If you’re lucky enough, you may have childhood memories of browsing the aisles of your neighborhood candy store. For many of those stores, their tenures have sadly come to an end by the year 2025 due to retirement, rent costs, corporate competition, or whatever else life has to offer. This is far from the case for Jersey City’s mom + pop shop Lee Sims Chocolates, located at 743 Bergen Avenue. Eighty years in, the store remains under the ownership of the same family spanning four generations. Read on to learn more about Lee Sims’ history in Jersey City and the family behind it.
A Landmark in Jersey City History
Lee Sims Chocolates’ original location in Jersey City’s McGinley Square neighborhood, just south of Journal Square, has stood tall throughout some of the city and nation’s most pivotal moments. The shop’s owner, Valerie Vlahakis, reflected on the evolution of the neighborhood over the years, remembering the area as a “premier shopping area” before the emergence of malls. Businesses that have long since closed included specialty boutiques like Marion and Rose and shoe stores, Wenton’s and Kitty Kelly.
She also noted that the area has always been diverse as long as she has known it, describing it as a very close-knit neighborhood. Valerie recalled the nearby Jersey City Uprising and the protests following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., after whom Historic Jackson Avenue was then honorarily renamed. According to Jackson Hill Main Street, a century after the land functioned as a “critical link” of the Underground Railroad, “One hundred years later, in the 50’s and 60’s, Jackson and Monticello Avenues were the place to be. A cornucopia of small businesses lined the corridor, satisfying a wide variety of needs, and providing a variety of entertainment venues for the local community.”
The space was first bought by Valerie’s grandfather, George Sousane, in the 1940s, after the end of World War II. George, an immigrant from Greece, began his career working for German chocolatiers in Connecticut, learning the trade as a dishwasher and kettle cleaner. Valerie noted that prior to air conditioning, chocolate was a “secondary item” that was primarily made for artistic purposes for major holidays. Instead, her grandfather was first trained in candy-making items like taffies and jellies, which could withstand warmer temperatures. George eventually bought a house in Staten Island in the mid-1950s, and Valerie said, “He was so proud… Life was good for him, and he was well into his 70s by then. My father came into the business with him and did as he did, learned from the bottom up. Only my father came from a farm in Massachusetts, and he had a merchandising background.” Valerie elaborated on her father’s sales experience and her mother’s knack for aesthetics, with both her parents, Catherine Sousane and Nicholas Vlahakis, ultimately taking over the business in the 1950s.
Historic figures intertwined in the story of Lee Sims include United States Congressman Frank J. Guarini, who recently turned 101, making him the longest living member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Valerie noted that Representative Guarini coordinated a Valentine’s Day chocolate donation from her parents to sailors aboard the S.S. New Jersey around the late 1980s or early 90s, with a photograph of the pair standing beside a towering life-size heart-shaped chocolate box. Valerie said about her parents, “They were a really dedicated couple. They were fun to watch interact.”
Remembering the lasting legacy that Mayor Frank Hague left on the city, Valerie noted his impact in building the Jersey City Medical Center, which is now the Beacon apartment building. Regarding other aspects of his legacy, she said, “He took bribes, but everyone got a turkey at Thanksgiving and a ham at Christmas.” In a New York Times piece penned by a fellow Jersey City local, Valerie recounted an experience of her own with a Jersey City Mayor, “One February, a customer alerted Ms. Vlahakis that Mayor Jerramiah Healy was waiting in line. ‘I said, ‘And?’ ’ she said. ‘He was fine standing out there like everyone else.’”
The Women Running the Show
This family-owned business is also fully woman-owned. Valerie is the latest in a line of female leaders at Lee Sims…