Corden Chocolates in Inkster to close after 105 years in business

A few days after Mother's Day is when Corden Chocolates, also known as Corden's Candy Carousel, typically closes for the season and reopens sometime in September.

That has been the store's schedule for the last 25 years, owner and chocolate maker Nick Corden said.

The heat and humidity, Corden said, make it impossible to work with chocolate at the family business he took over years ago.

But this year is different.

After more than 100 years in business, the Corden Chocolates store with the red cherry with a stem for the "O" in the name on Michigan Avenue in Inkster near the Dearborn border will close for good. And Corden will no longer make Corden's famed chocolates, at least in that long-standing building.

After months of churning out a variety of Corden's handmade chocolate sea salt caramels, caramels, turtles, toffee and chocolate barks and much more six days a week, Nick Corden hangs up the apron for the summer.

"Usually it's after Mother's Day because I'll have some stuff that I don't want to have for the summer," he said. "And on Monday and Tuesday, we'll open up and sell it to people that are part of their summer stash. "

While the store is closing, Corden said he's not ready to totally stop.

"Yes, I am closing the building facility here," he said while sitting in the back room of the business where all the chocolate magic happens. "I would like if possible ... I don't know if it is to continue making chocolate and offering it to longtime customers and family members on a little smaller scale."

For the last 15 years, Corden, now 66, said once he prepared for reopening Labor Day, he was at the shop six, seven days a week all the way through Mother's Day. And the days, he said, can be anywhere from 10 to 12 hours. In months like November and December, he said, that includes Saturday and Sunday.

During the summer shutdown, Corden said he used that time to fix any equipment in need of repair. He still uses equipment, like the caramel cutter, his grandfather used, and the chocolate enrobing machine his dad had. And, even his dad's funnel, a piece of equipment he holds dear.

But the building, Corden said, is a little tired and he drives a long way to and from work.

"There's a lot that goes into a day, putting chocolate on top of something is the easy part," Corden said with a laugh.

The building is for sale, but the business is not. Although he would entertain selling some of the recipes he and his dad tweaked.

"I have some people interested in that if they want to go off and do it so long as I can still make whatever little things that I want to make my little workshop by myself, and still sell it under the name of Corden's," he said."

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Since people found out about the closing, Corden said he didn't want to make it public too soon, they've been overwhelmed.

"Everybody is coming from everywhere," he said. "People have been coming in and talking and everybody had such kind words for me and my dad. It's been good."

Once word got out, Corden said he got calls from Maryland, Arizona and Washington.

Last week, on a sunny Friday afternoon, Lisa Vega, of Dearborn, stopped in Corden's to pick up some chocolates.

Vega, 54, said she has been coming to Corden's for years. First, at the original store in Detroit with her aunt and uncle, she said. And now, at the Inkster store with her daughter, Allison.

Vega fondly remembers when the store would have a big chocolate Easter egg filled with chocolate eggs.

"It's the nostalgia of it all," Vega said. "You feel like you are being taken back to yesteryear. And the chocolate is so wonderful. "

Doug Westra, of Dearborn, also recently stopped into Corden Chocolates.

"I tend to stop in for special occasions to pick something," Westra said. "It's sad to see it close," Westra said.

Robert Turley, who now lives in New York City, remembers plenty about Corden's.

"I can't help going back to that lovely little, memory-filled building," he posted on an Inkster community Facebook page.

Turley, reached by phone, grew up in Inkster in the '70s. He said the shop was known as a special occasion place.

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"It's not just a place for delicious chocolate and candy, there are so many family memories," Turley said. "If you behaved in church, you might get a treat. Mother's Day, Easter, there are so many occasions and memories associated with it."

"He's (Nick Corden) an old-school chocolatier and we are really lucky to have that quality of chocolate for so many years," Turley said.

Chocolate making started in Detroit

For more than a century, Corden's has been making its fine, handmade chocolates by three generations of Cordens.

"A son of a chocolate maker, who was the son of a chocolate maker, " is how Nick Corden is described on the website.

It was Sam Corden who came to the U.S. from Greece and, along with his cousin Gus, opened a small shop in Detroit in 1918.

The location was next door to the Loop Theater, Nick Corden said.

"But the location didn't last long because they got into the Senate District location," Corden said.

That location, next to the Senate Theater, opened a few years after the original and was known as the Senate Sweet Shop.

"The Senate sweet shop is what everybody remembers in the Senate commercial district, which was a great block," said Corden.

Corden's father, Evans, eventually took over the shop and opened the Inkster location in 1965-66, Corden said. His father, according to the website, is described as being the catalyst for growing the business, crafting fine chocolates.

"He was the true genius of the family, who could play with chocolate the way Mozart could play with music," the website says.

Corden's late father and mother, Maria, maintained both shops for several years, but closed the Senate Sweet Shop in the late '60s and concentrated on the Inkster location, Corden said.

At the Inkster location, the front faces Michigan Avenue and is where the chocolates are sold. In the back of the building is a spacious room where Corden makes chocolates and caramel among other items using many of the same pieces of equipment his father used.

The back room is where his father tempered chocolate, made caramel and all the Corden's specialties. It's where Nick Corden, learned the art of making chocolate from his father.

It's a room that Corden said he grew to love. It's where there are stacks of wooden shakers, wood racks and wood trays, all made by his father, used in making the chocolates.

"I'll miss the customers, but I'll miss this room the most," he said.

Taking over the chocolate business

Corden, who went to law school and practiced law for 25 years, said while he grew up at the Senate Sweet Shop location, he spent time, even while working as a lawyer, on the weekends or at night at the Inkster location while his parents worked.

As Corden got older, he would help with the business, taking chocolates and getting business.

"We were in Jacobson store for the home, we were in the casinos, and we were for a very short time with Hiller's before they sold," Corden said. "So I was in that part of it. And I never thought I would be in this part."

Corden's mother, Maria, died very suddenly and unexpectedly on Valentine's Day in 2009, he said.

"And that's when I really resigned from my firm," he said.

He then went to work for the family business making chocolate, helping and learning how to make chocolate from his father in the back room.

Over the years, the business grew, drawing fans from out of the state. Corden said he has sent pounds of chocolate to Kuwait in the Middle East and to Japan.

"I just shipped out a 20-pound case to Maryland," he said. Corden's chocolates have been shipped to Washington, California, Florida, Arizona and Texas.

"When you grow up on this stuff, and you leave, you realize you can't get this anywhere else," he said. "When you ship it to Maryland, or Oregon or Vancouver, they let other people try it. "

What follows is phone calls from people who've tried and want it shipped.

"It happens that easily," he said.

A bittersweet end

While the store is closing, Corden said he knows he won't be able to offer the full product line.

"I am hoping that I can still make the core group of chocolates that I have to make once or twice a week to keep up," he said.

Those core groups of chocolates, Corden called the bread and butter, include maraschino cherries, rum cherries, turtles, toffee, sea salt caramel, peanut butter and coconut clusters and peanut clusters and different types of bark.

Corden also makes a dark, dried cherry bark with either pecans or walnuts that, he said, turned out to be a "monster."

"So those are those are the things I think I can do without working seven days a week," he said.

Contact Detroit Free Press food and restaurant writer Susan Selasky and send food and restaurant news to: sselasky@freepress.com. Follow @SusanMariecooks on Twitter. Subscribe to the Free Press.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Corden Chocolate in Inkster will close after 105 years in business