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Lisa LaRocca

2142025WClisa530

Well, today is Valentine's Day, and business is expected to be booming at local areas across the Hudson Valley. So we sent news to Lisa LaRocca to have a straw where we're claiming Valentine's Day victory because we're at a chocolate shop. What's better than that, Lisa? Oh yeah, let me tell you, you want to talk about the sweet spot. This is the sweetest spot in all of the Hudson Valley, and oh, and there's Nick. He's just coming. Hey Nick, how are you? We're live and he's this is the Willy Wonka of the Hudson Valley. How you doing this morning? Good. Good morning. You ready for today? Oh, we're ready. We're all. Yeah, tell everybody a little. I mean, you guys have been here this spot what 120 years, more, more, yeah, since 1896 we've been in the same location yeah and your stuff is like the best, yeah, it is. So we, when we got here there were probably we saw a whole bunch of uh strawberry boxes, yeah, we dipped. 200 boxes yesterday and 200 boxes the day before we're doing another 200 today so it keeps us going, so, so today is going to be super busy. Yes, it will hopefully, yeah, so that's why I've been saying listen, if you wait until the last second, you don't want to be in the doghouse we got you covered so we're gonna be coming in this morning and we'll talk a little bit more about all. The great stuff that you guys make, but this is 4 generations. 4 generations, yes, it was my great great uncle started it way back in 1800s, and you're still doing the same recipes as like if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? Exactly right, yeah, pretty much the same as it's been. So yeah. So will we be sampling this morning? Absolutely, whatever you want. I, I love some days I really love my job. This is great. So all right, listen, we're going to be inside. We're gonna go inside, check everything out, so don't go anywhere. We got lots of sweet treats for you guys. Let's go back to the studio. Lisa, you better tell him we need some back here at the station too. No, Lisa, you better get to work. You're gonna be sampling. You better help them dip. Yes, that's true. We need to see your handiwork with those strawberries a little later.

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214202WClisa6_2025-02-14-06-14-46

Here locally, if you haven't snagged the sweets for your Valentine, do not panic. Our Lisa LaRocca has always got you covered. She's over in Haverstraw where you can claim Valentine's victory, sweet, sweet Valentine's victory, Lisa. Oh, big time, listen, I'm gonna keep you out of the doghouse if you haven't done any of your Valentine's Day shopping yet. This is the place to come. Lucas candies here in Haverstraw and but you know I haven't been here in a while and you guys have really done some cool stuff. This is Nick Lucas. This first of all, for people who don't know this place has been here for 1. 28 years, yeah, we started in 1896. So you were you your family was Willy Wonka before Willy Wonka ever. Yeah, that was true. Yeah, so this is new. The tavern at Lucas Candytown this gorgeous. Thank you. Yeah, we decided to put in a, uh, tasting room, so we pair, uh, beer and wine with our chocolates. So, uh, we had our grand opening this past May. And and it, I mean, it's beautifully done and you're set up for uh romantic Valentine's Day tonight. So if you haven't made plans, this may be an idea. What are you doing tonight? So we have uh live music and we're doing uh wine and beer flights and pairing, uh, champagne with chocolate covered strawberries. So 6 o'clock tonight it starts, yeah, and the, and the strawberry, and that's the big seller for you guys. Oh, definitely, uh, we sell tons of chocolate covered strawberries today. We'll be, uh. Bring them later today and you still, I mean you do everything the way your great great grandparents are you actually hand dip. Yeah, we'll be there with, uh, cups of warm chocolate and dipping them each one by hand. It's the best way to do it. Yeah, and you wanna, OK, you wanna see some, you want to see some strawberries? Come here. Let's, let's show you. Look at these babies right here. I mean, is this insane? Let me tell you something. If this doesn't get you out of the doghouse. I don't know what will. I mean, if you bring these home you're guaranteed to have a very, very good Valentine's Day. Are, are these the most insane things you've ever seen? And, and again, you guys, this is your recipe. You've never changed it same way it's always been, and, uh, we'll be doing, like I said, we'll be doing them today. So we got lots more to show you here at Lucas Candies. Don't go anywhere. Happy Valentine's Day, everybody. Let's go back to you guys in the studio.

