Huyler's

Huyler's was a candy and restaurant chain in the New York City metropolitan area which was in business beginning in the 19th Century. Huyler’s chocolate and candy company was once the largest and most prominent chocolate maker in the United States. In 1883 their candy factory was located at Irving Place and 18th Street in Manhattan. The New York City Telephone Building occupied the opposite corner of 18th Street. The firm was on a list of businesses in a 1901 issue of the New York Times, which had been in existence for at least fifty years. The chain was owned by John S. Huyler, later a trustee of Syracuse University. He died in 1910 at the age of 65.

John Seys Huyler was born in New York City on June 26, 1846 to David and Abigail Ann (née DeKlyn)Huyler. His father had a bakery and ice cream shop in Greenwich Village, probably on Jane Street. The family lived above the store. Huyler began working in his father's shop as a teenager. He began making a soft molasses candy and selling out of his father’s store.

John Huyler's first business was a shop on Broadway near 18th Street. It sold ice cream and candy. Huyler marketed his candy by placing a candy puller in the front store window, so that people walking by would stop and watch the candy being made. He saved the profit from the endeavor and put it back in his business, opening his first store in 1874. A few years later he opened three more stores in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Albany. In 1881 the company was incorporated and became known as Huyler’s, Inc. A factory was constructed at Eleventh and Bleeker Streets in New York City, to manufacture candy for sale in the various shops. This facility was quickly out-grown, and replaced around 1883 by a larger six-story factory and office located at 62-64 Irving Place and 18th Street. Huyler’s candies were manufactured in small batches, which cost more to produce, but allowed the company to monitor the quality of the products more carefully. While the main store was located at 863 Broadway, with a reputation for freshness and purity, by 1885 Huyler’s candies were sold in fashionable Newport, Rhode Island, and the resort communities of Saratoga, New York and Long Branch, New Jersey.

Milton S. Hershey arrived in New York in the spring of 1883 and worked employed at Huyler’s until 1885 when he returned to Lancaster, Pennsylvania to establish his own company.

Huyler made frequent trips to Europe to study new candy creations being developed in England, France, and Germany.

...
Wikipedia