Camille Cunningham, Kimberly Blackwell and Claire Blackwell are the team behind the decadence and pure imagination of Pendleton Candy Company, named the best candy shop in South Carolina by Southern Living.
Photo by Matthew Franklin Carter
Kimberly Blackwell, Claire Blackwell and Camille Cunningham
Claim to fame: The three women are the team behind Pendleton Candy Company, named the best candy shop in South Carolina by Southern Living.
Sweetest parts of the job: Owner Kimberly makes the sweet treats; her daughter, Claire, is the balloon animal queen; and Claire's best friend, Camille, keeps the crew organized and on task.
By the numbers: Kimberly makes around 40 pounds of fudge every week. On an average day, Claire and Camille whip up around 260 balloon animals for customers.
A cardboard cutout of Willy Wonka keeps watch in one corner of Pendleton Candy Company's 400-square-foot store, a smirk on his lips and mischief in his bright blue eyes. From his perch near the Jelly Belly dispenser, he studies Claire Blackwell and Camille Cunningham as they prepare for the day, stacking clamshell containers filled with thick slices of caramel praline cake and refilling trays of fudge until the display case's shelves bow under the weight of 14 homemade flavors.
Shortly before she unlocks the door at noon, Claire Blackwell cranks up a playlist of peppy '70s hits while she and Cunningham, her best friend, twist up a stockpile of balloon creations. They'll tuck these pink and blue flowers and red and orange dogs into the bag with every purchase, along with color-coordinated tissue paper and a miniature rubber duck, just for fun.
Step inside the sweets shop in downtown Pendleton, and it doesn't take long to see: Just like the quirky candymaker in the corner, the three-woman team behind Pendleton Candy Company believes in imagination.
Each season, that creativity shows up in new ways. At Halloween, 92 jack-o'-lanterns shine from the windows and perches near the ceiling. At Christmas, an 8-foot Santa and reindeer greet customers at the door. These seasonal transformations often require a U-Haul and nearly three days of work.
"It's rewarding to transform the store every season. You get to see your work pay off and see everybody walk in and be like, 'Oh my gosh, it looks so different,'" Claire Blackwell says.
Her mother, Kimberly Blackwell, scours Facebook Marketplace and travels across the Southeast to acquire memorabilia for the shop, like the life-size M&M's men she discovered while on vacation in Florida, or the giant gumball machine she tracked down in Charlotte.
Four hundred square feet can only contain so much creativity, though. That's why Kimberly Blackwell recently purchased a 2,900-square-foot building in Liberty, South Carolina, to house Pendleton Candy Company's second location.
That means more room for jellybeans and chocolate truffles. More room for taffy and pecan pralines.
A space big enough to hold all the pure imagination this team has to offer.