Family-run Lehigh Valley candy shop creating sweet treats for more than 45 years
BREINIGSVILLE, Pa. (WPVI) -- Paid Sponsor Partnership: Philadelphia Corporation for Aging
If you're looking for an indulgent experience, head to the Shoppes of Premise Maid.
"Basically, if it has sugar in it, that's what we're known for," says owner Joe Damiano.
Brothers Mike and Joe Damiano are running the family candy business started back in 1979.
"My father, Bill, opened a small store in Fleetwood, Pennsylvania," he says. "It was probably 900 square feet."
Today, it's grown into an enormous oasis of sweets amid the cornfields of Breinigsville, PA in Lehigh County.
"The floor square footage is approximately 10,000 square feet," he says. "All the chocolates, all the bakery, all the ice cream, all of them are made on site."
Visitors can peruse rooms full of candy, and they have everything from nonpareils to different types of gummies, even candy necklaces.
"There's nothing else really like it," says owner Mike Damiano.
That's because they built much of it themselves, after moving the business there in the early 1980s.
"I took over the business in 1984," says Joe Damiano. "I started renovating everything and coming up with all the new product lines."
Their late father invented the "Legend of the Premise Maid."
"How she came from Bavaria, learned how to make chocolates over there, then moved to the rolling hills of Pennsylvania and opened up shops," he says.
The candy case is a real stunner with handmade, small-batch chocolates in milk and dark.
"We have about 50, 60 different varieties," he says. "Our most popular flavors by far are the peanut butters and the milk chocolate."
There's also a bakery full of sweet breads, pies and cakes.
"They're mini cakes, and there's probably 20 or 30 different flavors of those," he says.
Cross the courtyard to The Creamery, where you can choose from 44 flavors of ice cream scooped into a waffle cone made in the bakery.
"You get a pretty nice size serving here," says Mike Damiano. "We use the products that we bake here, and we actually put them in the ice cream, so shoofly pie ice cream actually has cut up shoofly pie in it."
The Damiano brothers say they want Premise Maid to be a special experience for families, just as it is for them.
"It's a great legacy," says Joe Damiano.
For more information:
The Shoppes of Premise Maid
10860 Hamilton Boulevard
Breinigsville, PA 18031