In the heart of Atlanta lives a place that crafts delectable candy creations to satisfy every dreamer’s sweet tooth. Offering a variety of sweets, Kilwins (located at Atlantic Station) has a rich story.
“We sell confectionery to Atlanta. Our ice cream, chocolates and caramel products/apples are the highest quality,” said John Henry Dallaire, storeowner of the Kilwins at Atlantic Station. “We make it on site for each batch daily. That’s why it’s good. We have no stabilizers, emulsifiers or conditioners in our products.”
Not Willy Wonka’s Factory but close to it
Kilwins takes pride in the fact that they make all of their products from scratch. This ensures everything is prepared properly. Their ice cream is made off site and is distributed to Kilwins around the country.
“We have a private dairy that prepares it [the ice cream] for us, because we have 100 stores. The product that we make in our store is the caramel and that takes about two and a half hours,” Dallaire said.
Kilwins strives to serve the Atlanta community with the sweetest treats possibly. Their store at Atlantic Station has a retro theme to it and is covered with fluorescent colors and lighting. The open environment is the ideal hangout for families and friends and for those who visit, stale candies are not an option.
“A huge amount of students from Georgia State, Georgia Tech and Emory come to our store because we are the only ones using pure ingredients in small batches,” Dallaire said. “We are continually changing our products; we can not make anymore than what we sell. That’s why people keep coming here, because we keep it absolutely fresh. We have no preservatives.”
Production depends on the amount of business that the store sees. During the warmer seasons, Kilwins’ customers size grows to a larger scale. When that’s the case, in order to be prepared, sweets are made continuously to keep the freshness going.
“When it’s winter weather, it makes us slow; we make less batches, but when we hit March we are making caramels, fudges and other products twice a day,” Dallaire said.
| Their caramel making process |
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| Step 1: Start by adding butter, cream and sugar to a small amount of water (they use two different butters: House butter and cream powder that turns the water to heavy cream).Step 2: Stir the contents until it turns into a cream substance. Step 3: |
A sweet family tale
Dallaire has been around sweets for a majority of his life, so he knew he would one day own a business in the industry.
“I’ve enjoyed ice cream all my life. I’ve been in the amusement business all of my life and I have been making confectioneries since I was 8 years old,” Dallaire said. “No one has ever come close to my enjoyment of the ice cream that comes out of Michigan and Ohio. When you have ice cream from Kilwins, you will go into a euphoric feeling and that feeling is from low sugar and extremely high dairy.”
Dallaire’s family takes part in providing treats to people all around the country and have been part of the Kilwins group for a long period of time.
“My brother started in St. Augustine and opened about two stores there and then bought a store in The Villages,” Dallaire said. “I was building houses in Peachtree City and was just watching my brother grow tremendously and when the house market started slowing down, I told my wife that we should open a Kilwins here in Atlanta.”
