You may know it as the Victoria Wine Shop or the Sue Ryder Shop, but this Stone High Street property – that’s been vacant for over ten years – finally has a new tenant – Chocbox!
Visitors to Stone High Street will have seen a lovely double-fronted unit that’s been empty and had its windows whitewashed out for what feels like forever.
Whilst the landlord has carried out various repairs and improvements to the property over the years, it’s lacked a tenant to bring it back in to use.
A Little Bit of Stone caught up with the new business owner, Kay Wood, to hear about her plans for the new shop, which opened this week!
Kay was keen to tell us about her background and what led up to the decision to open Chocbox:
“I have worked in retail for several years and more recently in a sweet shop, however last year, I like many others, was made redundant.
Having had previous experience in the sweet business I realised there was a growing market for chocolate, after all, who doesn’t enjoy chocolate!?
After a great deal of planning and discussing, I decided to take the plunge and open a chocolate shop.”
The unit’s been vacant for as long as we’ve lived in Stone, so we asked Kay what drew her to that particular shop. Kay explained to ALBOS:
“I looked at many towns, but I was drawn to the busy little marketplace of Stone.
I loved the feel of the town and its loyal customers who still shopped local, the Farmers Market and Food Festival also added to its appeal.
After deciding on Stone, I was amazed to find this beautiful double fronted shop on the High Street which had apparently been empty for many years. It seemed a terrible waste of such a beautiful shop, and I could imagine straight away what this could be like when kitted out with our fabulous chocolate range.”
So it’s clear that chocolate will be the name of the game at Chocbox, so we were keen to hear about what type of chocolate the shop would be selling. It’s clear that Kay loves her chocolate, and she enthused about what was going to be in store, telling us:
“Our store will be “choc’d” full of chocololate. We will have:
- 100 different real chocolate Pick N Mix items
- 100 different fine Belgian chocolates to choose from in our chocolate case
- All manner of Belgian and other European chocolate gifting items
- Chocolate bars, tablets, and slabs
Our range will feature vegan, sugar-free, no sugar added, and other lifestyle suitable chocolates and as Christmas approaches, we will have a large range of Christmas gifting items, including Christmas gift hampers.”
Finally, Kay told us:
“The shop has been a hive of activity now for several weeks and we have had so much interest from the public and are now excited to announce that we are open to the residents and shoppers of Stone. We look forward to welcoming you inside our “World of Chocolate”.”
