Valvo’s Candies & Gift Shop operated for 103 years just outside the village of Silver Creek before the Valvo family business closed its doors for good in September. Submitted photo

SILVER CREEK — After 103 years of operation in the Silver Creek community, Valvo’s Candies and Gift Shop officially closed its doors on Sept. 12.

Owner Elizabeth Valvo recently told the OBSERVER newspaper the closing is permanent and that the property at 1277 Central Avenue in Silver Creek will eventually be put up for sale. Valvo, 88, announced the news “with a heavy heart” and expressed her gratitude for the community’s support.

“I would like to thank our wonderful customers, friends and family who helped us along the way,” Valvo said. “I’m just so thankful for everybody who helped support us.”

Valvo recalls how members of the community always had a hand in the success of the business, sometimes even in a literal sense.

“My husband and I would work until 2 in the morning at the candy factory, and sometimes we’d hear a knock on the door. People from the community would just come in and help,” Valvo said. “That’s the way it was with our business. It was just one of those things where it wasn’t just us, it was everyone who built this business.”

Elizabeth’s husband, Joseph Valvo, ran the business with her until he died in April of 2018. Just like Joseph did with his father, Joseph and Elizabeth’s daughter, Susan, also helped run the family business. Elizabeth credits Susan for modernizing the business and for “stepping into her father’s shoes” after Joseph’s passing. She noted Susan even learned how to make sponge candy and hard candy, among many challenging tasks she assumed when the business needed it.

Elizabeth Valvo also credits Jeanne Dempsey for all the work she did for the business, claiming she was “instrumental” in helping Susan Valvo with running the shop.

“We put a lot into this business. We all did. We loved it,” Elizabeth Valvo said.

Valvo says she has received a great deal of support from the community since the business first shut its doors back in September. She described the outreach as both “heartbroken” and as “very supportive” of her family’s century-long fixture of the Silver Creek community.

“You wouldn’t believe how much these people believed in us,” Valvo said.