Discovering Local: Reimer’s Candies & Ice Cream

You know the name. Now discover something more.

There are some places where walking through the front door immediately changes your plans.

Reimer’s Candies & Ice Cream in Oakhurst is one of them.

Maybe you stopped for a scoop of ice cream. Then you saw the chocolates.

Or perhaps you went in looking for a box of candy and caught the smell of a freshly made waffle cone.

Either way, it can be difficult to walk back out empty-handed.

The bright red building along Highway 41 has become a familiar Oakhurst stop for locals and visitors heading to and from Yosemite. Inside, shelves and display cases are filled with chocolates, candies and other sweets, while the adjoining ice cream counter offers nearly two dozen flavors.

But here’s the part that’s easy to miss.

A lot of what makes Reimer’s distinctive isn’t simply what’s sitting inside those display cases.

It’s how it got there.

Local Discovery

Here’s something you might not know about Reimer’s Candies & Ice Cream.

This isn’t just a candy store selling somebody else’s candy.

Reimer’s traces its roots to Three Rivers, California, where the business began in 1956 as a small candy kitchen.

Nearly 70 years later, Reimer’s says old-fashioned candy making remains at the center of the business, with its chocolates and sweets still made by hand using time-honored recipes and methods.

The same philosophy carries over to the ice cream.

Reimer’s makes its own ice cream at its Three Rivers shop, with nearly two dozen flavors ranging from traditional chocolate and vanilla to combinations such as honey lavender, salted caramel dark chocolate gelato and Three Rivers wild blackberry.

The company says locally grown wild blackberries, peaches and nuts are among the ingredients used in its ice creams and sherbets.

And then there are those waffle cones.

They’re made fresh in the shops, which explains something anyone who has spent much time around the ice cream counter probably already knows: sometimes you smell Reimer’s before you’ve decided what you’re ordering.

That old-fashioned approach goes back to the beginning.

According to Reimer’s history, the business was founded in Three Rivers in 1956 with a simple idea — make quality sweets the old-fashioned way. What started as a small candy kitchen eventually grew beyond Three Rivers, with locations opening in Avila Beach and, eventually, Oakhurst.

The Oakhurst chapter began more than a decade ago.

Sierra News Online reported in 2012 that then-owners Lynn and Mary Ann Bretz had spent several years looking for the right mountain-area location before purchasing the Highway 41 property earlier that year.

After an extensive remodel, Reimer’s opened its Oakhurst store in 2013, bringing the familiar red-and-white candy shop to the mountain community.

At the time, SNO reported that the more complicated chocolates were being produced at the flagship Three Rivers location and brought to Oakhurst, while waffle cones were being made on site.

More than a decade later, Reimer’s continues to describe craftsmanship as one of the defining parts of the business.

That’s worth remembering the next time you’re standing in front of the candy case trying to decide between chocolates, English toffee, peanut brittle or something you hadn’t planned on buying when you walked through the door.

Because there’s a difference between stocking a shelf with candy and building a business around making it.

And maybe that’s the part of Reimer’s that’s easiest to overlook.

The polished display cases, colorful candies and rows of chocolates can make everything look effortless. But behind those finished treats is a candy-making tradition that started in a small California mountain town in 1956 and is still part of what Reimer’s does today.

Of course, you don’t have to think about any of that when you stop in.

You can just get the ice cream.

But the next time you hear the crunch of that fresh waffle cone, take another look around.

Sometimes Discovering Local is about finding a place you never knew existed.

And sometimes it’s discovering that something you’ve enjoyed for years is still being made the old-fashioned way.