A piece of candy a day will … rot your teeth.

But how could a person resist with all the milk chocolate covered peanuts and chewy gummy bears at the DeKalb Confectionary, 149 N. 2nd St.?

Tom Smith and his wife Sharon opened the Confectionary 19 years ago because they saw that DeKalb didn’t have any candy stores.

“We started off strictly as a retail store, then years down the line we started to make chocolates,” Tom Smith said.

Freshly cooked chocolate is what gives this store its delicious smell, and also is the store’s best seller. But the Confectionary isn’t for chocolate lovers alone. There also are aisles filled with jelly beans, licorice, mints, hard candies, sugar free candies. The list goes on and on.

“I like the Nips,” said nine-year-old Lissa Ritter. “They have a chocolate cream that pours out when you suck on them.”

Susie Ritter also enjoys the treats she can pick up at the Confectionary.

“When I go to the Confectionary, I always buy the German berries because they’re a family favorite.”

The store averages about 100 transactions a day, which keeps the owners pretty busy all year round, Tom Smith said. But holidays tend to draw in the larger crowds.

The store’s busiest month of the year is December, Tom Smith said. Its busiest week falls right before Easter Sunday, but both of those pale in comparison to the business they receive on Feb. 13 and 14.

“In December we make everything as fast as we can,” he said as he made an item called sea monsters. “Around Easter we make a lot of chocolate covered rabbits, and for Valentine’s Day we make heart shaped chocolates.”

The sea monsters, which are candies that resemble Turtles, are the stores highest-selling chocolate.

The Smiths will celebrate the store’s 20th anniversary next month, and have hopes of continuing to provided tasteful treats to the community for years to come.