Life Is Sweet in Onset Village

My taste buds began bursting out when I ran across an ad for cotton candy puffs. I simply had to have them. A few days later, the cotton candy puffs arrived and it was like I was having a Willie Wonka moment, imagining that heavenly cotton candy flavor melting in my mouth, the way puff candy dissolves and softens into what I can only express as "indescribably delicious," to usurp Mounds original slogan.

I started looking to see if any area candy store carried these delicacies.

Soon, I was remembering candies I loved as a kid, like Wax Lips, Bonomo's Turkish Taffy and BB Bats and hit upon Nana's Ice Cream and Candy in Onset Beach, owned by business whiz John Salerno, who also owns and operates Marc Anthony's La Pizzeria on Onset Avenue.

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"My mother, Beverly Salerno, started the ice cream operation in '85," he said. "God bless her, she just passed away." Salerno said in 2004, they added the candy store, filled with "all kinds candies you ate when you were a kid."

"It's a great little candy store that offers thousands of retro candy choices, and our chocolates are made by Dorothy Cox," he said.

Ice cream sales will resume next June, but the candy store, with shortened hours, is open year-round on weekends. "Onset was buzzing this year, and it's getting busier and busier, year after year. The Cape is nice, but folks aren't going over the bridge as much as they used to," Salerno said.

Although I didn't see Red Bird cotton candy puffs, I discovered something as exciting by chance.

"When you come to Onset, you have to check out our new spot, the Glen Cove Hotel right up the street. We took over the beautiful old Victorian building, built a five-star elevator, renovated 14 hotel rooms overlooking the water, with a full restaurant upstairs and one downstairs, both with a full bar," Salerno boasted.

Between sharing sweet dreams about the Glen Cove Hotel and starting it all with cotton candy flavored puffs, I really do feel like a kid in a candy store.

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