You want what you can't have....the demise of the Clark Bars
 

I remember walking up to my drug store in Cleveland as kid to buy a Clark Bar. ( my favorite all-time candy bar) One of the few regrets about moving out to the West Coast was that Clark Bars never seem to have made it out West. Occasionally one could find it at an obscure gas station when traveling....I was royally dismayed to see the Necco Candy Company, which made the Clark Bar, went out of business this week. Suddenly I HAD to have one although it has been years since I even thought of them.

Unfortunately a box of 24 on Amazon went from $20 to over $100 overnight when the news spread the company that makes them closed. Now ever single online candy store is " out-of -stock."
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But good news.........I did find 5 bars at our local candy store on their " retro" shelf. I guess the news of the plant closing didn't hit our little island yet.

Have you ever tried either Butterfinger or Fifth Avenue bars? There isn't a whole lot to differentiate between the three.

I get it, some people prefer Twinkies, some prefer Zingers, but as Clark bars are no more...

Blasphemy! At least the Zagnut survives. And the Clark Bar and Grill in the Clark Building.

Production of the Clark bar itself has been "shut down" a few times in the past, so let's see what happens from the company that purchased the rights.

The original Cambridge NECCO factory and HQ is now a major biomedical research facility. I would be nostalgic for the NECCO stuff (not that I ever ate it), but I do miss the smell of sweets emanating from the factory as a memory of my youth. And there's nothing wrong with a biomedical research facility, really.

https://cambridgehistory.org/candy/necco.html

The real problem with all this is that it's hard to be an independent candy maker and get distribution because of all the consolidation to either Hershey or M&M/Mars. Maybe you can go high-end and try to crack a place like Walgreen's (the Ghirardelli route), but you need something with staying power, and in a consolidation environment "success" can mean an offer to buy your brand out, but if you refuse the spurned acquirer could come up with a copycat and try to run you out (like Krackel bars vs. Nestle crunch, though Nestle is big enough globally to hang in there).

There was a lot more diversity when I was 5 or 6 years old and could ride my bike to the 7-Eleven. Milk Shake bars were a real fave. I liked the Spree rolls and Necco wafers, and the Chuckles were good as well.

I remember taking the Motown tour in Detroit about 13 years ago. In the old office they had a (non-active) preserved vending machine from 1967-ish with the pull knobs and Milk Shake, Chuckles and 3 other candy types from then in the window.

Still available in the U.K.
Prices are the standard import inflated, but not to a ridiculous degree.

Interesting article on the difference between a Clark Bar and a Butterfinger. ( Hint: there is a reason I liked Clark Bars so much more)

https://www.ehow.com/info_8333354_di...terfinger.html

That reminds me of my days with The Carters Ink Company back in the mid-1970's. The Carter family moved production from an ancient brick factory on the banks of the Charles river in Cambridge to smaller plants in the South rather than cave in to union demands. The building sat empty for years. I worked in a divisional HQ after the Carter family sold the business to a larger stationery products firm in Framingham. We received calls weekly from people who wanted to know why the clock facing the river couldn't be set to tell the correct time. I wonder what happened to that prime piece of real estate.

I don't think the Necco story is over. I haven't seen a Sky Bar in many years but if I did, I would be tempted to buy one. Necco wafers and sweetshearts could still be found here in Florida at one of the dollar store chains. Maybe I should take a look at lunch and decide whether to invest in some if they haven't all been scooped up.

I haven't seen sweethearts [they're the ones with little phrases printed on them, right?] since grade school, where we Scotch taped them to the Valentine's Day cards we were required to give to one another.

They were a pretty good metric for determining which girl was interested in you. One Sweetheart taped to your card - 'don't even talk to me, I had to give you this'. Two - 'wanna sit next to each other at lunch?' Three - 'let's meet behind the gym at recess'.

Get them on Amazon!

I got a whole box of them from Mary Ellen. I was in second grade at the time. I wonder what she wanted.

I spent a couple minutes on the Necco Wikipedia page and was surprised at their other products. I'm aging myself here, but the corner store sold penny candy when I was a kid and three Necco items were 2 for a penny: Mint Juleps, Banana Splits and Mary Janes. All three of which could remove a filling from your tooth with no difficulty.

Wonder if Rocket Fizz would have them.

I haven't thought of Milk Shake bars in years, I used to love them.

Sky Bar was always special to me because my grandmother used to buy them for me when I was a child. Cracker Barrel usually has them in their shops and on the rare occasion I'd get to one (there isn't a Cracker Barrel within 40 miles from my home, AFAIK), I'd always buy a Sky Bar for old time's sake.

It would take more than a Sky Bar to get me into Cracker Barrel these days.

They do bacon, eggs, home fries, and toast as well as anyone I suppose. But there is no way I would voluntarily hassle with enduring God's waiting room trying to get a table there.

As an aside, an acquaintance who is a city manager in a town where Cracker Barrel opened, and for nearly three years had a half hour wait for that entire time until they abruptly closed, said the company told him they closed because people in that area weren't buying enough crap in the gift shop. Apocryphal perhaps, but having been there a couple of times and watched people lap that crap up - the tchotchkes, not the food - I wouldn't doubt it.