Photos by Michelle Gillan Larkin
Candies, cookies, chips, and drinks from around the world fly off the shelves at this global snack shop in Westchester County.
Sometimes, there’s nothing sweeter than discovering a new candy or soda when visiting a foreign city; and it can be a real bummer to bid it adieu, never to be tasted again, when heading back home. That’s exactly how travel junkie, food lover, and lifelong White Plains resident Philip Quiroz always felt, and he decided to do something about it. “I said to myself, ‘I have to figure out a way to get all these snacks back to the U.S.’” His solution: Ship his favorites home and sell them to friends and relations out of his trunk. He did so well, he knew a brick and mortar was in order.
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Enter 914 Exotics, a veritable sweet (and salty) spot of international cookies, candy, chips, and beverages, that opened this past weekend in downtown White Plains. “I wanted to bring something different and unique to Westchester,” he says.
Along with his three business partners and longtime friends, Quiroz hatched his business plan late last summer, with the opening of sister company, Hudson Valley Exotics, in downtown Poughkeepsie, and then another store in the Poughkeepsie Galleria earlier this year. “Our brand stands for innovation, creativity, and diversity.”
It is evident in the rows of Lays and Pringles (from Korea) flavored with exotic and downright wild spices and seasonings like salted egg, cucumber, scallop butter garlic, caramel, and spaghetti with meat sauce.
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Oreos, as cookies or wafer sticks (what??), come from China in intriguing flavors like matcha, cookies and cream (which pretty much translates to an Oreo inside an Oreo), or red velvet with cream cheese; and some are enrobed in milk or white chocolate.
Candy is from all over, with Hershey’s from Korea, Cadbury chocolate from Britain, and wacky Skittle flavors that hail from Russia; there are even sugar cookies with Skittles embedded in them (mic drop).
Interestingly, some of the drinks are made in the U.S., but the catch is they’re only sold in the Midwest or on the West Coast — until now. Though the bubblegum-flavored Fanta from Egypt is a must-sip.
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Quiroz, 30 years old with a degree in International Business from Mercy College, hopes this is just the first of several stores of its kind nationwide. In the meantime, if White Plains is not on your itinerary, call Uber Eats and satisfy your international snack attack without ever leaving the house. Passports not required.
914 Exotics
152 E Post Rd
White Plains
