Sugar Rush

Luxury boutique known for Champagne gummies makes Dallas premiere

Get ready to build your own fancy candy bento box.

Photo by Jeff Mindell

The "Tiffany's of candy" is opening a store in Dallas. Sugarfina, the luxury candy boutique chain from Beverly Hills, will open its first store in Dallas in NorthPark Center, with more than 150 gourmet candies from around the world, many exclusive to Sugarfina. They don't know an exact opening date but it will definitely be before Valentine's Day.

Located on level one between Nordstrom and Macy’s, the shop will showcase Sugarfina's signature candy bento box experience, where shoppers create their own candy gift box by selecting from a wall of candy cubes that hold chocolates, caramels, gummies, jellies, marshmallows, hard candies, and licorice. Sugarfina candy consultants will offer free samples and assist guests in choosing the perfect candies based on their taste profile. You read that correctly: free samples.

Sugarfina debuted in 2012 as an online company, selling cocktail candies, such as cordials made with single malt scotch, and gummies made with champagne and peach bellinis. Most of its gummies come from the Bavarian region of Germany, where gummy bears were invented, and its hazelnut candies are from the Piedmont region of Italy, said to be home of the finest hazelnuts in the world.

The company opened its first retail store in Beverly Hills in 2013. They now have 24 retail locations plus 15 shops inside Nordstrom stores. In Dallas, some Sugarfina products can be purchased at Market, the boutique at Highland Park Village, but NorthPark Center will be the brand's first shop.

Its crisp aqua-and-white boutiques, displaying hundreds of candies in modern Lucite cubes, earned it a nod as "one of the 10 most beautiful candy shops" by Architectural Digest.

Co-founders are Rosie O'Neill, a former marketing director for Barbie, and Josh Resnick, a former video game entrepreneur.

"We dreamed of gourmet sweets made with premium ingredients, candy that's as beautiful to look at as it is to taste," O'Neill says. "Our new shop will bring delicious, never-before-seen candies to Dallas."

With the design-your-own bento box experience, shoppers can select an 8-, 4-, or 3-piece gift box and build their own from the wall of candy cubes. One area of the store is dedicated to "top shelf" candies — exotic offerings from around the world such as Raindrops & Roses rosewater candies from Italy, Kyoto Blossoms from Japan, and interlocking chocolate wedding rings from Greece. A display tells the story and history behind each candy.

An icon-based labeling system identifies which candies are vegan, vegetarian, fat -free, kosher pareve, kosher dairy, all-natural, non-GMO, and made without gluten.

In-store sampling is a big part of the Sugarfina experience, which is probably something they shouldn't advertise, but associates offer complimentary daily samples with a selection that rotates weekly. They also have a candy "concierge" who helps with custom and corporate gifts, private events, dessert bars, candy tastings, and even marriage proposals.

The boutique will be open mall hours, from 10 am-9 pm Monday-Saturday and 12-6 pm on Sunday.

desserts shopping

Coming attraction

Dallas hospitality pros team up for new restaurant in Inwood Village

Rendering courtesy of

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Dallas restaurateur Bob Sambol, who brought Bob's Steak & Chop House to the city in the 1990s, is partnering with a prolific Dallas hospitality group to open an intimate new eatery called Charlie’s in Inwood Village.

Planned for spring or summer of 2027, Charlie's - a partnership between Sambol and Vandelay Companies - will take over the space at 5450 W. Lovers Ln. #225 formerly occupied by longtime Dallas favorite Adelmo's.

The restaurant will be small, with about 30 tables, and will serve dinner only. It will also take reservations the old-fashioned way: by landline phone in the restaurant.

Specifics about the menu, chef, and exact opening timeline will be announced closer to the restaurant's debut. But a rendering included with the press release shows a white brick exterior with black shutters, and text beneath the restaurant name that suggests the involvement of "steak," "chop," and "seafood."

Sambol describes Charlie's as "low-key" and "quietly sophisticated," with a "warm palette" and calls this a "very personal" project, which will be built in the spirit of small East Coast neighborhood dining rooms of the past, such as a place his father once owned called The Continental in New Jersey.

“After 30 years, I wanted to create something that feels humble and familiar with great hospitality, a beautiful room, people you know and a restaurant you want to return to again and again," Sambol says in the release. "Nothing overly complicated. Just a really special place for the neighborhood.”

Charlie's restaurant owners Vandalay Companies' Hunter Pond and Rick Dunlap flank Bob Sambol.Photo by Samantha Marie Photography

Sambol says he's had a longtime friendship with the Vandelay Companies' Hunter Pond and Rick Dunlap, whose restaurants include Hudson House, Anchor Sushi, Drake’s, and a variety of other brands. He says he’s watched the restaurant development investors grow up and make a name for themselves in Dallas hospitality.

“I’ve known Hunter and Rick since they were in grade school, and seeing what they have built is truly remarkable. It’s a surreal moment to partner with them on such a personal project” Sambol says.

Pond calls the partnership with Sambol a "fun and unique project ... that no one in Dallas has done in quite some time."

Charlie’s will be "deliberately different" from many of the big city's large-scale "highly produced" restaurants, the owners say, adding that it "will embrace an understated, old-school elegance."

“Charlie’s isn’t about trying to make the biggest restaurant or the loudest statement. It’s about creating a timeless one," Pond says. "That restraint is what makes the project so exciting to us.”

As for Charlie's predecessor at the coveted Inwood Village address, Adelmo's — known for its Italian food "with accents" of French and Mediterranean — occupied the space for 10 years before closing in December 2025 and reopening this year in the Preston Valley Shopping Center, at the southwest corner of Preston Road.

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