The Sweetest Things
4649 West Saanich Road
Saanich, B.C. 
(250) 590-6619

Store Hours:
Mon – Sat: 10am – 5pm
Sun: 10am – 4pm

Sweet Delights
#113 – 2187 Oak Bay Avenue 
Oak Bay, B.C. 
(778) 430-4906 

Store hours:
Mon – Sat: 10am – 5:30pm
Sun 11am – 4pm

To be fair, The Sweetest Things and Sweet Delights are two other candy shops in Victoria, and they are distinguishable. The former is located in the district of Saanich and the latter Oak Bay. Although Delights have been around longer and Things are somewhat new, the areas they are located in are not really convenient for me to reach by car. Busing into either store is far easier than finding parking—especially when I consider a good part of residential Oak Bay to be riddled with maze-like streets.

Parking is limited within the strip malls where both shops are located. I’ll have to admire the fact that Sweetest Things has Georgie’s Tea Emporium, with lots of products from the Metropolitan Tea Company, right next door. Sweet Delights has a wider selection of prepackaged Jelly Bellys. Instead of buying in bulk, customers can purchase by the unit. I found some soda-infused versions that I had to try. I liked the Dr. Pepper flavoured pieces and disliked the cream soda. The 7-Up flavour was okay, but I figure true licensing of the ingredients that make up the actual drink came at a slight variation to make the taste work in solid form. In trying Jelly Belly’s Beanaturals (Superfruit), I found the acai berry to be quite off. I may simply feed these to the birds.

During one recent visit to Delight, I didn’t find any of David’s Gourmet Jelly Beans within sight. I’ve tried several flavours of this higher class product and they can’t do no wrong. And I know where I’ll be going when I need a specific fix.

As for other confectionaries, the selection in both these other stores is pretty much the same as Oh Sugar’s. The Lucky Pink Elephant popcorn is everywhere. Because of the wider space in Delights, more items can be put on display. At Things, the space seems limited but it’s colorful. They have a great range of products from the UK based Classic Candy Company. They have salt water taffies, Lego candies and chicken bones. In the taffy line, there are flavours like blue raspberry, watermelon and huckleberry. I suspect that’s where the Huckleberry Patch in Montana gets their supply. Not everything from this operation can be made in-house, but I’m loving their teas and jellies.

Shoppers during the Christmas season may find some unique items in either of these shops. Various toys are abound in the Sweetest Things store, but over at Delights, I didn’t find any more Cheshire Cat or Houdini vanishing mugs recently, but I was tempted to grab the Star Trek Next Generation PEZ set. During a previous trip, I saw a round tin of Ghostbusters sours which I had to add to my collection. The candy itself is a tosser, but the circular tin with the mascot makes for a great way to store all my photo camera cards.

While this store does not offer many house-made products, at least both of these alternative places offer the creation of bouquets for special occasions like birthdays and Christmas. Both stores are certainly worth a visit to look at their seasonal decor. And if customers look carefully, retro video game themed candies can be found. But who wants to eat them than beat them? I guess sucking down on some sugar power pills will help gamers achieve that high score, but I don’t know. Sweet Delights might want to partner up with GottaCon with mana potions and other power-ups to keep all kinds of gamers awake while in the next Halo tournament.