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2142025WClisa830_2025-02-14-09-14-16

Here locally, if you have not snagged sweets for your Valentine yet, don't panic. Our Lisa LaRocca is over in Haverstar where you can claim Valentine's victory, and she is certainly winning out there this morning. Yeah, let me tell you something. You come here to get your Valentine stuff. You will not, you, you won't be in the doghouse. I can promise you that. Lucas candy is just, I mean, it's just so incredible. This has been around for more than 120 years. Let me introduce you to some of the family we've been with Nick all morning and look, Nick Senior, his dad has come in. Happy Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day to you. So what is the secret? I mean, this is 4 generations. And this chocolate is out of this world. What's the secret? Secret is good ingredients. Don't change the ingredients. Don't go cheap and everything is fresh and we sell out every holiday. Yeah, I mean, you got, like we said, you, everything is this has been consistent. If, if it ain't broke, don't, you know, don't fix it, right? Yeah, we do it the same way. He told me everything, basically the same, same way we did years ago. We did candy canes, but we sold them by the pound. He sells them individually. Uh, the rest of it is basically the same. Now you're here to, to dip the strawberries. You're gonna help because there's a lot of strawberries to dip in a lot of strawberries. We're going, we're going down to do it in a little while, and you said what you made about 5,000s you'll dip individually, yeah, yeah, it ends up close to 500 pounds. It's about 5000 strawberries. They are gorgeous. They are gorgeous. OK, so just quickly, you guys are experts in this advice to anybody out there who's panicking that it's Valentine's Day. They haven't done anything. What's the advice? We've got the merchandise. Come in and pick out what you want. Yeah, it's easy. Just come down, have a straw. All right. And you guys are open. You, oh, you're open until what tonight? 9 o'clock. I'll be here. OK. All right guys, so this is the place to be. You cannot go wrong. There are so many amazing things. Happy, happy Valentine's Day. Let's go back to you guys in the studio. Happy Valentine's Day to everyone there, Lisa, and our producer Leila's so sweet. She even got us some chocolates too for Valentine's Day. So thanks to her for and these are delicious. These are delicious, but I don't know if they can stack up to and if you're living on a prayer at 8:55 tonight, you know where to go. You got 5 minutes to figure it out at that point.

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2142025WClisa630_2025-02-14-07-28-00

Today just happened to be Valentine's Day, and local businesses will be buzzing with shoppers looking for those last minute gifts. So we sent Lisa LaRocca to a local candy shop in Rockland County for this very sweet assignment. Lisa, what a place to be, my goodness. Yeah, happy Valentine's Day. Look at this breakfast of champions. Look at that. That's just a plain piece of milk chocolate crafted hand crafted here at Luca's Candies here with Nick Lucas. Thanks so much for having us. Oh, of course, thank you for coming. This is just, I mean this is like if you're a chocoholic you have died and gone to heaven when you walk in. So big day for you guys we've been talking about your the chocolate, the chocolate dipped strawberries which you're famous for, but a lot of other stuff. What else is popular? Oh sure, so, um, over here is just our regular molded items. We have all different hearts, uh, different shapes, different everything. uh, this side is more of our gift items, uh, baskets, uh, truffles, stuffed animals, anything you need. Uh, are the regular heart boxes which are the staple at Valentine's Day. We have all different sizes filled with, uh, all our assorted stuff. Yeah, listen, whoever's calling, we're a little busy on the air right now. Just can you call back because we hear the phone ringing. So and also you have, you have uh local beers and ciders that are paired with some of your chocolate. Yeah, so this is our pairings to go. It's, uh, you get a 4 pack of craft beer paired with 4 of our chocolates, so you can take it and take the. Home with you right now you make a lot of other things that are amazing, so let's come over here. I mean huge heart boxes here, but I mean look at the you said these are some of your favorites just like the clusters, right? Yeah, absolutely. When I'm gonna nibble, I always go, uh, peanut clusters or crisp ones which are, uh, pretty well known, uh, just perfect to snack on. But we got it, Danny, come on over here. We got because this is just, you know, like just because, right? So look at this. Milk gobs, OK, tell, tell everybody what's in this. So a gob is a marshmallow that's wrapped in caramel, and then we dip it in chocolate after that. We do, uh, either milk chocolate or dark chocolate, and they're unbelievable. That's just, that's just stupid. I mean, it's just and I gotta say one of my favorites that got national attention, guys, trust me, maybe not today for Valentine's Day, but this is just so funny this. Is the Lucas PMS bar. What's in it? So, uh, PMS stands for peanut butter, milk, chocolate, and salted potato chips. I mean, is, is that not perfect? And you, you'll sell them in a case of 12 like break out once a month, right? If, if needed, yes, like I said, guys, maybe not for Valentine's Day, but I know a lot of women who would appreciate this, that's for sure. So, uh, stick around. I gotta love it, right? So we're gonna be going into the where the magic is made. We're gonna show you the strawberries that are dipped in chocolate, so don't go anywhere. We got lots of good stuff coming up. Alright guys, let's go back to your, uh, so good, so good, Lisa.

