A shop on Van Buren Street is living up to its name as it celebrates 50 years of business in 2023.
That business is Heritage Candy Store, the anchoring shop in the Heritage Mall, which is owned by brothers Greg and Tim Percifield.
The Percifields’ ancestors have been property owners and entrepreneurs in Nashville since at least the 1880s. The Heritage Mall started as a furniture store, The Heritage Shop, in the mid 1950s and was owned by Charlie and Eva May, grand and great-grandparents to the Percifields.
After Charlie’s passing in the early 1970s, Eva decided to convert the building to its current configuration as a shopping mall by old friends of the family, Joe Rafferty and Lee Howery. Soon thereafter, Howery and Rafferty opened Nashville Candy Store in the mall.
Rafferty would often make the gourmet fudge at his home, bringing it into the store. When the shop ran out, he would run home and get cooking.
Years later, Margaret Allender purchased the Nashville Candy Store and with her guidance the shop expanded its product offering and prospered through the next 35 years. The store is the only one original to the mall’s inception.
In 2015, Margaret decided to sell the candy store and retire. The new owner partnered with the Percifield brothers to remodel and expand the shop and in 2017 the Percifields took over the candy store, buying the assets of Nashville Candy Store in February of 2018.
Greg’s daughter, Lacy took over management of the store, which they renamed Heritage Candy Store.
Heritage Candy Store still makes all fudge and brittle products in-house and offers numerous chocolates and candies purchased from a very select list of vendors.
The original fudge recipes are in use, as well as the addition of many new flavors like cookie dough and dark chocolate with caramel and sea salt.
Fresh fudge flavors are rotated on a regular basis and usually feature 15 to 20 selections, as well as peanut, cashew and pecan brittle.
When Greg was in college at Indiana University, he advised his mother to sell the mall. She never would do it, then she got older and her sons took over running it.
After she passed away, the brothers found a real estate abstract that was inches thick, Greg said, with a history of the property dating back to the 1800s.
“It became clear to me, ‘I can’t sell this!” he said last month.
After researching the store’s history, they found that it’s in its 50th year of business, and they wanted to commemorate that milestone in a mural.
Greg contacted local artist Amanda Mathis, because he knew her art style would be a conversation starter for visitors to the shop.
Though the people in her paintings are faceless, their personalities shine through their clothing, pets and activities that are depicted in the work.
The final product includes the Percifields and their family, as well as the shop’s previous owners looking down on the street scene from hot air balloons.
“I think she did an astounding job on it,” Greg said.
“We want to put our mark on (the business). We’re pretty proud of the fact that the business is here, not just the candy shop but the mall as well.”
Hitting a stride
Lacy said their first year of business with the candy store, they didn’t really know what they were doing, but once they got the hang of things became excited for their second year.
The second year, there was a flood in the building and they were shut down for two months.
Following the flood and subsequent repairs, they reopened, but without a full and consistent year of sales.
Then in 2020 they shut down for two months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lacy said that last year she was finally able to hit her stride as manager, with ordering, avoiding crises and working around supply chain shortages.
What came was a monumental fall season in 2022.
“I feel like, every single year, no matter what, sales have increased,” she said.
“I don’t think that’s an accident; I like to think we have a little something to do with that.”
Lacy served customers last month who had waited an entire year for buckeyes from Heritage Candy Store, after they sampled the peanut butter and chocolate treat on a visit to Brown County.
You don’t have to wait, she said, as the store does have a website where orders can be made.
Coming into a stride has not only been with sales and products, but procedures as well. The store has been able to have another person on staff learn the fudge-making product, so Lacy is not the sole chef.
After the flood, flooring was changed, display cabinets were replaced and new products were brought in, including sugar-free candy.
One of their sales representatives got the business Food and Drug Administration information about differences between sugar-free and no-added sugar.
Once they added the option, it tripled the store’s chocolate sales.
The walls were also painted bright and friendly colors.
Baking was always something Lacy loved to do, but had never been into making chocolates or candy. Through college she worked in a restaurant that she ended up managing, then was in a property management role before her father and uncle brought her on board the business.
Lacy would often take fudge to Allender to taste and seek out candy guidance from the previous owner before her passing last year.
“That’s been a game changer for us, completely,” Lacy said.
“I think we couldn’t have done as well as we’ve done without having that knowledge.”
Now, she’s become the fudge expert and has branched out with fudge flavors too, adding unique picks like pancakes and bacon — a maple fudge topped with bacon bits — and strawberry shortcake.
‘It’s home’
Tim said after the stock market crash of 2008, he has seen less stores carrying imported merchandise and instead offering high quality products.
Greg said while the town’s niche is tourism, he’d like to see the area not forget its roots as an artist colony.
With the additions of public art pieces, galleries and stores offering handmade items, he thinks the town is going in the right direction.
He also said he is “all for” the addition of the Brown County Music Center and believes it will bring an opportunity for more business and more people in Brown County.
The store’s future intentions are to grow the website and create fundraising opportunities for local organizations.
Learning how much history is not only in the store, but in their family has kept the Percifields invested in their business, both as shop and property owners in Nashville.
“It’s home,” Greg said.
“Growing up I had a lot of friends that said, ‘Oh I can’t wait to get out.’ For me, I never did want to do that.”
Greg remembers being in the Heritage Mall as an “itty bitty kid,” he said, not much longer after his family opened the furniture store, and spending after school hours at Miller’s Drug Store (now The Hob Nob Corner Restaurant) sampling Cokes from the old fashioned soda fountain.
Their family lived behind the Nashville United Methodist Church, so he was at the store constantly.
The brothers’ great-grandparents were Dennis and Clara Calvin, who lived in a blue house that once stood on East Main Street.
“There’s a lot of history,” Tim said.
Having that kind of history, the brothers have seen the business and physical landscape of the town change over the years.
Looking back, the Calvins were forces in Nashville for a very long time, Greg said, owning two or three different hardware stores. One can be seen in the background of Frank Hohenberger’s “Liar’s Bench” photo.
The history being realized, the Percifields knew that was another reason to acquire the candy store.
“Now it’s here and it’s not going anywhere,” Greg said.
Heritage Candy Store
Location: 41 S. Van Buren St.
Hours: Open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily
Phone: 812-200-1077
Email: [email protected]
Website: heritagecandystore.com
Facebook: HeritageCandyStore
