Ye Goodie Shoppe

This place is GREAT. Old fashioned handmade chocolates are the speciality — my favorite by far being the Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel Truffles… decadence. Also surprisingly good are their after-​dinner-​style chocolate mints… which I always thought were old people chocolates… these ones are perfect.

This place has some great home made chelate and other candies. Everything we’ve had from here has been fresh and tastes wonderful. Makes you wonder why we eat that other processed candy you can get anywhere. The store isn’t that big, but the selection is impressive. It make take you a bit to see it all.
We love stopping by here and grabbing a sample of a few items. One of these days, we’ll hopefully see them making the candy in the back. There’s a nice big window by their kitchen for viewing.

As a Monadnock native, I grew up eating Ye Goodie Shoppe chocolates. From Ye Goodie Shoppe’s chocolate Santas at Christmas to their cream-​filled eggs at Easter, a holiday was not complete without their confections.
What makes Ye Goodie Shoppe unique is that with the exception of a couple of items, they make all of their chocolates & candies in house using traditional techniques. Take their taffy, for instance, they pull it by hand on a hook, & if you happen to stop by on a day that they are making taffy, you can actually observe the process through a large glass pane in the store. The result of such care & effort is some of the most delicious chocolate & candy that you can find.
On any given day, they offer a variety of tempting sweets: fudge, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, cream-​filled chocolates, fudge-​filled chocolates, chocolate-​covered nuts, licorice, wintergreen candies, & lollipops, to name a few. The cream-​filled chocolates, which come in an array of flavors (orange, raspberry, lime, lemon, vanilla, maple, coffee, & a couple other flavors I’m forgetting) are my favorite item at the store. There are also seasonal treats, such as ribbon candy around Christmas and homemade ice cream during the summer months.
The staff is always pleasant, & the prices are very reasonable (a pound of cream-​filled chocolates is around $ 20). If you find yourself in the Keene area, I highly recommend stopping by Ye Goodie Shoppe.

Hi New Hampshire!
I’m 59, live on the central coast of Cali but grew up in Keene, we always had their chocolate santa’s in our stockings never really thought about it much … until this year my daughter (25) said «dad where are the chocolate santa’s» from Ye Goodie. She is starting her own traditions in LA and I guess they include Ye Goodie Santa’s and only Ye Goodie Santa’s! NEXT year I’ll have to order a bunch.
Customer since 1965 David M

Before I tell you what I really did not like about this place let me tell you that the chocolate was great and the whole set up was very nice.
However, my girlfriend and I walked in at about 8:50 and although they close at 9:00, we were rudely greeted by a young girl with «do you guys know what you want» to which I replied, «not yet».
After hearing this the girl sighed, rolled her eyes, turned around and walked to the back of the store. She then started complaining to her coworkers about how she needs to leave, even swearing loud enough that we could hear her.
She then came back to the front counter to see if we were ready to order yet, continuing her hostile attitude towards us, and making faces like we had no right to be contributing to their business ten minutes before their scheduled close time.
Luckily, another young girl came and took our order and asked us if we needed any additional help, she was very nice and sweet, salvaging what could have been a very poor experience.
Any owner of a store of this quality should really think twice before hiring such rude, inconsiderate employees. We are first-​time visitors to Keene, New Hampshire and were very put off by this particular experience.
If I wasn’t on vacation and in a good mood I would have said something to that girl that would not have been pleasant, and she would not have received our business.
Nevertheless, the chocolate was very good and as long as this particular girl doesn’t address you, you should be fine.
Three stars for what could have been five.

A red letter day today — I had the best ice cream of my life! Chocolate with nutmeg, cinnamon and cayenne. Heavenly. I’ve had a lot of ice cream in my 57 years and this was surely the best. Thank you.

Not the best dark chocolate almond bark I ever had, but 4 stars for having a milk chocolate and dark chocolate version of almost everything. If I get back here for ice cream before I leave town, I just might upgrade to 5 stars. Time will tell.

