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| - I would have to say that this is one of THE most winning somewhat 'recent' entries into the odd void of the Strip District, which actually steps it up a notch from the usual black and gold crap shops and overpriced yuppified former wholesale shops that USED to be the reason to go to the strip.
As an old guy who holds vintage memories and qualities, as well as histories, very dear, Grandpa Joes keeps the torches burning for products from simpler days gone by. The days when a simple treat wasn't a bioengineered profit machine, but when a treat was just that...a sweet treat.
A walk through Grandpa Joes brings back memories of my grandfather, who always had rolls of 'Smarties' in the pocket of his bowling shirt to give to us grandkids.
It also brings back memories of my great grandmother, evil as she could be, and her general store in Beaver County, that even after it had closed, she sold penny candy to the neighborhood kids out of kitchen window. The liquorice, the Bullseyes, the candy fish.
Then come the more recent vintage themed memories, like 'Squirrel Nut Zippers', which was a new England sort of 'Mary Jane' that inspired the band to use a vintage candy name to match their vintage musical sound.
In the day of the pseudo 'health' craze of Powerbars and Granola bars, it is nice to see remnants of the life that used to be, of innocence and something tiny that would make a gracious child's eyes light up, and feel loved by their parents and grandparents allowing them to have such a treasure. Today, I would hardly call any child gracious...more like 'entitled' with shouts of gimme, gimme, gimme! I prefer the memory of the day when a child would shout 'THANK YOU!' with the glee of a puppy seeing its parents coming home. That's one of the many memories that Grandpa Joe's inspires.
In addition to the old (and many new) sweet chocolate-sugar-caramel treats, Grandpa Joe also knows the value of old time favorite soda fountain delights. At one time, a soft drink wasn't a chemical compound of high fructose corn syrup laced with who knows what to addict you and enslave you. Those returnable and actually recyclable glass bottles were filled with more natural goodness than even so-called '100% juices' are filled with today. From local faves to far off well-knowns.
Now, like 99% of the rest of the offerings in the Strip District today, this is not cheap. BUT, at least this business contains a lot of REALLY hard to 'find elsewhere' kind of stuff. And frankly, the owner/staff are as nice as can be.
But all of that is really just the chocolate covering over the beautiful gooey inside.
Here's where they sold the deal with me. Grandpa Joes is where I was able to finally buy and try something I'd only heard of and read about. Something that proved that these kids know what the hell they're doing, research well, and find those lost treasures. Something that showed their 'Moxie'.
Before Coca Cola (or Pepsi) was the champion of the beverage aisle or checkout trap, soft drinks mostly started out as 'elixirs' claiming 'health miracles', and most of them contained such delightful ingredients as cocaine, or other narcotics.
Then around 1884 one man in New England wanted to create his own 'health miracle' without the narcotics. So he found a 'secret ingredient', and created a back story about a miracle root being discovered in South America by an explorer named 'Moxie'. The root was really Gentian root, and the explorer didn't exist. But in one of the first enormously successful soft drink marketing campaigns, his creation 'Moxie', THE first carbonated soda in the USA, was not only the MOST successful beverage of the first half of the 1900's, more popular than either Coke or Pepsi, but it spawned the catch phrase 'Moxie', meaning vim, vigor, and courage that infiltrated popular culture to the point that it outlived its namesake. Long after the popularity of Moxie the soda had passed, we still to this day (well, some of us) say 'That gal's got MOXIE!'
Well, Grandpa Joe's got 'Moxie'...and it's $12 a six pack!
It tastes a little medicine like, but after all, that WAS the point back then.
Thank you Grandpa Joe, whoever you are, and the adorable little short guy who brought a little Moxie to da burgh.
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