'Good-Bye And Sweet Dreams': Iconic North Fork Candy Store Owners Bid Adieu After More Than 40 Years

ORIENT, NY — A sweet chapter on the North Fork is now just a memory.

On Sunday, Debbie Michta, owner of The Candyman on Main Road in Orient, announced on social media that the shop was "officially closed as of today."

"The Candyman has been the center of our world, a family business that has been passed down from multiple generations," she wrote. "We are heartbroken to announce that we must close. A tragic medical diagnosis within the family has forced us to make this decision and made it impossible to continue making our handmade chocolates with the standards you have grown to love."

Speaking with Patch in 2021, when the site of the building — but not the business itself — where The Candy Man was located was listed for sale, Jim Michta reflected on a shop that had concocted sweet treats for scores of visitors and generations of families.

Jim, who owned the shop with his wife Debbie, sweetened the lives of locals and visitors alike for years, making homemade Easter bunnies, Christmas candies, chocolate-covered strawberries, sugar-free options, and other chocolates by hand for generations.

The shop was long a must-stop destination for those visiting the North Fork or for neighbors heading to the Candy Man for their favorite chocolate offerings.

Michta, who said the business was originally started by his wife's grandfather, told Patch he took great pride in the handcrafted candy produced at the shop.

The memories were sweet, he told Patch. The Michtas made their candy, including candy canes and the famous Easter bunnies, by hand.

A 2011 Patch story described how when Michta's grandfather, William Heins, emigrated from Germany, his first job in Brooklyn was working for a chocolatier.

From there he ran a dairy farm in Dix Hills and by the late 1940s and 1950s he ran a luncheonette in the Huntington area. The luncheonette also carried ice cream and candy.

"After Heins 'retired' to Orient with his wife Catherine, he began selling chocolate from his home. During the 1970s, business thrived from his home and, with the help of his son William and his son’s wife Evelyn, The Candyman opened for business in February of 1980," the prior Patch article said.

Debbie and her husband, Jim, moved out to Orient and ran the business with the help of their daughter Sara, the post said.

According to Debbie at the time, the most popular items year-round "were the turtles (caramel, nuts, and chocolate) and butter crunch, but over a three-week period during the Easter holiday season, Michta estimated that her husband made about 1,700 pounds of milk chocolate bunnies," the post said.

Speaking with Patch in 2022, Jim had discussed possible retirement one day.

Asked what he'd miss the most, he'd said, simply, "All the good customers."

On Sunday, Debbie wrote: "We would like to thank our community and loyal customers for the unwavering support throughout the years. On behalf of the Heins/Michta family, we would like to say good-bye and sweet dreams."