- May 9, 2024
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Mother and daughter Ginnie Mercer and Rachel Ross abandoned lives in law to open a custom candy boutique.
The inside of The Sweets Boutique, next to Best Bagels & Deli at 1000 Palm Coast Parkway, looks unlike the inside of any other business in Palm Coast.
Walk inside and you’re surrounded by pink. Pink walls. Pink tablecloths. Pink curtains. And laid out over everything is candy, in every color imaginable.
Black plastic chains hang from the ceiling, dangling supersized rainbow lollipops in their links. Piled on tables are retro Turkish taffy, wax lips and candy lipstick, paper candy buttons, Pez, and penny, rock and ribbon candy.
A five-pound gummy bear keeps watch by the register.
You name it, and the boutique probably has it. And if not, mother-daughter owners Ginnie Mercer and Rachel Ross will order it. They have request forms ready to go.
“We have a lot of pride in this,” Ross says of the store. “If someone comes in here and they’re having a bad day, we just want to make sure, after they leave, they have a great rest of the day.”
Mercer and Ross had a life before the candy shop. Earlier this year, Ross was a paralegal, on her way to law school. Mercer worked for a nonprofit, and was back in school to earn her doctorate degree.
But when Mercer’s position was eliminated at her company, and Ross began re-thinking the time and money she’d spend in graduate school, with no real guarantee afterward of obtaining a fulfilling law job, they each made some drastic decisions.
“I think we both kind of hit a brick wall in our lives,” Ross says. “I always wanted to be a lawyer, and this economy just totally changed that.”
She withdrew her law school application. Mercer, in the process of writing a dissertation on management and organizational leadership, abandoned academia.
They opened an online candy shop. “Making their own future,” they call it. But they had trouble gaining traction.
That’s when they approached Palm Coast’s Business Assistance Center, and its area manager, Joe Roy.
“We were going in blind,” Mercer says. “But Joe just kind of held our hand.”
He helped them work with the city, she says, in permitting and code compliance. He’d stop in from time to time. He’d send status-check emails every day.
“His position is really important,” she says of Roy, “because he works as a liaison between the business owner and the city.”
He also helped them refine and refocus elements of their business plan.
For example, without an industrial kitchen, they couldn’t sell specialty cakes like they planned. But with Roy’s help, they focused more on the party aspect, got into decorations and balloons, many of which hang all over the shop, in all shades and cartoon shapes.
“There’s a lot of crazy stuff that we can offer that you can’t find anywhere around here,” Ross says. Themed balloon arches and columns. Customizable candy baskets and vases. Candy bars for weddings, birthdays and events.
Mercer and Ross say they chose candy because it was unique to Flagler. They wanted to fulfill a niche. There’s a lot of opportunity in Palm Coast, they say, and they wanted a piece of it.
But their decision wasn’t all market-based.
Thinking back to their former legal positions, they say their career shifts had more to do with mood than money.
“We just really got sick of all the sadness,” Ross says. “There’s only so much despair you can take. So we wanted to flip it 180 degrees.”
“(We) were really dealing with people in the lowest points in their life,” Mercer adds. “So we wanted to do something happy. Everyone who comes in here has a smile on their face. And we love that.”
For more, call 449-8626.
RED-TICKET DRAWING
For every $5 spent at The Sweets Boutique, purchasers will receive a red ticket to be raffled 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 22, at 1000 Palm Coast Parkway. Three winners will be chosen, for $100, $50 and $25 cash prizes.
The raffle is part of a drive the boutique is trying push in Flagler to promote local commerce.
Ticket-holders must be present to win.