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2142025WClisa8

If you haven't snagged the sweets for your Valentine yet, don't panic. Our Lisa LaRock is in Havastra where you can claim Valentine's victory by the end of this morning. If it was me anyway, Lisa, you'd have to roll me out of there. They're, you know, everywhere you look, you're like, I want one of everything here at Lucas Candies. It's just so good and you know they've been making this for more than 120 years, so why not? Nick is with us and we we're here in the uh in the new tavern again we're doing some of the pairings with wine earlier and these are just. Some of the favorites again, the strawberry, the chocolate chips, yeah, nothing beats them. Valentine's Day wouldn't be the same without the strawberries. Yeah, and let me get this so Danny can say, I mean, look at the size of these suckers. I mean they are just, you know, like I said earlier, you, you come with a box of these, you're gonna have a really good Valentine's Day. Yeah, that's the hope, yeah, absolutely. So now you have like your, you know, you can put together a uh a box that you know you like and talk about. Yeah, we have uh more traditional, uh, Valentine heart boxes. Uh, most are packed with our regular assortment, but you can custom pack if, uh, you want all dark chocolate we can do that we, you know, make. Sure everybody gets whatever they want and you know you can put together a basket of some of the favorites like let's just these are chocolate covered Oreos. Oh yeah, everybody loves them. There's, there's nothing better. Yeah, yeah. And then this is the you have a milk gob and a dark chocolate milk chocolate. Talk about what the gob is. So it's a marshmallow that's wrapped in caramel and then dipped in chocolate. So, uh, it's like a meal, yeah, one bite. Just, just because, because you can do it, so why not, of course, yeah, and then for those of you who people who are not watching earlier, this is, this kind of puts you on the map nationally now guys, not for Valentine's Day, but maybe come back. This is the PMS bar. So what's what's that? It's peanut butter, milk chocolate, and salted potato chips. Yeah, OK, now I don't know where you're thinking, but yeah, that's ladies, that's, that's kind of like the perfect combination for this, yeah, yeah, again, guys, not for Valentine's Day, but, but the rest of the year, absolutely. So you, you guys will open today at 10. You'll be open. You have an event tonight. Yeah, we're here till 9 o'clock tonight. We have, uh, live music. We're doing, uh, wine and chocolate pairings tonight. Um, we'll be open all day for to sell chocolate and up till 9 o'clock. Yeah, this is, guys, I'm telling you this is the spot to be. If you haven't gotten your stuff yet, come here and all year long, great stuff. Let's go back to you guys in the studio. All that, Nick, with so many great ideas to make this Valentine's Day a great one. Lisa LaRocca. We thank you and that PMS bar as well. Hopefully we can try one a little bit later.

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2142025WClisa7_2025-02-14-07-27-30

