit goods and offering cheaper rents to up-and-coming small businesses, and I wondered how successful they'd been in clearing up. So I walked the length of Oxford Street and I'm pleased to say we're now down to four candy stores, maybe three, and not one has the same name it did before.
Prime Candy
CandyLogo
House of Candy
The Sweet Shop
The first shop on the corner with Marble Arch used to be Candy Surprise, a rainbow bazaar of sugar treats. It's now Gift Galore, still with a few racks of Lucky Charms at the rear but its focus has shifted smartly towards luggage, vapeware and other tourist favourites. Nextdoor is Best of British, another gift store, and then the much larger London Gifts. You can see what the new plague is. But half of London Gifts is differently branded, the half without a separate door, and that's Prime Candy which still brims over with Reeses Puffs, Takis, Tim Tams and Fruit By The Foot.
Only one more candy shop exists between Marble Arch and Bond Street, where previously there were five, and that's CandyLogo. It has a bright blue fascia and a typeface that looks like Disney's lawyers might come calling, assuming the name hasn't changed again by then. It wasn't previously a candy store though nextdoor was, that was Candylicious, though that's since become Britain Gifts and on the other side is Royal Gifts Gallery. Don't worry, loads of properly branded shops still thrive down Oxford Street, but tourists remain extremely well catered for.
HMV's former flagship is candy store number three. This year it's House of Candy whereas last year it was Candy World, as it still says on an unaltered side-facing sign. It's patently huge, the brightly lit entrance aiming to tempt the multitudes inside with sweets then also offering currency exchange, suitcases and souvenirs with the new King's face on. But there's absolutely nothing else sweet-focused on the walk to Oxford Circus, where previously there'd been three, then such an absence down to Tottenham Court Road I thought they'd been expunged completely. Not quite.
The Sweet Shop is the last of them, a thin shop thinly stocked. It has a cheap black- and white-striped frontage tacked on, a few shelves of crisps and confectionery, a stash of cans floggable for more than an ordinary Coke, plus a Money Change kiosk at the far end. I didn't notice it last year because it was a souvenir shop, such is the interchangeability of store usage hereabouts. Perhaps Global Gifts, Snack N Gifts and Gift Empire will have metamorphosed next time I walk down Oxford Street, but for now be reassured the candy store invasion has passed.
