The Strand Bookstore in New York City has added a 40-foot long candy counter at the cash register area of the store.
Large chains like Barnes & Noble and Borders already sell chocolate bars at the register stations. In an effort to be unique, the Strand stocks old-school candies such as Pixy Stix, Charleston Chews, and bubblegum cigars.
Strand co-owner Fred Bass told the New York Daily News: “Browsers who come here to kill time wind up buying candy…We’re a bargain book store. Penny-pinchers are our customers…We’re selling five times as much candy as we did ‘register’ books. Candy is an impulse buy.”
Candy aside, the famed bookstore boasts an 18-mile collection’s worth of new, used, rare, and out-of-print books. Some of the rare titles include a first-edition of Lewis Baltz’s Park City, a signed first-edition of Hunter S. Thompson’s Kingdom of Fear, and a signed complete set of the Writings of Mark Twain: Definitive Edition. The last collector’s item will set a buyer back $5,500.