Jon Abt, who runs the 81-year-old appliance store with his three brothers, acknowledges most appliance stores don't pair chocolate bars and gummy candy with refrigerators and home theater systems. But Abt is not the average appliance store.

Terry Ullman has worked as a machinist in a shipyard and as an environmental planner for Green Bay, Wis. During that time, however, he often would reflect about the summers spent as a teenager helping his Uncle Ken and Aunt Joyce at their Caramel Crisp Shop in Estes Park, Colo.