New In Joliet: Uncle Joe's Candy Opens, 12 Eye-Opening Photos

JOLIET, IL — Joliet's thriving West Jefferson Street business corridor has just opened one of the region's largest retail stores featuring exotic sodas as well as old-fashioned candies.

Uncle Joe's Candy Shop opened at the end of February at the corner of West Jefferson Street and Reed Street, right next door to the Card Pop store. Uncle Joe's features more than 200 different flavors of sodas and pops.

"A lot of people love the root beers," remarked one of the Uncle Joe's Candy Shop workers.

Most of the soda products sell for $2.50 to $4 and customers can make their own box: if you buy five, you get the sixth soda free.

Uncle Joe's Candy Shop is open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Employees told Joliet Patch at Thursday's interview they intend to hold a grand opening gala early this summer. They also want customers to know they are always taking requests for new candy and soda products.

There are plenty of wacky, off-the-wall soda selections already available.

After all, where else in Joliet but Uncle Joe's Candy Shop are you going to find bottles of Three Stooges Wise Guy Root Beer, Butter Soda, Old-Fashioned Peanut Butter Soda, Zotz Blue Raspberry Fizz Power Soda, Ghost Pepper Soda, Jalapeño Pepper Soda, Bazooka Blue Gun Flavored Soda or Martian Soda: Taste The Abduction?

Or, maybe you're in the mood for Enchilada Soda or the Toxic Waste Sour Soda.

If you're a sympathizer with the Communist Party, Uncle Joe's Candy Shop has plenty of soda bottles you can collect, such as:

• Stalinade The Real Red Soda
• Doomsday Lemonade Taste The Apocalypse featuring a photo of North Korea's Kim Jong Un
• Cream My People with a photo of late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi
• Fidel Castro Havana Banana.

Of course, if you're not into soda drinks featuring despised world leaders, you can also buy cans of:

• Bob Ross Positive Energy Drink
• Ted Lasso Pregame Energy Drink
• Pac-Man Level Up Energy Drink.

In addition to the wacky sodas and pop cans, Uncle Joe's has an incredible selection of nostalgic candy, including seven flavors of Big League Chew bubble gum.

Another wall display is filled with PEZ products.

You can buy Charleston Chew, Mamba, Hubba Bubba, Sugar Babies and Cow Tales as well as Ring Pop and Dippin Dots gumballs filled with candy beads.

One of the "hottest" selection in the new West Jefferson Street candy store is the Lil' Nitro, "The World's Hottest Gummy Bear."

You can find Whoppers, Milk Duds, Goobers, Andes mints and Dots candies.

Of course, if you're on a candy shopping spree, you can't pass up a chance to purchase a couple of boxes of King Size Candy cigarettes.

By the time of their early summer grand opening celebration, employees at Uncle Joe's Candy Shop say they plan to sell candy by the weight.

The storefront of Uncle Joe's Candy Shop is 1112 West Jefferson St. The new Joliet candy and soda shop is directly across the street from the Sooper Lube auto repair shop.