Leavitt & Pierce, with its games, pipes, soaps, knives and knickknacks, is already among the most fascinating shops to browse in Harvard Square. Make it to the back of the 143-year-old Cambridge shop in mid- to late September and there will be a whole other category of delights to discover: the chocolates, candies and history of Spindler Confections & Savory Delights, opening a satellite location to complement its shop in North Cambridge.
“There’s a lot more shelf space here than you think – actually, it’s quite impressive what you can do in a small space,” said Jeremy Spindler, who was at Leavitt & Pierce on Wednesday preparing its soon-to-be second home in a shelf-lined alcove around the size of a walk-in closet.
Spindler’s North Cambridge shop, open since 2016 after four years of operating out of a house in Somerville, is also small. But it squeezes in plenty of savory gourmet goods and a museum of candy making along with the kitchen where Spindler and his helpers make an array of chocolates and candies with hands-on, old-fashioned techniques.
What he does is not much different than what’s celebrated by that little on-site museum on Massachusetts Avenue; another mini-museum for atop the Harvard Square shelves is planned to open in the spring. “We’re kind of carrying on the legacy of all the old candy companies,” Spindler said. There were large wholesale bean-to-buyer manufacturers in Dorchester in the 1700s, dozens of candy factories on Cambridge’s Main Street – known as Confectioners Row – and several big players: Page & Shaw, Schrafft’s, Squirrel Brand, Artstyle Chocolates. “And then of course we have to talk about Necco,” the New England Candy Co., which left for Revere in 2003 to see its old building host the pharma company Novartis.
Spindler had been looking casually at a second storefront for a few years, focusing on Downtown Crossing and the North End in Boston before sort of giving up in the fall of 2025, Spindler said. With a previous tenant, Fruition Chocolate Works, leaving after a few months inside Leavitt & Pierce to focus on its home state of New York, tobacconist Paul MacDonald contacted Spindler to take over the shop within his shop.
The handshake deal for “very reasonable rent” allows Spindler to explore a new market.
“It’s a totally different customer base than our North Cambridge shop. We’re mainly locals down there, with a lot of regulars, and there are lots of tourists here in Harvard Square,” Spindler said. “We might add a few special things geared more toward them, and we’re trying to figure out what those are.” That could piggyback on Harvard’s presence across the street, if it can be done without violating school trademarks. “A little bag of crimson drops or something like that,” Spindler imagined.
With the Cardullo’s gourmet shop and L.A. Burdick nearby, Spindler can re-create some of that Confectioners Row feel in Harvard Square. But there’s a difference: “Unless I am mistaken, we are the only chocolate shop in Cambridge that actually hand makes its own product on site,” Spindler said.
Spindler Confections & Savory Delights, 2257 Massachusetts Ave., North Cambridge
Leavitt & Pierce, 1316 Massachusetts Ave., Harvard Square, Cambridge
