November 5, 2025 • 9 mins
Warren Schimpff, co-owner of legendary Jeffersonville candymaker Schimpff's Confectionery, stopped by with Steve Shepherd, the next family member to run the operation.
Schimpff's Confectionery was recently selected BEST CANDY STORE IN AMERICA by USA Today.
Schimpff's is celebrating this Friday, November 7 with all types of fun and frivolity at Schimpff's, on Spring Street in downtown Jeffersonville.
Schimpff's Confectionery was recently selected BEST CANDY STORE IN AMERICA by USA Today.
Schimpff's is celebrating this Friday, November 7 with all types of fun and frivolity at Schimpff's, on Spring Street in downtown Jeffersonville.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You'rein news radio eight forty whas Terry Miners here. Hello
to Warren Shimp, I'm right here. Good to see you brother.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Scott Shepherd also in the studio. It's nice to see you.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I see you too.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
We are celebrating the amazing confectionery Shimps in Jeffersonville, Indiana,
which Miles Stone. Are we reaching there, Well, we've one
hundred and thirty four years.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
John I bought the business and in nineteen ninety and
we've been owners.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
For thirty five years.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
We're also celebrating that it was November nineteen ninety when
we opened a business after an Catherine and Sonny died.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
This place is amazing because you make candy and people
can come and watch. It's fascinating. It's like a walk
through the past. Are you still going in and making candy?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Well, I'm helping. Steve is the main guy now making
the candy. I can't lift as much as I used to,
but Jill and I are down there every day most
of the day helping Steve make candy, and Jill narrates
the dumbminstrations. So we have people come in and to
(01:19):
see the old, old folks working.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I love it. And so what are you still coming
in in the middle of the night. Do you have
to you don't have to do it.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Night, during the day, whenever, whatever it takes.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Because Warren and I have been on TV together many
times and he pours out that cinnamon. Is that what
that is? Cinnamon? What do you call it?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Well, the syrup party, candy syrup, and we had the flavoring.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, and that's just that is so awesome. It's like
you're walking in the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Well, that's what we want to presume. We want to
people come in and feel they're entering the past, the
way things had done. I mean, the technology that we
use in making can is from nineteen hundreds. It's not
they conveyor about technology. It's the handmade technology. Open kettle cooking.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Right, and how do you find parts for these machines
years later the internet?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Hopefully they don't wear out. Well, they've been around for
one hundred years and we hope they'll be there for
a hundred more. So.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
But it's more than just cinnamon. I mean, it's chocolate.
It's all kinds of things, right, Yeah, we do hand
up chocolates. We've got cinnamon creams, caramels, turtles, bourbon balls,
all the traditional favorites. We've also do toffees and brittles,
and yeah, there have to be just a handful of
these candy stores remaining in America.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Well, there's not too many around that. A lot of
places make fudge or chocolates, and there's a lot of
places and I don't I'm not just saying anything bad
about them, but we do making hard candy. There are
very few places in the country where you can come
and see the hard candy. Almost all candy stores in
(03:12):
the nineteen thirties made hard candy, but when hard candy
beat was made by big companies, they stopped doing that.
There was more money in chocolate. We didn't wise up
to that unfortunately fortunately.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
So but when you and Jill moved back home, is
that what it was? Essentially you had to move because
you came from uh right.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
We lived in California for twenty five years, and it
was part way into that that and Catherine died and
the business had to be sold, and then we bought
the business and for ten years we commuted basically twelve
fifteen times a year to come back and make candy
through the nineties. During that process, we bought the third
(03:58):
the second building a week could make candy upfront, and
part of the impetus was for that. When I was
making candy in the back, I couldn't see my customers
and they couldn't see me, and I couldn't see outside.
So I wanted to be upfront where I could see
customers make candy, have them experience that, and then I
(04:19):
could see who's walking down the street.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Right, it's like Mayberry, you're on the sidewalkers, people walking around,
going into stores. It's just the way we dreamed the
past and it's still here with Shimp Shimp's Confection Area
was stumbling. It rhymes with nymph nymph. So are we
open every day or open every day nine to five?
