Mundt’s
A lot of you folks who are too young to know, or who moved here from somewhere else, probably aren’t aware that a downtown institution is three quarters of a century old this year. Betty Mundt’s Candies opened for business under that name in 1933.
Walter Mundt started his candy store in Madison in 1917. By 1933 his son Richard and Richard’s wife, Betty, had bought out the elder Mundt. Betty said many years later that Richard insisted that the store be named after her — probably because he knew that her sunny, friendly personality would attract customers to the store.
My own personal memories of “Mundt’s”, which is all us old Madisonians ever called it, extend back to 1959, when I started high school. The former Madison High School was still downtown then, on Broadway where senior apartments are now, and at noon time, after school and in the evenings us kids flocked to Mundt’s for ice cream, soft drinks, “phosphates,” candy, and a number of concoctions we came up with ourselves that Richard and Betty were happy to make to our specifications. Oh, yes, and the warmth and camaraderie that come with a place where you always feel welcome.
The Mundts never had any employees during the time that I was a satisfied customer. They ran the store all by themselves, six days a week (closed on Wednesdays), 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. all days except Sunday, when if memory serves me correctly they opened at noon, after returning from church.
The Mundt method was a model of German efficiency. Their store was on the ground floor; their apartment was upstairs; and on the third flood, they made most of the candy they sold daily in the shop. One building, one set of utility bills each month, property taxes on just one lot. And they never acted like it was any kind of an imposition on them.
Betty and Richard operated the shop 12 hours a day without ever seeming rushed or harried. Betty went upstairs at lunchtime, prepared their meal, and ate while Richard waited on customers. Then Betty came back downstairs so Richard could go up and have his lunch. Same thing at supper time. For 12 hours each day, you could count on them being there. I don’t remember them ever being closed “because of bad weather,” or any of the other excuses some businesses use nowadays.
What was it like in Mundt’s? Well, imagine if your favorite aunt and uncle kept perpetual open house, and all the kids in town were welcome. Imagine if Aunt Betty collected school photos from all the kids starting in junior high, mounted them all in big frames, complete with names, grades in school and years, and hung them on the walls for everyone to see. And of course, if you go in Betty Mundt’s now, you can STILL see them, because the current owners, my friends Mary Anne and Tom Imes, have kept the photos right where they always were. Hundreds of young Madisonians (all of us much, much older now, and some, sadly, no longer with us) stare out in 1950s hairdos, braces, and zits. There are several photos of a Young Corporal there, if you want to look for them sometime.
Imagine if Uncle Richard was even-tempered with everyone, a big Dutch bear of a man who would chat with you as he prepared your order in his steady, unhurried way, and could always make you laugh with his dry humor, delivered deadpan but with a twinkle in his eye. How different he was from his gregarious, vivacious wife, who had a loud, infectious laugh that sounded regularly in the shop and who loved talking with everyone who came in.
Betty wasn’t a Madisonian. She was born in New Jersey, and had visited Madison as a young woman to see an older sister who already lived here. She and Richard met on that visit, and as they say, the rest is history. From the day they married, each was the other’s whole life. How many marriages do you hear about that are like that nowadays?
Besides the usual array of concoctions found in any confectionary: sundaes, sodas, phosphates (flavored syrup and seltzer water), and the like, the Mundts’ young customers came up with at least two original creations: one called “Pleba,” and the “Tropical Storm.” They were liquid-type treats, but sorry, after all these years I don’t remember what was in them. They were put together from scratch by the Mundts, with teenage customers telling them what to put in next, on two memorable nights in the shop. The “Pleba” was named using the first letters of the names of the boys who suggested the ingredients.
Funny how you remember little things. Richard was phlegmatic, slower of speech, but he had the hands of a master craftsman in making the sundaes, sodas, and other treats sold in the shop. Betty, who was much more outgoing, wasn’t quite as skilled when it came to creating the sweet desserts. I always hoped when I ordered a phosphate that Richard would make it instead of Betty; she put in one barely full squirt of the syrup and a tiny fraction of a second, while Richard’s big hand would push down hard on the plunger, giving you a man-sized full squirt and fully half of a second one. But I never, ever, told Betty or Richard that I had noticed that.
On the other hand, Betty played the ukelele. I never got to hear her perform, but I’m told that occasionally she brought it downstairs and treated customers to a song.
Mundt’s candy store closed in 1966 when increasingly serious back problems made it impossible for Richard to lift the heavy vats of molten candy that they made in their little third-floor factory. For years Richard and Betty had closed their store June, July and August of each year to journey to Florida and visit family members. They would put brown wrapping paper up over the front windows when they left. Then, when late in August each year, the paper was suddenly gone one morning, word would spread like wildfire through the kid telegraph: “Mundt’s is open!”
The Mundts’ retirement together lasted until Richard’s sudden death in 1978. Betty continued to live upstairs in their apartment for many years. In 1984, the city’s 175th anniversary, she opened the store again for one weekend — not to sell things, but just to greet hundreds of former Mundts’ customers who came back to talk to “Aunt Betty” one more time. I wrote a feature story about Betty for The Madison Courier that weekend, interviewing her and taking her picture. I had her pose as if she was drawing a soft drink for a customer — even though of course the Coke machine was long since removed. People told me it was the best photo of Betty they’d ever seen.
Betty’s nieces and nephews finally persuaded her to move back to New Jersey, where they could look after her. Her last few years were spent in a nursing home there. Betty’s mind was very cloudy by that time. They say she sat in her room, strumming her ukelele, in her last days, unaware of anything else. Perhaps somewhere in a far corner of her mind she was still thinking of Madison, and the young man she had met and fallen in love with there, and all the good friends she had made at Betty Mundt’s.
Old Corporal Mundt’s 75th anniversary’, – Saturday, October 11, 2008 at 20:25:43 (EDT)
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