Brookfield’s Willy Wonka

There is a business in Brookfield that just about anybody could love, and that is the Lilett´ Candies store and candy-making factory at the corner of Sunnyside and Brookfield avenues. At 3808 Sunnyside Ave., for a more correct address.

Here at this one-story, yellow brick building is Brookfield’s answer to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. And you don’t even need a golden ticket to go in. Just have cash, a local personal check with ID or a credit card, and pull open the door.

So how did a candy-making business become located here? And why is it called Lilett´, and not Lilett’s? In the words of current owner Karen Crane Gula, “From what I understand, from hearing it from previous owners, the original owners, Jim and Lillian, were trying to create a name for their company that they wanted to start back in 1949, and that the name Lilett´ was due to brainstorming around the wife’s name, Lillian. And they came up with the name Lilett´ and then ‘Candies,’ because they knew it was going to be a candy store. But they sold candy and ice cream. Now that ice cream part is gone, and it’s just Lilett´ Candies.”

But where did the “ett” part of the name come from? Gula has considered that it might have been added to sound French, and fancier.

“It definitely made it more distinctive,” she said. “At that time, in 1949, calling it Lilett´ set it apart from being a regular name that everyone would know, plus, it has lasted for 58 years, and has endured better than some other candy names that I can think of, which sound kind of dated.”

Every owner to date has never wanted to put an “S” on the end of the name, and make it Lilett’s, which is how people refer to it ordinarily. According to Gula, “As Lilett´, it’s more distinctive that way, with a little accent mark after the second ‘T’.”

Gula wasn’t always a candy maker, but used to do it as a hobby. Formerly, she was associated with a Chicago banking firm, but decided to set her sights on sweets, first creating her own company, Karand Chocolates.

“I was selling my various candies wholesale to trade shows downtown, and selling my Tut Pyramid Chocolates to the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas,” Gula said. “I moved from the city to the western suburbs, and, in 1997, began searching the area for a new location for my candy business.

“When I was looking at a rental property on Grand Boulevard, I was advised to see what the owners of Lilett´ Candies at 9207 Broadway Avenue were doing. I called them one day, and they had available space for production, and so I leased this factory store from them.”

In April 2000, Gula’s company, Karand Chocolates, bought Lilett´ from the previous owners, Jane Burel and Chris Lucnik. As former patrons to the original Broadway Avenue store remember, Oberweis ice cream was still being sold. After the purchase of Lilett´, sales of ice cream sideline were dropped. The factory store, which had opened in 1994 as an addition to the Broadway Avenue site, then became the sole place of business.

“The building on Broadway was very nondescript,” said Gula. “I didn’t own it, then. There’s no history for me there, either. But Lilett´ has survived, and the candy recipes are intact and the same, and now we have additional products to round out our production line.”

Brookfield wasn’t the original location of Lilett´.

“My understanding is that the first Lilett´ Candies, selling ice cream, too, started in Chicago when they had lot of those family-run candy and ice cream stores, and it was on the south side. Cupid Candies was there and Dove Candies was there; they were all good friends.

“Then the owners moved to Broadview on Roosevelt Road for about 35 years. It was there for a long, long time, in comparison to it being in Chicago for a very short time, maybe only four to six years.

“It was then in Broadview until 1987 or 1988. Then the owner’s wife, Lillian, passed away, and he put the business up for sale, and the partnership of Burel and Lucnik bought it from him, and, I believe, within a year, moved it to Brookfield.”

Gula is not a native Brookfielder, but knew of the village from her trips to the Brookfield Zoo as a child.

“I grew up in Indiana, but I was always familiar with Brookfield … from a very early age,” Gula said. “My parents would bring my sister and I to the zoo, when we were with my cousin. Then, when I was married, we moved to Chicago, and … we would always come again, with our children to Brookfield, to the zoo.” Currently she lives in Indian Head Park.

The most popular candy sold has been, and still is, the English toffee, available in white chocolate or milk chocolate, and rolled in ground walnuts. This toffee has been the central staple of Lilett´ since 1949.

“You can’t go wrong with chocolate,” said Gula. It is definitely a crowd pleaser.”

Special candies for Christmas are also being produced. Gula revealed a few.

“We have our Peppermint Ice, that’s very popular during the holidays, not made all year; our gourmet peanut brittle; our caramel nut yule log; a chocolate holiday sampler; and a Christmas tree sucker with a star on top. Lots of stocking stuffers. After our English toffee, our Granny Smith caramel apples are the second most popular.

The company also sells a 3.5-pound, several-inch thick ‘Crack Me Up’ peppermint stick, which comes with its own metal mallet. At $22 it’s pricey, “but it can last all year, as long as you keep it in a air-tight plastic container,” Gula said. “It makes a great table centerpiece, too.”

Lilett´ Candies also has a website, at www.lilette.com, but that shows only a small sampling of all the candies they have for sale.

“What you don’t see,” said Gula, “is what we carry in the rest of the store. When you come in to see what we have, for any season, whether it’s Christmas or Easter, we’ll always have more in our store then we do on our website.”

But unlike Willy Wonka’s easily-identified chocolate factory, Lilett´ is not located in an especially architecturally-striking building. In fact, it’s almost nothing but plain yellow brick, with window awnings.

“Customers are always asking us, ‘where is your other store; do you have another store; why don’t you have another store,’ but for various reasons this is a good location for our candy kitchen, and it does have parking, although we’re a little out of the way,” Gula said. “Customers do find us, though. Customers come in who have known the previous owners. We are the destination point for good candy.”

While Lilett´ ships candy to every state in the nation, except for Hawaii, walk-in customers make up about 90 percent of the business. And, yes, you can still order candy sent out in time for Christmas.

“We will ship out, throughout December,” Gula said. “It depends on where the candy’s headed, but Chicago and the western suburbs will always be the next day.”