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500 apples. 250 pounds of fudge. 400 pounds of strawberries.
No, no party is being thrown for an entire town. The staffers at Kilwins in Patchogue and Babylon are simply readying for another Valentines’ Day — the stores’ biggest day of the year.
They’re stocking up — and getting mentally prepared — for Kilwins’ annual ritual of keeping the doors open overnight from Feb. 13 into Feb. 14.
This year, Valentine’s Day is on a Friday.
That’s 36 hours of making and serving up fudge, chocolate and ice cream for all those South Shore sweethearts.
“We’ll open Thursday at 10 a.m. and then we’ll remain open until Friday, Valentine’s Day, at 10 p.m. at both stores,” said Kilwins owner John Murray, III. “This is what people have come to expect from us, and we’ll be taking it the limit yet again this year.”
In the meantime, he’ll be traversing the tri-state are for goods.
“As always, we use the best ingredients money can buy, especially the strawberries,” said Murray. “No one like me is going up to the Bronx and buying them right from the distributor, which gets them right from the field. It doesn’t get any fresher.”
2016 will mark the seventh year Murray is keeping a store open through the morning hours. He also emphasized that people could pre-order.
“We do this to better serve everybody, including those that work odd hours such as first responders, nurses doctors,” said Murray. “One year we had a bread truck pull up. Those guys work the craziest hours around.”
Top: Kilwins owner John Murray works on a batch of double dark chocolate fudge at the Patchogue store. (file photo/Michael White)
