Page 10 - November-December Klahanie Magazine

Boehm's Candies:

Keeping the Tradition Alive

The holiday season is the perfect
time for a visit to the candy store
to satisfy the craving for delicious
old world chocolates and treats not
easily found elsewhere.

While the Issaquah area has grown up in Kenmore as a pastry chef. His
exponentially over the past 30 years, roommate had done the wooden
one tiny corner at the eastern end of carving on the Edelweiss Chalet, and
Gilman Boulevard has not changed a that fortuitous connection in 1971
bit for more than 60 years. ensured the survival of the traditions
at Boehms.
The three and a half acres surrounding
the Boehm’s candy store and Garbusjuk comes from a line of German
manufacturing facility are much the candy makers that goes back more
same as they were when Julius Boehm than 200 years. This background made
decided to move his chocolates and him a perfect fit to learn from Boehm
confectionary business to Issaquah and then guide the company following
from Seattle in 1956. Having escaped Julius’s death in 1981. Garbusjuk’s
his native Austria, Boehm made it to philosophy is to respect Boehm’s
Seattle and soon followed the family heritage and to maintain the legacy of
tradition, and opened his candy the land, the buildings, the art, and the
manufacturing business in 1943. He quality of the products.
moved it all to Issaquah because the
He has made certain that the grounds
surrounding mountains reminded him
are open for visitors to enjoy even if
of his homeland.
they never enter the store. Over the
Boehm completed the Edelweiss years, he passed on opportunities to
Chalet in 1956 to house the retail and redevelop the grounds that would have
manufacturing of the European-style changed the legacy and traditions too
chocolates and candies. It was the first much.
Swiss chalet constructed in the Pacific
Garbusjuk is now passing on the
Northwest. In 1981, he had the High
Boehms heritage and traditions to his
Alpine Chapel completed. It is a replica
son, Tyson, and daughter, Narissa,
of a 12th-century chapel near Saint
who are learning the business from the
Moritz in Switzerland.
bottom up--the old-school way.
By this time Boehm’s health was
The respect for tradition is also evident
failing and he was anxious that his
among the staff, many of whom have
traditional methods of making candy
worked at Boehms for at least 15 years.
might be lost. Luckily, he had met
Garbusjuk estimates that they have
another immigrant who had agreed to
hired more than 2,200 high school
join his staff. Bernard Garbusjuk was
students over the years, teaching them
displaced from his family in Germany
about not only the products, but also
when the Berlin Wall was erected.
how to communicate with customers.
He immigrated to America, ending
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