Speaker 3 (04:45):
I ten to five employees are there at nine? Well,
we're ten to five six days a week, never on Sundays.
And of course we have a deli lunch room. It's
not open all those hours. It's eleven to three on
weekdays satur Days.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
But it's a great walk up place. I mean, it's
just fantastic. And is there still a celebration planned or
did that already occurs.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
The celebration is this Friday. Okay, good ten o'clock. We're
gonna have a ceremony out front. We've got a tent, chairs,
we're closing down the street. We're talking about number one
candy store in America. We got voted number one candy
store by today. Of course, we're talking about the celebrating
the thirty five anniversary years of warning Jill's ownership and
(05:32):
then passing the torch from fourth generation to fifth generation.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
We're gonna past the torch on the next generation. And
that does not mean Joe and I are giving up,
of course not We're gonna be down, but maybe not
quite so many hours and maybe I can play with
some of the antiques I've collected.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
What did you do in your first career? I know
you told me thirty years.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Of PhD and environmental chemistry, and he's a master, he's
a mechanical engineer. So we gave up that and I change.
I changed from organic chemistry to carbohydrate chemistry.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
I love that. That is perfect. Well, people need to
stop buying for lunch and stop buying get candy anytime
during those business hours in Jeffersonville.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
And the soda fountain is open all the time.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
The soda fountain is still operating.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
That.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Oh yeah, that is right out of the nineteen forties.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
It is.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I love it. And congratulations to you, Scott. Do you
think you're going to hang for thirty five years?
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I hope so at least that's the goal.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yes, you guys have been amazing, and I mean you
are one of America's little unique stories this candy store.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Steve mother and I are first cousins. His grandfather and
my father were brothers, so that's how he fits into
the family.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
But Steve's not a ship. He's a ship.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
He's a shepherd because his mother lost the name when
she got married. So my wife says, a shepherd will
leave us on, it lead us on into the future.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
It's a lot of alliteration. Steve Shepherd, Yeah, can wonderful.
That's all good. And so we still have all the
old fashioned candies. And then so we do things.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
Yeah, we've actually got a couple of new flavors of
hard candy.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Believe it or not. We've got a chocolate hard candy.
Take that syrup.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
We make a hard candy syrup and at the end
we put in an unsweetened dark chocolate tastes like hot
cocoa or a fudge suckle.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
It's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Do you have any customers that are regulars, like at
least once a week somebody who's got to have candy that.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Way, Yes, that's so once or twice a week.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
You're part of people's lunch.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
We have a lot of people that have been coming
in and meeting there. We have a Tuesday lunch bonge
that have been meeting there. People came in individually and
got to know each other, so they started meeting and
so you know, we have coke classes from the nineteen
thirties that say shimps where friends meet, and we want
(08:11):
to keep that idea going. You can come in and meet.
We've had through the years groups of people that would
meet there once a week to have coffee in the
afternoon or come in the lunch. And then we have
a group of people that you know, individually came in
for lunch and started getting to know each other and
(08:31):
then we you know, it's just evolved. And we have
a big long table in the third building that has
fort twelve seats at it, and we have people that
we want people to come in and sit there and
meet other people.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
You guys are going to be bigger than Hershey, before
this is all over.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
No, we don't want to be that.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Warren. It is great to see you again.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Well, it's good to see it.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
I want to thank you for getting out of bed
in the middle of the night those times that we
get to be on TV at five point thirty in
the morning, You're like, I'll be there, and you were
rolling it out the heartcare. I appreciate you, Buddy and Steve.
Great to talk with you too. Congratulations on the next
generation taking over for Shimp's confection area. The celebrations ten
o'clock Friday morning in downtown Jeffersonville, where they apparently own
(09:19):
most of the real estate. Now, congratulations, thank you so much.
