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Williamsburg Bakery to Feature Wall of Candy

By Serena Dai | November 20, 2014 4:52pm
 The new Williamsburg bakery and cafe Sweethaus will be opened at 135 Metropolitan Ave.
Sweethaus Bakery Opening with Candy and Cupakes
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WILLIAMSBURG — Sweet tooths will find more than enough to chew on at new Williamsburg cafe Sweethaus.

In addition to offering cookies and cupcakes, the bakery and cafe opening at 135 Metropolitan Ave. this weekend will also have a wall with nearly 200 different candies for sale.

Owner Tara Koenig, who opened the first location of Sweethaus in Charlottesville, Virginia, several years ago, wants the place — which will also feature non-dessert items — to be more than a cupcake shop, she said.

"It’s just a fun space to hang out around cupcakes and candy," Koenig said.

Koenig and her staff make all the cupcakes, cookies, lemon bars, macarons and more, but the extensive candy selection is a curated collection of both childhood favorites and specialty chocolate bars from Virginia and Brooklyn.

She and her husband Billy both used to live in New York, working for shops like Balthazar and Pastis. They moved to Charlottesville to start a family but missed city life and decided to return.

The mix of candies at the new store, including Mast Brothers chocolate bars from Brooklyn and a miso caramel apple candy from Virginia, represents the connection between the two places, Koenig said.

"I think people are going to be really excited about the connection we’re offering," she said.

The childhood favorites — gummy bears, sour belts, gummy sharks — will be available to buy in a mix-and-match fashion, she said.

And favorites from the Charlottesville shop, like a chocolate chip cookie dough cupcake with chocolate chip cookie dough frosting, will be available, too.

"It's a magical sweet land," Koenig said. "I would be amazed if I went into a place for coffee and found that I could overload on chocolate."

For people who want savory options, Sweethaus will also offer a full food menu with salads, sandwiches, soups and specialities like a Southern tomato pie.

It will be open from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. for coffee in the morning and champagne and cupcakes at night. Eventually, it will also offer baking classes.

"New York has plenty of cupcake shops," Koenig said. "We're doing it a lot more cafe style. It just so happens we make really great cupcakes."

In other local business news:

Williamsburg sports bar 4th Down — which closed its original location due to rising rents — is reopening a new location at 750 Grand St. on Friday.

The new location triples the amount of bar seating to increase "interaction with the staff and fellow sports fans," owner Geoff Weber said. It will also have 14 plasma TV's and two HD projection screens for games.

And of course, beer will be served — 4th Down's new spot will offer 10 craft New York beers on tap and 15 bottle and can beers. Happy hour is Monday through Friday from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m., with $4 drafts, $4 well drinks and $4 shots of Jameson.

► Coney Island boutique Lola Star opened a Williamsburg holiday gift shop at 193 Bedford Ave. over the weekend. It sells Brooklyn-themed t-shirts, jewelry and gifts for those looking to bring a little Coney Island to their loved ones for Christmas.