Estes Park taffy shop voted best candy store in the U.S.

Business has picked up for the Taffy Shop, a family-owned store in Estes Park, since it earned the No. 1 spot on USA Today’s list of top 10 candy stores in the nation.

“Another business owner told me this morning that this is the most exciting thing that’s happened in Estes Park for years,” Mark Igel, owner of the Taffy Shop, told The Denver Post in an interview on Sunday. “I think that the people in the community are taking a great amount of pride in this because the shop is a piece of the history of this town.”

The Slack family opened the candy store and began handmaking gourmet salt water taffy in 1935. In 2014, Lavona Slack retired and sold the shop to the Igels, according to the store’s website.

For the 89 years the shop has been in business, the taffy recipe, kept in a safe deposit box, has never changed, Igel said.

“That’s what blows me away is that Mr. Slack, who founded the store, came up with a recipe and a way of doing business that was keeping it simple,” Igel said. “And I think that is a testament to what it feels like we’re missing in the world today: something simple, affordable and enjoyable.”