Coffee & Treats in Lake Worth Corridor

The bowl of sweets in grandma's house. Late nights sifting through Halloween hauls. A Valentine's Day surprise. Sometimes, a simple piece of candy can conjure up a flood of memories. For Bulk Candy Store’s customers, they have their pick of edible nostalgia from the family-owned confectionery’s vast supply of treats. The store’s retro candies take the form of Charms Blow Pops, Mary Jane taffies, and old-time licorice to transport sweet teeth to the past more effectively than a Tootsie Roll–shaped time machine. The dessert emporium has dedicated sections of its gargantuan stock for kosher and sugar-free candies, and they can also help customers search for candy by shape.

The bakers at Mmmm…. Cupcakes whip up artfully decorated handheld treats in a scrumptious spectrum of traditional, gluten-free, and vegan varieties. Utilizing 30% less sugar and a full line of organic ingredients, the bakers craft cakes ranging from full-sized desserts to easily weaponized cupcake push-pops. All baking is done in the shop’s kosher-certified kitchen, allowing customers of all ilks to chomp into freshly baked bites of Butterfinger, cran-orange, or guava con queso cupcakes. Bakers also teach the basic skills of custom cupcakery in one-hour lessons, in which students learn how to decorate and devour cupcakes tastier than a fresh-baked vending machine.

Chefs Paul Berger and Scott Fischer met as contestants on Master Chef, and even though neither made it far on the show, they quickly discovered a mutual passion for locally produced foods and unique snacks. It wasn’t long before the duo poured their shared enthusiasm into opening Wicked Awesome Snackbar, a casual neighborhood eatery that uses entirely locally grown and organic ingredients and bakes all its eclectic breads and pastries fresh daily. The menu features casual small plates such as salads sprinkled with blue cheese and craisins, sandwiches laden with vegetables and seasoned meats, and three pizzas named after Boston neighborhoods famous for containing more pizzas than people.

To orchestrate meal finales, Wicked Awesome crafts an ever-evolving snack menu of sweets such as double-chocolate-chip cookies and salted-caramel whoopie pies. More than 30 local and national craft beers complement each dish, a few of which even find their way into the eatery’s breads and desserts. The menu appears etched on a chalkboard behind the bar and, like the giant lazy susan that supports the earth’s mass, rotates daily.

Palm Beach Smoothies’ baristas are known for shaking things up—both literally and figuratively. The colorful shop flouts tradition by blending fresh oranges and pineapples with such unconventional smoothie add-ons as Red Bull, green tea, applesauce, and cinnamon. Aside from fruit-based concoctions, the baristas whip up five varieties of smoothies with creamy almond milk and low-fat yogurt. When ordering an indulgent blend of graham crackers and marshmallows, guests can ask their barista to top off the s’more-style shake with whey protein, wheatgrass, or the fiber-packed pages of a campfire songbook. Each of the more than 25 smoothie varieties pairs nicely with the café’s grilled paninis, turkey wraps, and organic steel-cut oatmeal.

Scattered pimento-like across the Boca Raton area, Mitch and Cory Shidlofsky's microcosmic Brooklyns serve teetering deli sandwiches and hearty breakfast fare. Every morning, diners tuck into 20 types of bagels, including egg, sunflower seed, pumpernickel, and marble, and slather them in cream-cheese flavors such as scallion, honey walnut, and strawberry. Sweeter options abound as well, including challah french toast, and Oreo pancakes that help children-at-heart relive their glory days when their heads were the size of cookies. Gloriously messy sandwiches star on the lunch menu—foremost among them the New Jersey sloppy joe, in which roast beef, corned beef, and turkey spill out from under russian dressing and coleslaw.