Danae Bell

I’ve grown up here my whole life. Born and raised in Goshen. I am a nurse at the hospital – that’s what I went to school for. Then, while I was in college, I bought The Nut Shoppe after I had worked for the previous owner for five years. I’ve owned The Nut Shoppe since 2006.

We do all hand-dipped chocolates, all of our nut clusters and creams and truffles. But our best sellers are our turtles and hand-wrapped caramels.

As far as a personal favorite, I think it changes all the time. If I were to eat something every day, it would be a dark chocolate nut cluster, probably an almond cluster or peanut cluster. When I first worked for the previous owner, I always ate a dark chocolate raspberry cream. That was my favorite thing. They get a little sweet after a while. As my palate has matured, I would say the truffles are a good thing that I go to, or a peanut butter cup – but all in the dark chocolate family.

My family lives right next to my parents. We enjoy just hanging out on their little mini farm and being a family. Campfires and stuff. We recently just got a horse for our daughter, so my recent time has been spent in the barn with the horse and just getting back in the saddle.

Most people don’t come in here for Halloween candy, because it’s not something that their kids are just going to, like, destroy. They want something that’s cheaper. Fortunately, we do have a lot of options for that. We have bulk candy, we have super sour candy, we have fun stuff on Halloween for the trick-or-treat downtown. We give away our own products. Gummy bears. We have a super sour gum that’s really awesome.

The small downtown feel – I love walking down the street, and I’ve grown up here so I know a lot of people. It’s just comforting to walk through town and have a good ‘hello.’ People are friendly here. You never meet a stranger, I feel like.