Great to see again. Back in a minute on news
Radio eight forty
You'rein news radio eight forty whas Terry Miners here. Hello
to Warren Shimp, I'm right here. Good to see you brother.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Scott Shepherd also in the studio. It's nice to see you.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I see you too.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
We are celebrating the amazing confectionery Shimps in Jeffersonville, Indiana,
which Miles Stone. Are we reaching there, Well, we've one
hundred and thirty four years.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
John I bought the business and in nineteen ninety and
we've been owners.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
For thirty five years.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
We're also celebrating that it was November nineteen ninety when
we opened a business after an Catherine and Sonny died.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
This place is amazing because you make candy and people
can come and watch. It's fascinating. It's like a walk
through the past. Are you still going in and making candy?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Well, I'm helping. Steve is the main guy now making
the candy. I can't lift as much as I used to,
but Jill and I are down there every day most
of the day helping Steve make candy, and Jill narrates
the dumbminstrations. So we have people come in and to
(01:19):
see the old, old folks working.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I love it. And so what are you still coming
in in the middle of the night. Do you have
to you don't have to do it.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Night, during the day, whenever, whatever it takes.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Because Warren and I have been on TV together many
times and he pours out that cinnamon. Is that what
that is? Cinnamon? What do you call it?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Well, the syrup party, candy syrup, and we had the flavoring.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, and that's just that is so awesome. It's like
you're walking in the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Well, that's what we want to presume. We want to
people come in and feel they're entering the past, the
way things had done. I mean, the technology that we
use in making can is from nineteen hundreds. It's not
they conveyor about technology. It's the handmade technology. Open kettle cooking.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Right, and how do you find parts for these machines
years later the internet?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Hopefully they don't wear out. Well, they've been around for
one hundred years and we hope they'll be there for
a hundred more. So.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
But it's more than just cinnamon. I mean, it's chocolate.
It's all kinds of things, right, Yeah, we do hand
up chocolates. We've got cinnamon creams, caramels, turtles, bourbon balls,
all the traditional favorites. We've also do toffees and brittles,
and yeah, there have to be just a handful of
these candy stores remaining in America.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Well, there's not too many around that. A lot of
places make fudge or chocolates, and there's a lot of
places and I don't I'm not just saying anything bad
about them, but we do making hard candy. There are
very few places in the country where you can come
and see the hard candy. Almost all candy stores in
(03:12):
the nineteen thirties made hard candy, but when hard candy
beat was made by big companies, they stopped doing that.
There was more money in chocolate. We didn't wise up
to that unfortunately fortunately.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
So but when you and Jill moved back home, is
that what it was? Essentially you had to move because
you came from uh right.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
We lived in California for twenty five years, and it
was part way into that that and Catherine died and
the business had to be sold, and then we bought
the business and for ten years we commuted basically twelve
fifteen times a year to come back and make candy
through the nineties. During that process, we bought the third
(03:58):
the second building a week could make candy upfront, and
part of the impetus was for that. When I was
making candy in the back, I couldn't see my customers
and they couldn't see me, and I couldn't see outside.
So I wanted to be upfront where I could see
customers make candy, have them experience that, and then I
(04:19):
could see who's walking down the street.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Right, it's like Mayberry, you're on the sidewalkers, people walking around,
going into stores. It's just the way we dreamed the
past and it's still here with Shimp Shimp's Confection Area
was stumbling. It rhymes with nymph nymph. So are we
open every day or open every day nine to five?
Speaker 3 (04:45):
I ten to five employees are there at nine? Well,
we're ten to five six days a week, never on Sundays.
And of course we have a deli lunch room. It's
not open all those hours. It's eleven to three on
weekdays satur Days.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
But it's a great walk up place. I mean, it's
just fantastic. And is there still a celebration planned or
did that already occurs.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
The celebration is this Friday. Okay, good ten o'clock. We're
gonna have a ceremony out front. We've got a tent, chairs,
we're closing down the street. We're talking about number one
candy store in America. We got voted number one candy
store by today. Of course, we're talking about the celebrating
the thirty five anniversary years of warning Jill's ownership and
(05:32):
then passing the torch from fourth generation to fifth generation.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
We're gonna past the torch on the next generation. And
that does not mean Joe and I are giving up,
of course not We're gonna be down, but maybe not
quite so many hours and maybe I can play with
some of the antiques I've collected.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
What did you do in your first career? I know
you told me thirty years.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Of PhD and environmental chemistry, and he's a master, he's
a mechanical engineer. So we gave up that and I change.