I grew up in Dublin and we got these chocolates every Christmas and many birthdays in my childhood. I remember toddling up the steps to get dark chocolate orange creams for my mum with my dad, the beautiful rows of chocolates… I returned after spending six years in LA and three in Montréal. THERE WAS NOTHING LIKE THIS ANYWHERE ELSE I had traveled. I returned with my boyfriend this past fall afraid I’d be somewhat underwhelmed, this place was going to have so many fond memories to live up to. BUT NO, it was incredible, it was even better than I remembered, it blew my mind all over again, I couldn’t believe how good these were as an adult! My boyfriend was astounded at how good the wintergreen patties were — he loves wintergreen with a passion — and everything he tried was amazing. I re-​lived the orange creams and raspberry creams and old fashiond creams and fudge, the chocolate covered apricots… we went back three times during that trip, and we are reasonable, healthy and quite active people! We went back again this summer to visit my grandparents and this time around we got a full pound of chocolates and left wishing we had two pounds after the first bite. I can’t recommend it enough! The smell when you enter will convince you.
(also, cheaper by far than any of the fancy candy stores in LA and Montréal).

I stopped in here when visiting the Keene area for wedding-​related planning stuffs and I was in heaven. Sugar heaven.
Of course, it was right around the Easter holiday so we were able to find delicious specialty chocolate Easter eggs (Cadbury, eat your heart out). I had a dark chocolate eggs filled with whipped orange filling (yum), my fiancé had a milk chocolate egg filled with coconut crème filling and we saved a milk chocolate peanut butter egg for later… and those were only three of about ten different flavors beautifully wrapped in Easter colored foil!
We also picked up some delicious sugar-​free almond bark (not as good as the toffee bark that is my favorite, but I felt good about choosing a sugar-​free item instead), chocolate covered blueberries and grapefruit triangles (I don’t know what they call ‘em, but they are like Peach Rings, but grapefruit flavored instead).
For all of that, I paid a whopping $ 17.00. Whatta bargain!

I grew up on Goodie Shoppe chocolate, and now that I live in LA I still make my parents ship me peppermint patties. They are without question the best candy I have ever had. And they are often stolen by friends (CA and NH natives alike) Jason (the owner) is great, and has been known to pack extra in the box if he knows it’s being shipped out to me.
Fun fact: if they are out of what you are looking for they typically give you a coupon for a discount when they get it back in stock.
And they make candy canes in house every weekend during the holiday season (weather permitting– sugar is tricky). Can it get better than that?

When I was in highschool, my mom started working here. I used to trim Santa and Easter Bunny molds on my school vacations. You would think we would all get as fat as hippos, but after a while, you stop eating the creams and get into more exotic fare (for NH, at least), like chocolate-​covered ginger and orange peel. Needless to say, everything they make is great. (When in doubt with any confectioner, go with the nuts and chews as they are very hard to screw up.)
We have used their mail order service for decades and everyone raves about the quality of these chocolates. In my opinion, they rank right up there with the high-​end, high-​profile chocolatiers.
Now, one owner later (there have been 4 in about 80 years), the quality is still great. They are back on Main Street, but somehow very easy to miss as you walk or drive-​by. Not sure why. I hope that has changed since my last visit as I want everyone who passes through Keene to have a chance to sample these amazing chocolates.

I worked here for a couple of years in high school, so I feel eminently qualified to give it a five-​star review as I have eaten virtually everything they sell in copious quantities.
They don’t make every last thing in house, but the overwhelming proportion of product is handmade. The turtles, the fudge, the nut clusters, anything dipped or enrobed. Every ingredient is top notch, and the items they purchase are from the best purveyors and thus of excellent quality. My personal favorites include dark chocolate coated maple and raspberry creams, Montevideos (dark chocolate vanilla creams with a walnut atop), coconut-​filled snowflakes and almond paste-​filled marzipans, Swiss fudge (milk and white chocolate mixed together… so creamy…), and penuche fudge, which tastes like intense, caramelized brown sugar.
They do a brisk mail order business around the country, which I think is a testament to just how good it is. At holidays, the place is a zoo, and deservedly so — they pretty much turn it into Santa’s workshop or the Easter Bunny’s warren (hutch…I’m not sure whether he is wild or has been domesticated) and the seasonal offering are rather magical.
Yes, it’s costlier than, say, a bag of Peanut M&Ms. It’s also better. At least 10 times better, and lord knows I am fond of Peanut M&Ms. So go already.