What the hell is in Ellettsville?

"What do you do for fun here, anyway?”

I asked this question to my friend Chuck as we were driving through the fast-paced metropolis known as Ellettsville.

My mission was simple: go to Ellettsville, a town about eight miles outside Bloomington and find out what the heck was there. Fall is a great time of year to explore in southern Indiana, so I set out for the small town to find a world outside Bloomington.

Chuck Corbin, an IU junior who grew up in Ellettsville, agreed to be my guide. As we drove down the main street that cuts through the center of the town, I found myself looking left and right for anything remotely exciting.

“I guess that’s what we’re going to find out,” he replied to my question as we pulled up to our first stop.

Wee Willy’s restaurant, located at 4618 W. Richland Plaza, is right outside Ellettsville. We pulled into the drive-thru and ordered one thing: a giant-sized cup of root beer.

“Here,” Chuck said as he handed me the cup. “The best root beer around.”

I felt like a little girl holding the huge cup that seemed too big for my hands.
Fueled by sugar, we set out to discover what else this little town had to offer. Our next stop was Eagle’s Landing Mall.

“I actually went to elementary school here. All of the old classrooms are stores now,” Chuck said.

Once Ellettsville Elementary School, Eagle’s Landing is now a shopping center that has everything from antiques to a skate shop.

Walking into Eagle’s Landing was like taking a step into the past: The architecture and design flooded me with memories of my own elementary school. As Chuck and I began to explore, we first looked into a used bookstore called “Forgotten Treasures.”
Housed inside a former second-grade classroom complete with pastel blue walls and a teddy-bear border, the store was bursting with books, videos, DVDs and CDs, all of them only $2. Store owner George Morrison sells used books on philosophy, psychiatry, books in different languages and even old comic books.

“I have a little bit of everything,” he said.

However, as I looked around the store, what caught my eye was the Youth Fiction section. I nearly ran to the shelf as I began to recognize some of the bindings.

The books that our generation read as youngsters were all there: Animorphs, The Phantom Tollbooth, R.L. Stine, even The Tripod Series. The shelves seemed to stretch on and on with childhood favorites. Flipping through their pages was like being reunited with old friends that I had not seen in years, and as we left the store I could not help but smile as I remembered a time when colored pencils and Power Rangers folders were my school supplies.

A tantalizing smell drew us into the shop next door, “Mandy’s Candys and the Flying Toast Cafe.” The walls of the shop were lined with candy of all varieties: common favorites like Reese’s and M&M’s, some retro favorites like Big League Chew Bubble Gum and quite a few types of candy that I didn’t recognize.

Mandy Weiss, the store owner, told us what makes her shop different from larger candy stores in Bloomington.

“We carry classic candies, unusual candies, stuff from Europe, international candies and regional favorites.” she said. “If people request a candy, an old favorite, and we don’t have it, we’ll try and find it for them.”

Even if the candy is no longer in production, Mandy’s Candys will search for a replacement candy with very similar or identical ingredients.

The Flying Toast Cafe side of the store offers baked pretzels, ice cream, corn dogs and breakfast and lunch options. 

“We’re all about seeing what the customer wants and giving them what they need.”
Mandy’s Candys and the Flying Toast Cafe offers all the feel of a small-town candy shop from years gone by.

As we left Ellettsville and headed back to Bloomington, I thought back on the Chuck and I had experienced. Ellettsville may not be as exciting and as fast-paced as Bloomington, but that is what makes it so enjoyable.

It offers the opportunity to get away from college life, the chance to take a step back from the stress of school and work.