I changed from organic chemistry to carbohydrate chemistry.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
I love that. That is perfect. Well, people need to
stop buying for lunch and stop buying get candy anytime
during those business hours in Jeffersonville.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
And the soda fountain is open all the time.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
The soda fountain is still operating.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
That.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Oh yeah, that is right out of the nineteen forties.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
It is.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I love it. And congratulations to you, Scott. Do you
think you're going to hang for thirty five years?
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I hope so at least that's the goal.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yes, you guys have been amazing, and I mean you
are one of America's little unique stories this candy store.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Steve mother and I are first cousins. His grandfather and
my father were brothers, so that's how he fits into
the family.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
But Steve's not a ship. He's a ship.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
He's a shepherd because his mother lost the name when
she got married. So my wife says, a shepherd will
leave us on, it lead us on into the future.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
It's a lot of alliteration. Steve Shepherd, Yeah, can wonderful.
That's all good. And so we still have all the
old fashioned candies. And then so we do things.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
Yeah, we've actually got a couple of new flavors of
hard candy.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Believe it or not. We've got a chocolate hard candy.
Take that syrup.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
We make a hard candy syrup and at the end
we put in an unsweetened dark chocolate tastes like hot
cocoa or a fudge suckle.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
It's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Do you have any customers that are regulars, like at
least once a week somebody who's got to have candy that.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Way, Yes, that's so once or twice a week.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
You're part of people's lunch.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
We have a lot of people that have been coming
in and meeting there. We have a Tuesday lunch bonge
that have been meeting there. People came in individually and
got to know each other, so they started meeting and
so you know, we have coke classes from the nineteen
thirties that say shimps where friends meet, and we want
(08:11):
to keep that idea going. You can come in and meet.
We've had through the years groups of people that would
meet there once a week to have coffee in the
afternoon or come in the lunch. And then we have
a group of people that you know, individually came in
for lunch and started getting to know each other and
(08:31):
then we you know, it's just evolved. And we have
a big long table in the third building that has
fort twelve seats at it, and we have people that
we want people to come in and sit there and
meet other people.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
You guys are going to be bigger than Hershey, before
this is all over.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
No, we don't want to be that.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Warren. It is great to see you again.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Well, it's good to see it.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
I want to thank you for getting out of bed
in the middle of the night those times that we
get to be on TV at five point thirty in
the morning, You're like, I'll be there, and you were
rolling it out the heartcare. I appreciate you, Buddy and Steve.
Great to talk with you too. Congratulations on the next
generation taking over for Shimp's confection area. The celebrations ten
o'clock Friday morning in downtown Jeffersonville, where they apparently own
(09:19):
most of the real estate. Now, congratulations, thank you so much.
Great to see again. Back in a minute on news
Radio eight forty
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Medal of Honor: Stories of Courage
Rewarded for bravery that goes above and beyond the call of duty, the Medal of Honor is the United States’ top military decoration. The stories we tell are about the heroes who have distinguished themselves by acts of heroism and courage that have saved lives. From Judith Resnik, the second woman in space, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice, these are stories about those who have done the improbable and unexpected, who have sacrificed something in the name of something much bigger than themselves. Every Wednesday on Medal of Honor, uncover what their experiences tell us about the nature of sacrifice, why people put their lives in danger for others, and what happens after you’ve become a hero. Special thanks to series creator Dan McGinn, to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society and Adam Plumpton. Medal of Honor begins on May 28. Subscribe to Pushkin+ to hear ad-free episodes one week early. Find Pushkin+ on the Medal of Honor show page in Apple or at Pushkin.fm. Subscribe on Apple: apple.co/pushkin Subscribe on Pushkin: pushkin.fm/plus
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com