The Local Legends of Tacoma: Small Businesses Worth Falling in Love With

A century ago, Tacoma was the candy capital of the world, home to more than 50 candy and chocolate makers drawn by the city's mild climate and transportation hub status. One of them is still standing in the exact same Hilltop storefront today, run by the third generation of the same family.

Johnson Candy Company: Three Generations and the Same Copper Fire Mixer Since 1925

In 1925, a young man named Russell Johnson was working at his parents' shop, the Olympic Dairy, on Tacoma's South K Street when he decided he could make candy about as good as what people were buying elsewhere. He bought some candy-making equipment and a handful of recipes and started crafting chocolates right there at the family lunch counter. He and his wife Irene soon bought the business outright and ran it as a restaurant with a decadent candy selection on the side.

While other Tacoma candy makers shut their doors over the following decades, Russell and Irene kept going. In 1949, twenty-five years after Russell first started melting chocolate at that lunch counter, the family moved into a new building on South K Street designed by architect Silas Nelson — the same building, on the same corner of Tacoma's Hilltop neighborhood, that Johnson Candy Company still occupies today. In 1963, Russell and Irene's son Ron took over the family business, and Ron's son Bill — who started helping out at the shop when he was just 12 years old — now makes the candy and helps run things as the third generation, having moved back from Seattle specifically to help out as his parents got older.

The continuity here is genuinely remarkable: Bill still uses the same 1914 copper fire mixer that his grandfather originally purchased secondhand to start the business a full century ago. Ron, now well into his eighties, still comes in every single day to make peanut clusters and dip ice cream bars alongside his son. Bill calls his dad daily, and credits him with teaching him everything about the craft. The shop's storefront fills with hundreds of heart-shaped boxes around Valentine's Day, one of its busiest seasons, where loyal customers — some who have been buying the same open-faced caramels for their spouses for years — line up alongside curious newcomers drawn in by the classic neon sign overhead.

In 2025, Johnson Candy Company celebrated its full hundredth year in business — a milestone that Bill attributes directly to his family's deliberate choice never to expand the business beyond what they could personally handle, and to the small, dedicated team that has helped carry it forward. "Small businesses kind of make the communities what they are," Bill says, "and it's nice to be kind of a part of that."

Why locals love them: A hundred years of handmade candy, three generations of the same family, and a grandfather who still shows up daily to dip ice cream bars — Johnson Candy Company is Tacoma history you can literally taste.

Why Local Businesses Matter to Tacoma

Johnson Candy Company's century of continuous family ownership — through the same storefront, with the same 1914 equipment, across three generations who never lost sight of what made the shop special in the first place — reflects exactly what Bill Johnson himself says small businesses do for a community: they make it what it is.

FAQ: Supporting Local Businesses in Tacoma

Which local businesses should I support in Tacoma? Tacoma's Hilltop neighborhood is home to Johnson Candy Company, a family-owned candy shop that has operated continuously since 1925 and celebrated its full centennial in 2025, now run by the third generation of the Johnson family.

Why are small businesses important to a community? As Johnson Candy Company's own Bill Johnson puts it, small businesses make communities what they are — building the kind of generational loyalty and local identity that a hundred years of continuous family ownership genuinely embodies.

Discover More Local Favorites in Tacoma

Discover more amazing local businesses that make our community special — explore Everything Tacoma. Support the heart of our community — see more neighborhood favorites featured here.

References:

Johnson Candy Co. (n.d.). About Us. https://www.johnsoncandyco.com/about-us

NWPB. (2025). Saying 'I Love You' With Local Chocolates. https://www.nwpb.org/2025/02/14/saying-i-love-you-with-local-chocolates/

KING 5. (2025). Tacoma's Johnson Candy Company: Celebrating 100 Years of the Sweet Life. https://www.king5.com/article/entertainment/television/programs/evening/tacomas-johnson-candy-company-100-years/281-91a64e37-8a90-4221-ba24-c5665f7d9c87