Brand new traditional shop selling 'pocket money' sweets opens in Scarborough

Ye Olde Sweet Shoppe is located in the vaults of the Market Hall on St. Helen’s Square and is run by mum and son duo Annette and Daniel Harker.

The duo used to run a coffee shop on Foss Gate in York, but decided to sell it after the commute became too much.

Daniel said: “We’re originally from Leyburn in the Yorkshire dales, and one of my mother’s very first jobs was in an old fashioned news agency which had the old fashioned glass jars and she used to weigh the sweets out by the quarter.

“I came up with the idea of the sweet shop, but my mother had the experience of it so we decided to go down that route!”

The shop sells traditional ‘pocket-money’ sweets such as pear drops, sugar mice, sherbet lemons and bon-bons but they also sell modern sweets such as mini eggs, gift sets and postcards and prints.

Other types of sweets and treats are on sale too.

“We moved to West Heslerton so we decided we needed to open something a bit closer to home as it’s a bit too far to journey to York to and from every day.

“We sold the business in York and we were deciding what we wanted to do. We didn’t want to go back into hospitality as it’s incredibly hard work.

“We decided to do a retail thing and that’s where the idea of an old-fashioned sweet shop came from.

“There’s not really one in Scarborough, there’s the stalls on the seafront but there’s nothing actually in Scarborough and after some research, we didn’t find anywhere and we thought it might be a good idea.

“We stumbled across the Market Hall and Vaults and went from there.”

The shop is open 9.30am until 4pm, Monday to Saturday and is closed on a Sunday.

Items are available online too.