Some things in a town become so woven into daily life that you stop thinking of them as a business. They become a ritual. A reason to stop in. A small gold box that appears every Christmas under a tree or in a teacher's arms on the last day before break.
Morgan Price Candy Company in Decatur is one of those places. It has been making people stop and close their eyes over a piece of English toffee for nearly four decades, and the fact that it is still here, still handmade, still run by people who genuinely love it, is its own kind of story.
On a recent episode of Unexpected Adventures in North Alabama, I sat down with Lee Anne Smith, the new owner of Morgan Price, to talk about carrying on a legacy that started in a church kitchen and has shipped toffee all the way to Japan. I will confess upfront: I am not an impartial interviewer here. I have been a devoted fan of that toffee for the better part of fifteen years. But Lee Anne is the kind of person who makes you feel like the candy is almost secondary to the community around it. Almost.
Started in a Church Kitchen
Morgan Price Candy Company was founded by two sisters, Mary Morgan and Margaret Price. In the early days, they did not have a commercial kitchen. They cooked where they could, which often meant church kitchens, wherever there was space and a willing stove. They would make the candy, then sell it however they could manage.
Around 1987, they got their first storefront on 11th Street in Decatur. In 2010, the second owner, Nancy Curl, moved the shop to its current location on 6th Avenue. The recipes, though, have never moved. The English toffee, the peanut brittle, and the creamy pralines are all still made from the original formula developed by the sisters' father. Simple ingredients. The kind of recipe that makes you wonder how something so straightforward could be so impossible to stop eating.
Lee Anne has a theory about that. She said it herself with the kind of wonder that only comes from someone who has watched hundreds of people try the toffee for the first time: it amazes me, she said, the simplicity of the ingredients, and that they are so good.
Annie Powell and Thirty-Seven Years of Toffee
Here is the detail from this conversation that I have not stopped thinking about since we recorded it. Annie Powell has been making the toffee at Morgan Price since the very beginning. She started with Mary Morgan and Margaret Price when they first opened. That is more than thirty-seven years of toffee, peanut brittle, and pralines from the same hands.
Annie is a great-grandmother now. She is just about five feet tall, Lee Anne told me, and she can make toffee blindfolded. During the Christmas season, she works day and night, and some of her family members come in to help alongside her. She makes the original milk chocolate toffee, the macadamia toffee with white chocolate and macadamia nuts, the dark chocolate toffee, and the sugar-free toffee. All of it. Every batch.
There is something worth sitting with in that. While owners have changed and the address has shifted and decades have come and gone, the same person has been at the stove. The toffee you buy today is, in a very real sense, the same toffee as the one sold on 11th Street in 1987. That kind of continuity is rare, and it is worth knowing when
you pick up that bag.
The Toffee Is Just the Beginning
Everyone who knows Morgan Price knows the toffee. Lee Anne described it simply as addictive, which tracks with every experience I have ever had with it. One piece is a decision you will not regret. The second piece happens before you finish thinking about it.
But the shop has a lot more going on. The peanut brittle and the creamy pralines are the original trio alongside the toffee, and they have their own loyal following. Beyond those, the shop makes turtles, soft caramels, chocolate covered cherries, angel bites, and heavenly bits. The angel bites are milk chocolate with almonds and caramel. The heavenly bits are milk chocolate with marshmallows and pecans. Lee Anne mentioned them as things people pass by on the way to the toffee and really should not. There is also the dark chocolate, which Lee Anne made a point of championing. It is not bitter, she said, and people who have never liked dark chocolate come in skeptical and leave converted. Given the health benefits, I am prepared to consider the dark chocolate covered dehydrated fruit that Morgan Price is currently developing to be practically a health food. That is my position and I am standing by it.
Chocolate covered strawberries appear during Valentine's season. Sugar-free options are available across several varieties, including a sugar-free toffee, and Lee Anne said the feedback from customers has been genuinely good. The showroom is open to the kitchen, so you can watch the candy being made while you browse. People will stand there and just watch, she told me. It is mesmerizing. I believe it.
