Reprinted with permission from Boca Magazine

When Jeff Rubin was growing up in Birmingham, Mich., there were two kinds of kids in his neighborhood — those who set up lemonade stands at the ends of their driveways to earn a few extra dollars, and those who didn’t. Rubin was the only child who didn’t.

He sold candy instead. “I also saw ‘Willy Wonka [and the Chocolate Factory’] at least 10 times,” Rubin says.

Thirty years later, the candy-obsessed Boca Raton resident still has the sweetest gig in town. After creating a chain of candy shops inside the FAO Schwarz toy stores in the 1990s (called FAO Schweetz), Rubin partnered in 2001 with Dylan Lauren (daughter of Ralph, the fashion legend) to launch New York’s wildly successful Dylan’s Candy Bar. Recently, Rubin struck out on his own with IT’SUGAR. Last June, he opened a 6,000-square-foot candy emporium in Atlantic City—but even that will pale next to the 14,000-square-foot sugar fiend’s dream slated to open next spring at Sawgrass Mills in Sunrise. Plans call for every candy imaginable to have its own stage—from an all-Gummi area to an M&M world to a licorice department.

“IT’SUGAR is setting out to be the world’s first department store of candy,” says Rubin, 43. Rubin has a particular genius for transforming the ordinary sugar fix into a theme-park-style experience. FAO Schweetz featured a Sour Patch forest and a Gummi aquarium. The Atlantic City IT’SUGAR has a make-your-own-chocolate-bar facility and a 400-pound Gummi Bear. It also offers grown-up treats, from candy-necklace bikinis to Gummi thongs.

Though Rubin says he ponders candy “24/7”—its sociology, its marketing, its creative side—he also maintains a childlike enthusiasm about his business. It helps that he and wife Allison have twin 14-year-old sons (Jason and Bryan) who—hard as it may be to believe—actually look forward to Dad bringing his work home.

“I’ll come home with hundreds of different candies, and my kids will invite their friends over,” Rubin says. “I pour it on the table and let the kids take what
they want.”

But with great power, Rubin says, comes great responsibility. “I am definitely the favorite house in Boca to go to on October 31,” he says. “But the pressure I am under on Halloween is intense.”

Consumer report: Rubin says that his typical candy customer is a woman—
age 20 to 45. Surprisingly, women gravitate more to the sour candies, he says,
while men go for the chocolate. Kids, meanwhile, are more likely to buy the Harry Potter-inspired Jelly Belly flavors “earwax” and “snot.” Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Rubin’s all-time favorites are peanut M&Ms, red Gummies and Sour Patch peaches.