Community Helps Bring Beloved Burlingame Candy Store To Its Feet

BURLINGAME, CA — Preston’s Candy and Ice Cream Shop, a treasured Burlingame landmark for 75 years, is getting a second lease on life after the community stepped in to save it.

Irene Preston, who has owned the store for more than 50 years, told NBC Bay Area that she was getting ready to close her store following the pandemic. She owed “so much money you can’t believe it” in rent and electricity bills. The pandemic severely curtailed foot traffic, and supply chain issues stopped valuable materials from making it to her store, according to a report in SFGate.

Over the holidays, Preston met Ben Lambright, a writer and educational nonprofit director who fell in love with the store’s old-fashioned charm. While doing some holiday shopping, Lambright heard Preston tell another customer she was in dire trouble, according to a CBS News report.

He decided to volunteer to help her create “Irene’s Rescue Boxes” full of chocolate and candies for $36.40, and mail them to customers. At first they both thought it would net a few hundred dollars, but the boxes have succeeded past their wildest imagination.

Since they started putting together the boxes in March,, Lambright says they’ve sold more than 800 boxes through a newly-created website, and more are on the way. So far they’ve shipped rescue boxes to customers in at least 35 states, Lambright told CBS News.

They have also launched Preston’s Forever, a monthly online subscription service for assorted chocolate and boxes.

Teams of volunteers from the community have also helped package and put together the boxes to sell. After a Facebook post about the store went viral, others from the community have poured in to the store to help it keep it afloat, according to CBS News.

"Irene and I have both sat here and cried more than once at the level of support we've seen," Lambright told CBS. "This is a woman who has been standing on her own two feet for this long. And now the community is coming to lift her up – after she's been lifting them up for so long."