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Customers drive Duck Soup’s business.
“We sell an eclectic mix of everything, reflecting our local customers. I bring in what my customers want and look for very interesting things to fill the space.” That’s how Louise Mawhinney approaches Duck Soup, the store specializing in foods, gadgets and gifts in Mill Village. And it’s also why she bought the Sky Bar candy business and installed it adjacent to the retail store.
Mawhinney did not start out in the retail business. She is from Edinburgh, Scotland, and her husband’s career with Raytheon brought them to Sudbury in 1985, where they raised their two children. Her son Frank is now manager of Duck Soup and operations manager for Sky Bar, making most of the major decisions, she said.
Professionally, Mawhinney served as chief financial officer for several biotech startup companies.
“But I was thinking of retiring from what I was doing,” she recalled, when Richard Ressler and Jim Barisano the owners of Duck Soup, which got its start in 1971, decided to close the store in 2014. Mawhinney knew them, loved the store, and decided she wanted it to stay in Sudbury. So she bought it.
“My experience developing business models of small companies was transferrable, and I had Frank with his retail experience and the help of wonderful sales representatives, to keep the business going.” They rebuilt the depleted inventory and, in 2015, obtained a full liquor license to add a carefully-curated selection of liquor.
With that license, Frank brought in a selection of single-malt whiskies, and a tasting this past September was “incredibly successful,” she said. Another tasting of single-malts and other Scotch whisky is scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 24.
In the next year, Mawhinney expanded the baking facilities and the section of the store devoted to cooking classes, doubling the number of classes offered and increasing the inventory of baked goods.
The cooking classes have become popular, and about 80% of them are for kids, she noted, including summer camp and vacation week events and birthday parties. Adult classes, including British afternoon tea, cannoli and pasta-making, are popular for birthdays and team-building. “These are hands-on classes, not demonstrations,” Mawhinney stressed. “You learn to make everything yourself and then enjoy it.”
In 2018, Mawhinney took another major step, a “spur-of-the-moment” bid for the Sky Bar candy brand, a New England staple since 1938, being sold by NECCO as that company dissolved. The Sky Bar Candy Co. went into a space next to Duck Soup, and visitors to the store can look through large windows to see the candy bars being made.
They had to buy a new, custom-made, machine to make the bars. “We have three people who can run that machine, and every Sky Bar is made by one of those people. We make Sky Bars every day; it’s probably the freshest candy bar on the market. NECCO made them once every six months.” The 3,000 bars are made at 11 a.m. and wrapped at 3 p.m. They began selling Sky Bars wholesale in January 2020.
Meanwhile, Mawhinney has continued to add hard-to-find product lines to Duck Soup’s offerings.
A frustrated caller had purchased a perfume at the airport in Scotland that she loved, and she couldn’t find it anywhere. The Scottish Cultural Council, which Mawhinney has worked with, put the perfume company’s chief executive in touch with Duck Soup, and the store now carries the entire line of Arran Aromatics bath and body products from Scotland. The customer ordered her perfume from Duck Soup.
In another Scottish connection, Frank bought in Dean’s shortbread, which sold out quickly, and it’s become a staple at Duck Soup, even though the store has to juggle tariffs and import duties. “We got a phone call from a woman in Chicago who said she had called Dean’s in Scotland and been referred to Duck Soup. I sent her a picture of the products we carry and she was thrilled,” Mawhinney said.
A trip to Kansas City led to adding Jack Stack barbecue meats to the store’s freezer case. “Customers who used to live in the Midwest come in and say ‘I remember this’.”
Duck Soup has avoided much of the online shopping trend, though it does sell its top-selling coffee blend and the South African line of Kiff snacks and granola online. Mawhinney explained that the store’s assortment varies frequently and has only a limited number of items in stock, making it untenable to fill online orders. The store has shifted more to food products and gadgets because it could not compete with online retailers on small appliances.
She wants people to come into the store. “More than ever in retail, people look for a unique experience. I love it when people tell me they couldn’t find an item we sell online.” She also enjoys the customers who tell her they have shopped at, and even worked in, the store as far back as the 1970s and ‘80s.
Duck Soup has lately taken steps to fill two retail voids in Sudbury. When the Paper Store on Route 20 closed, Duck Soup added a small version of a Hallmark store so customers can find greeting cards and gift wrap. And with the closing of the town’s two toy stores, Mawhinney has brought in an assortment of traditional toys, games and puzzles, “nothing electronic!”
She has no plans for a second Duck Soup location, though they do operate the gift shop at the Wayside Inn on the side. “We have unmitigated fun in this store every day.”