If you haven't snagged sweets for your Valentine, don't panic. Our Lisa LaRocca is in Hastra where you can still claim Valentine's victory, but I think she's the one winning today. Hey, Lisa. Oh my gosh, you are not kidding, guys. Let me tell you, so we are here where some of the magic is made here at Lucas Candies in. I have a story. Nick is the, the big thing is the, the chocolate dipped strawberry, absolutely, yeah, nothing says Valentine's Day like chocolate covered strawberries. That's for sure. And you, you make, you're putting together you you'll sell about 500 boxes, so you dip. About 5000 strawberries. Yeah, correct, and we, we dipped them all by hand. So, uh, we've been doing it every morning this week to, uh, make sure we have them ready, and we have our last batch today. OK, so you're gonna, you're gonna show him he's gonna teach me OK, this is gonna be like an I Love Lucy reset episode. So. So these are stem berries. They're the nice big juicy strawberries. So all you gotta do is you have to dip it in almost to the top, take it out. You want to shake off the excess chocolate, saying, and give it a little flip. That way it doesn't drip all over, right? And then you set it in. OK. All right, so it's all in the wrist, right? OK. And you know what's so cute. His parents are coming later, so this really is a family, family thing. They're they have to come down for strawberry day. Everybody comes down for that one. I love it. OK, so kind of dip it in. Is far to the top, right? Give it a little, give a little shake off the excess and then do a little flip and then look at that, Danny, it looks good, right? Yeah, Danny Danny's dying for one of these. Wow, that's. So just do that, uh, 2000 more times and we're good for the day and you're good for the day and this really is your is one of the most popular sellers absolutely yeah we should sell out hopefully by midday. Wow. So if you want these, you gotta, you gotta get your fill. yeah, OK, one more. I'm gonna get it in here, tip it. OK, look at this, guys. Look at that touch. Right, OK, we got lots more good stuff coming up. Don't go anywhere. This is just killing, killing me in here. Good stuff. I mean, Lisa, I, I gotta say, give you props for having the microphone in one hand and being able to dip the strawberries with the other. Those are quite a few skills that people didn't even know you had. Hopefully they don't steal you. It's a talent to do that at Lucas Candy. We love you here too much. You can't go anywhere.

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2142025WClisa730_2025-02-14-07-43-17

Well today happens to be Valentine's Day, and local businesses will be buzzing with shoppers looking for gifts. So we sent news 12's Lisa LaRocca to a local candy shop in Rockland County. She has got a sweet assignment. Lisa, what are we talking about now? A little Vino, right? Little Vino little pairings here at Lucas Candies, and this is something new that they're doing here. This is the tavern, uh, at Lucas Candies. This is Nick and this you just added this in May. Beautiful. So tonight you're gonna have a live band and you come, you have some vino, you have some beer. Talk a little bit about this. You got it, yeah, well, it's Valentine's Day, so we're doing a Valentine's event tonight. We have live music. We're doing, uh, wine flights and champagne and. Covered strawberries, of course, uh, but we do this every day. You can come in and do a pairing, uh, with beer or wine, um, and we have, uh, 8 beers on tap, usually about 8 different wines, and, uh, the chocolate really enhances the flavor of everything. Yeah, so, so we have a cab here and, and what is that with, uh, we paired that with a black forest truffle. It brings out the cherry flavors in the cab. Sure makes sense. The second one here is a red blend and we went with a, uh, dark caramel truffle. A lot of different flavors in that wine, so we want something a little more neutral that kind of just bring out all the different flavors that way. Uh, this is a rose and, uh, the roses are very cool because uh they start out kind of citrusy and then we added a raspberry cream, so, uh, because there's red berries in it also and then after that you get a whole different flavor of the wine because the raspberry enhances, uh, that aspect of it and the last one is a Chardonnay. It's a buttery Chardonnay, so of course with a. Buttercream makes sense. Yeah, so that just kind of goes well. So I, I have to, I'm, I'm gonna kind of go a little off off script here, and I want to bring my photographer Danny Danny, come in here. So Danny has been my work husband and my partner for the last 2.5 years, and today sadly is his last day. He's moving on to bigger and better things, but I wanted you all to see who really does the hard work because he's got to deal with me. He's, he does the hard work, so. Uh, so Danny and I are not allowed to drink on camera, so I, I'll tell you what we're gonna do. Go ahead, grab something. All right, we'll do this. I'm gonna just excuse myself for a minute and, oh, that's good good, right? Uh mm oh it does it here as well. That's good stuff, so. All right guys, let's go back to you. We love you, Danny. We're gonna miss you. Good luck. Thank you back to you guys. I mean, I don't know how you follow that, Danny, we love you, wishing you all the best and we love what uh what you're doing over there at Lucas Candies with Nick. We appreciate it.

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Our Lisa LaRocca is in Haverstraw at one of the sweetest spots in the Hudson Valley, Lucas Candies. 

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Last-minute Valentine's Day sweets: Lucas Candies in Haverstraw offers classic chocolates

Our Lisa LaRocca is in Haverstraw at one of the sweetest spots in the Hudson Valley, Lucas Candies.

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