Areej Rabie, freshman, Julia Cecere, sophomore, and Mandy Strader, sophomore, are co-owners of the shop, but this multi-colored, sugar-filled, lively shop isn’t just any classroom project. Rabie came up with the business proposal herself in response to a call for entries made by the Center for Entrepreneurship.

VIDEO: Buzzy’s Candy Store Opens by Cassidy Hodges

This & That, a “dorm store” which replaced a music store called ReverbMedia, occupied the space on the corner of Belmont and Bernard Avenue since the storefronts were carved out of the Curb Event Center. When business began to suffer, despite attempts to reinvent the original store, students were given the opportunity to submit their plans to the Center of Entrepreneurship.

Rabie, having become bored with her classes, figured a candy store would be a good idea. She said it’s a great market for a candy store and candy makes people happy. She spent several months researching and preparing both her business proposal and the interviews that would follow. Out of all the inquiries, which included a socially conscious clothing store and a video production storefront office, her’s was chosen. Cecere and Strader were later introduced to her and they decided to partner after that.

Now the three sit as the polka dot and striped apron clad managers and owners of Buzzy’s Candy Store. An outsider might guess that they’ve had too much candy, but they’re likely just excited about the positive feedback the store is already receiving on its first day in business.

According to Cecere, people were showing up before they were open and there has been a constant influx of customers since then.

There were so many customers that Dr. Jeff Cornwall, Chair of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Belmont–who created and oversees much of the entrepreneurship program–had to run to the bank to get more change.

“She was able to look at the potential demand and the cost of running the store and she presented a set of very confident financial projections that made us feel confident that the business would have a good chance of doing well,” said Cornwall.

But these ladies don’t want Buzzy’s to just be a candy shop. They want to reach out to the community with it. Five percent of all profits made this weekend will be going to Haiti and in the future they hope to have events for children as well.

Already on the first day, children were there with their parents. Cecere and Rabie said one of the best moments was seeing the middle school kids run off the bus to see what was inside. Both young and old alike had something offered to them.

Buzzy’s offers 48 unwrapped bulk chocolates and gummies. 19 wrapped candies, lollipops and a growing number of different flavored jelly-beans. On top of this they have novelty candies like dirt cups and Baby Bottle Pops and nostalgic sweets like Malo-Cups, Clark Bars and Sugar Babies.

“We have sour, sweet, everything you can think of,” said Cecere.

And within the month they plan on adding around 25 more bulk candies and as Rabie reiterated, more jelly beans.

“We hope that every Belmont student enters our store,” said Rabie.

Buzzy’s Candy Store’s hours are from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays.

The three student-run business spaces were carved out of the Curb Event Center while it was being built. When the arena was finished in 2003, the spaces were turned over to the entrepreneurship program and Dr. Jeff Cornwall, a then recent faculty hire and the current director of Belmont’s Center for Entrepreneurship.

For the Center for Entrepreneurship, the student-run business program is an opportunity for students to participate in experiential education, learning about running a business by running a business. However, Cornwall explained that the stores aren’t simply free rein learning spaces.

“[The businesses] need to have a certain viability, they need to sustain themselves financially over time,” he said. “We’re not plowing lots of cash into there each year to give them a place to learn. They have to become a business over time.”

After over five years in business, the store formerly known as ReverbMedia is being shuttered in favor of a new student business for that very reason.  The store has gone through three different incarnations—first as a used CD store, then as a new and used record store and finally as a “dorm store,” designed to sell comforts that weren’t offered by the bookstore. Despite repeated revamps, the store never found an audience.

“Having the support of the students is important, if the students don’t like it, then you’re not going to be successful,” said Lexi Nash, manager for ReverbMedia from 2007 until 2008.

Nash also believed the image was complicated when the store was renamed to This & That, even though the sign was never changed.

“To get the change of a sign, you have to have it approved by Belmont, by people high up by Belmont, by the city,” she said. “In addition signs are very expensive and each year our budget was cut in half.”

The same issue afflicts all of the student businesses: their seed money and budgets are dependent on the budget of the entrepreneurial program. If the program’s budget is cut, then cuts are also made to the stores. A profitable shop like designer clothing boutique Feedback Clothing Co., the only store in the block that has done well financially, is able to offset the smaller budget with profits made from marked up prices.

That option wasn’t always available to ReverbMedia when it was selling records.

“I can’t compete with Grimey’s,” Nash said. “With major label stuff like Carrie Underwood it was $14 just to buy the CD.”

Another problem for running the stores is that they can only hire students on work-study. Otherwise, the employees’ salaries would have to come out of the store’s budget and would cripple the shop’s finances. At ReverbMedia, the work-study requirement was problematic because of its unreliability. A fully staffed store one semester may be empty the next due to graduation, change in financial need and outright loss of work-study eligibility.

Despite the troubles she had in running ReverbMedia, Nash is grateful for the opportunity and makes it clear that the Center for Entrepreneurship does afford certain advantages to running a business.

“I think they make it easier on you financially because they give you that money to start up but also because you’re a student and you’re taking classes full time,” she said. “You have the support of the entrepreneurship program, they’re always there to help you and guide you. You don’t get as much slack for messing up.”

Nash also remains optimistic about the future of the space, again emphasizing that success depends entirely on the students. At least three students have submitted business proposals to take over the space and entice students into visiting a new shop, including Jake Jorgovan, the founder of Rabbit Hole Recordings, a video production company focusing on capturing live events.

“Essentially the space would serve as a central office space for all accounting, bookkeeping and producing, as well as it would serve as a central location for Editing Suites and all of our camera equipment,” according to Jorgovan. Although Rabbit Hole isn’t a traditional retail business, Jorgovan believes that offering a service may provide more opportunities for students and businesses on campus.

An announcement on who will occupy the space in Spring 2010 has not been prepared, but a decision should be made by the end of the semester.

This & That will remain on the corner of Belmont Boulevard and Compton Road for the rest of the semester, stuck as a “lame duck” business until 2010, when the new store will open. Whether or not it will succeed is entirely up in the air.