Award-winning Chicago candy store creates specialty S'mores

Are you still looking for the perfect gift for Mother’s Day? Do you have a mom who likes to keep up with the rich and famous, but also has an incurable sweet tooth?

Windy City Sweets, in the Lakeview East neighborhood of Chicago, has the perfect solution.
Featured in the Mother’s Day In Hollywood gift boxes, the specially-created S’mores sampler box is available for you to buy for your mom in person or to be shipped internationally.

“We’ve developed it for the Hollywood Mother’s Day and we've shipped it out to Hollywood already,” Windy City Sweets Co-owner John Manchester said. “We've created kind of a S’more Sampler.”

The sampler has five different types of S’mores - milk chocolate, milk chocolate peanut butter, dark chocolate, white chocolate peanut butter and caramel.

“We expanded our line for it,” John Manchester said of the flavor variety created for Mother’s Day In Hollywood.

John Manchester and his wife Jill Manchester bought Windy City Sweets in 2011 and Jill Manchester said it was the S’mores that were the determining factor.

“One of the reasons we bought the store is I tasted the product the first time and I took one bite and I looked at John and said, “Oh my God we have got to buy this store,’” she said.

Windy City Sweets is no stranger to providing treats for Hollywood. Their products also were included in the Everyone Wins Swag Bag that went to the Oscar Nominees this year.

“For that one we had licorice from across the world,” John Manchester said.

They also sent Manchester's Old English toffee, a candy that is based on a proprietary recipe that came from John’s great-grandmother, Francis Manchester.

“It was a recipe book, kind of on a faded piece of paper that my father had,” John Manchester said. “It was something that she used to make around the holidays back in the day.”

The swag bag also included pecan caramel nut patties. After the swag bags were given out, Windy City Sweets, which ships internationally, saw an increase in sales.

“We did get a huge increase in online licorice sales,” John Manchester said. “That’s all across the country that we were shipping things out. That was one of the big things that they pushed or kind of highlighted in the gift package.”

The items sent to Hollywood’s elite are not limited to their palates. Customers can order the products too, both in person or online and have them shipped or pick them up. The S’mores sampler is available in the preselected combination of one of each flavor, but also milk chocolate. Or, if your gift recipient does not like caramel, for example, you can create your own gift box selection.

And if you needed a little convincing, Jill Manchester describes the experience of eating any of the S’mores selections.

“It satisfies your soul, it's so good,” she said.

Windy City Sweets has been in business for 43 years and has always garnered praise for its candy selections. They have also been honored by USA Today as one of the top two candy stores in the nation in 2023.

S’mores, even before being featured in Hollywood, are one of the store's top sellers.

And while they are featured in a variety pack for Mother’s Day, they make a great gift for any occasion, including buying one for yourself.

Jill Manchester said she is looking forward to receiving S’mores herself.

“There better be one on my bed waking up when they serve me breakfast in bed,” she said.
More information about Windy City Sweets as well as how to order gifts for shipping can be found at windycitysweets.com. Windy City Sweets is located at 3308 N. Broadway in Chicago. They can be reached by phone at (773) 477-6100.