Jelly Belly; more than beans

By Andrew Hardenbrook

The Jelly Belly factory has all your favorite flavors and no parents to hold you back. It boasts several attractions that are not available in local stores, making it worth the drive.

These include free tours that run every 10 minutes and take you above the factory floor. Even though after about 15 minutes the tour begins to drag, the wonderful sugar smell of the factory gives you incentive to keep going. One of the best parts of the tour is seeing the Jelly Belly Art Gallery. The gallery contains about a dozen large portraits made entirely of jellybeans.

Conveniently, and probably purposely, the tour starts and ends in the Jelly Belly store. The store is unique because it has many flavors that are brand new and hard to find. Honey Graham Cracker, Buttered Toast, and Chocolate Cherry Cake are just some of the latest and extremely delicious flavors that are offered in the store.

The store also has the hard to find Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. At about $5 a bag, it contains a wide variety of strange flavors. The most notable of which are Black Forest Cake, Pumpkin Pie, Grass, Black Pepper, Horseradish, Sardine, and Booger.

If you don't feel like shelling out for these flavors, you can always load up on the free samples or try the Belly Flops. Belly Flops are two-pound bags of reject jellybeans that are sold for only $5, or 3 bags for $10. Although the Belly Flops are a little strange looking, they are a lot cheaper and taste exactly the same as their nicely shaped brethren.

After the gift shop and tour, chances are you will need some real food. Good thing there is a Jelly Belly Café just across the way. This restaurant has a menu that suits its surroundings with both hamburgers and pizzas shaped like jellybeans.

So, for all you sugar fiends out there, the Jelly Belly factory is calling your name.$ ****

LOCATION

Jelly Belly Candy Co.

www.jellybelly.com

Solano Business Park

One Jelly Belly Lane

Fairfield CA

(650) 988-9323