Oct. 19, 2023

Hartford entrepreneurs Bob and Lori Gilliland have opened two adjacent retail shops in Sioux Falls: one selling candy and the other CBD products.

Sweet Amber Lynn’s and ShamRock CBD Shop are in the former Midco customer experience center in the Village on Louise retail center on the southwest corner of 57th Street and Louise Avenue.

The candy shop, which features nostalgic brands, bulk candy, novelties and more than 200 flavors of sodas and other drinks, has been a longtime dream of Lori’s but came to fruition when Bob had extra room after leasing the space for his CBD shop.

“I said, ‘Well, maybe with my mom passing away’ – I was sad, obviously – and I was like, ‘I need something to do,’” Lori said. “So I said I should do some sort of store and name it after my mom. He said, ‘Well, we’ve always talked about doing a candy store. Let’s do a candy store.’ And I’m like, yeah. And I said Sweet Amber Lynn’s. My mom’s name is Amber — Lynn was her middle name — and it just stuck. … It’s just something fun for me to do to take up my time.”

The couple, who also own The Goat Bar & Grill in Hartford, enjoy stopping at Minnesota’s Largest Candy Store near Jordan, and they’re using the same sales rep as the legendary attraction.

“So she knew what candy was cool,” Lori said. “We gave her an amount to start out, which we went way overboard (on). We have a whole backroom and an office full of candy. We let her do our first order, and she did great.”

Customers can pick from more than 400 types of candy, snacks and chocolates, and 200 bulk items of gummies, gumballs, hard candies and other treats.

While most of the space in Sweet Amber Lynn’s is filled with bags, boxes, tubs and containers of candy and shelves lined with bottles of pop, there’s a soda shop counter with two-toned teal and gleaming chrome stools. The vibrant epoxy countertop with shades of pink and blue was custom-made by Brian Siedschlag of Brian’s Custom Counters in Hartford.

The shop also serves Lotus plant-based energy drinks. Lori created custom flavors using candy themes like cotton candy, gummy bear, Razzles and Smarties.

“I don’t want to compete with Juice Stop, and I don’t want to step on their toes,” she said of the neighboring shop. She’s also mindful of not duplicating offerings at other businesses such as Panera Bread and CherryBerry.

“I’ve had people ask to get ice cream, and it’s like, ‘Nope, there’s an ice cream (shop).’”

Eventually, Sweet Amber Lynn’s will host birthday parties. The business also is working on private label offerings like freeze-dried candy.

“My mom, she loved (taffy,)” Lori said. “Whenever we went on vacation, I always brought her back taffy. That’s our big thing (here), and that’s going to be our first private label freeze dried.”

Next door, ShamRock CBD Shop also is working to do private label products, Bob said. The business started a couple of months ago as a franchise, but that didn’t work out, he said.

“We’re going to do our own label, our own products, top-quality products,” he said. “It’s not like a regular smoke shop.”

All of the products are aimed at improving customer’s health – and that of their pets, Bob said.

“We have oils, tinctures, gummies, coffee, gel caps, creams; the creams and roll-ons are really huge for pain and inflammation. Pet treats is a huge one.”

The Gillilands use CBD products themselves and give CBD treats to their dog.

“It’s amazing,” Lori said. “He’s 11 years old, and he was to the point where he just laid around, and you could tell that he was achy, and he’s like a puppy now.”

The shop is bright and colorful like the candy shop. It has two counters with stools. One is for the coffee, and the other is an oxygen bar.

While oxygen bars are popular in places like Las Vegas where they’re used as a hangover cure, “that’s not the reason we have it,” Bob said. “It is just for health benefits. It does give you more energy, it refreshes you, helps the blood, helps the oxygen levels.”

Both shops at 5111 and 5113 S. Louise Ave. are still settling into regular hours, but “we’ll be open 11 to 6 for sure,” Lori said. “We might do 7 o’clock, and I think we’ll be closed on Sundays because it’s really slow.”