Suck and Chew on London’s Columbia Road has got to be one of my all-time favourite shops in the city and a real treat for anyone with a sweet tooth like me. From its candy-coloured shop front to the many old-fashioned treats displayed all around, the shop is a multicoloured wonderland of nostalgic sweeties: if you like cola cubes, rhubarb and custards and handmade organic truffles then you’ll be in heaven.
Suck and Chew founder Vicki Maguire, a copywriter at advertising agency Hurrell Moseley Dawson Grimmer, came up with the idea after hankering after old-fashioned service and carefully crafted products. In an interview with Design Week Maguire explained: ”We wanted adults to stand in wonder at the rows and rows of sweetie jars and ditch their organic lifestyle at the sight of a Sherbet fountain,” she adds. “It is a nostalgic concept, but more than that. It’s about a love of the time and care that went into things, and of independent stores.”
The little shop is packed full of dozens of glass jars filled with bonbons, jelly beans and chocolates of every imaginable variety and vintage shop counters are stacked high with gift boxes, while there is also an assortment of vintage-inspired cards. Plenty of Union Jack bunting gives everything a decidedly British flair – every time I stop by I feel transported back to the little seaside villages in Devon I used to go on holiday to as a child.
Suck and Chew is pure nostalgia – head there for your own trip down the memory lane.
Suck and Chew
130 Columbia Road
London E2 7RG
Tel. 020 8983 3504
Nearest tube: Liverpool Street
Opening hours:
Saturday 1pm to 4.30pm
Sunday 9am to 4.30pm
Image: Wee Birdy
