Paul and Mary Trahan started what would one day become Ben & Bill's Chocolate Emporium in 1956. With an aisle devoted to their handmade candies and chocolates in Ben Franklin's Store in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts, Trahan's Candies embarked on a long journey of growth and development.
In 1958, the Trahans opened their very own retail shop, and quickly found quite a demand for their quality products. They branched out to Falmouth and Hyannis, Massachusetts where they operated in the summers, and opened locations in Palm Beach and West Palm Beach, Florida during the winter months. In those days, the shops produced strictly homemade candy and chocolates.
Expansion continued and more locations came and went, leading up to the opening of a shop in Bar Harbor, Maine. Shortly thereafter, in 1983 the shops added another dimension to their product line, introducing a line of ice cream. The Bar Harbor store began with sixteen flavors, and added more as demand increased.
In 1988, after thirty-two years of operating Trahan's Candies, Paul and Mary sold the business to their nephews, Benjamin and William Coggins, at which point the business became Ben & Bill's Chocolate Emporium as it is today. In 1991 another location was added, in Northampton, Massachusetts, followed by the fourth extant shop in Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard in 1994, in the neighboring town where the business began almost forty years before.
Today, Ben & Bill's continues to offer quality candies and chocolates made with the original recipes, and numerous flavors of ice cream - 64 hard-serve flavors plus 12 of gelato in the Bar Harbor store alone.
We deeply appreciate your continued patronage - it makes the story of this small, unique New England, family owned business, a continually successful one.