A Gift Shop Worth Slowing Down In
Morgan Price has evolved into more than a candy counter. The shop carries Milliman and Beatrice Ball pieces, metal dishes, mugs, marble pieces, candle holders, lacquered trays, and tea towels that Lee Anne said people love. The idea is that you can walk in needing a hostess gift, a housewarming present, or a wedding gift, pick out a beautiful dish or tray, have them fill it with whatever candies you want, and walk out with something wrapped and ready without doing a single bit of work yourself.
They keep a ready-made basket box on the floor with five of their most popular candies, as well as a pocket basket and pre-assembled boxes at different price points that are popular for Christmas giving. Corporations and businesses order in volume during the holidays. The shipping operation during December is, as Lee Anne described it, unreal. Japan. Maryland. Everywhere.
I will say, I may have confessed on air that I once received a Morgan Price box at work and hid it in my office and told my colleagues the box was smaller than expected. I have no regrets about that and I would do it again.
From the Preschool Classroom to the Candy Counter
Lee Anne Smith spent twenty years as a preschool teacher before she ever thought of herself as a business owner. She and Nancy Curl, the previous owner, had known each other through church for years when Nancy called her in October of 2011 and asked if she wanted to work the Christmas season. She said yes. She never left. She worked seasonally, then full-time, learning every part of the operation. When Nancy was ready to sell, Lee Anne was the natural choice, and the offer was, as she put it, a really good one. She was honest about the surprise of it. I never thought I would be a
business owner, she said. But sometimes things just fall into place.
The preschool background turns out to be relevant in unexpected ways. Former students, now grown, come in with their own children. Some of them worked at Morgan Price during college breaks, coming home for the holidays and stepping right in. Lee Anne still knows most of them by name and by the two-year-old version of who they were. Some of them remember her. Some of them definitely do not. She does not mind either way.
The Unexpected Moment
When I asked Lee Anne what has surprised her most in this journey, she did not hesitate for long. It was the support, she said. And I know that can sound like a standard answer, but she meant something specific by it. She meant the stories. People coming in to tell her they have been eating this candy for thirty years. Customers who first tasted Morgan Price toffee as children, now bringing their own children in, now starting to see their grandchildren's eyes go wide at the candy counter. She talked about watching the students from her preschool days bring their kids in, and thinking about how those kids might someday bring their kids in too.
We have so many traditions that families carry here, she said. Memories. People who always get this at Christmas, or always get this for their mother on Mother's Day. And I hope when these younger people come in, they start new family traditions with us. That hope, from a woman who came in for one Christmas season fifteen years ago and
never left, is what Morgan Price Candy Company actually is. It is not just a candy shop. It is a place where Decatur has been keeping its sweetest memories for almost forty years.
Plan Your Visit
Morgan Price Candy Company is located on 6th Avenue in downtown Decatur, Alabama. The shop welcomes walk-ins, tour groups, and church groups who want to watch the candy being made. Orders can be placed by phone or email, and the team is happy to answer any questions. A new website is currently in development, but in the meantime you can follow along on Facebook for updates on new products and seasonal offerings. If you are not sure where to start, Lee Anne's suggestion is simple: try the toffee first. Everything else will follow.
Listen to the Full Conversation
There is much more from my conversation with Lee Anne, including the Facebook question about what Morgan Price's mascot would be, a peek into the experimental candy ideas that did not quite take off, and Lee Anne's thoughts on what it means to be a small business in a community that has shown up for you for decades. To hear the full episode, tune in to Unexpected Adventures in North Alabama on your favorite podcast platform and search for the episode featuring Lee Anne Smith of Morgan Price Candy Company.
All links are in the show notes. And yes, you are going to want to order a bag. Go ahead. You will not share it, and that is okay.
