About Hayes Street Candle Company

When I was a child, I both loved and hated growing up in a small Midwest town. While I grew up in Minnesota, my son lives in a quiet cul-de-sac in the Pacific Northwest, 1800 miles from my childhood home. There aren’t any kids his age on our street, he’s not interested in biking to the store for treats, there is no local lake to swim in, and it doesn’t get cold enough for an outdoor ice rink. But what does he have that I didn’t? Sushi. Sushi on conveyor belts, sushi in fancy restaurants, sushi on a mock bullet train, sushi in grocery stores, sushi we make in our kitchen. Each of our experiences is delightful in its own way: Sometimes lovely, sometimes disappointing, most times unexciting. How does this connect to Hayes Street Candle Company? With the candles themselves, it doesn’t. Hayes Street, though, is the name of the street I grew up on. It’s all the nostalgia and privilege of growing up in the same house for the first 18 years of my life (and again for 8 months when I dropped out of college). Hayes Street is how I became me, how I got where I’m at, and where I’m going. It was formative. A huge part of me is a willingness to jump in and try something new, to learn a new hobby, to turn it into a business, to create an opportunity for me to do better for myself and my family. Throw in a dash of suspected ADHD, and you’ve got Hayes Street Candle Company. Welcome to my neighborhood. Read their story