Hudson fragrance business expands to Ithaca's West Green Street

After years of vacationing together in Ithaca to bridge the gap between New York City and Canada, and the success of their Hudson storefront opened in 2020, life and business partners Ricky Tiscareno and Dennis Green opened Poured Candle Bar in Ithaca earlier this month.

The home decor shop and candle bar at the end of Ithaca’s Press Bay Alley has since filled the air with the scents of rosemary, leather and sandalwood, among over 50 scents custom-made by the business for patrons to mix and match to their liking.

The place certainly has spirit, once housing the live music venue “The Haunt” from 1969 to sometime in the mid 1990’s, with the “phantom” marks left by a small stage still tinting a section of the building’s floor.

Candle bar

If you’re not sure what a candle bar is, Tiscareno describes it as an “entirely olfactory experience.” A group of customers sat at the bar behind him Friday, filling the room with clinking glasses and sniffs, followed by “oh I like that,” or “maybe that one’s not for me.”

Tiscareno said that he and Green hope to help find anyone who’s fed up with traditional cheap candles their perfect scent, whether you like spices, or even musky leather, one of Tiscareno’s personal favorites.

“We produce all of our own product, so we can really control inventory," Tiscareno said. "Everything’s made in small batches, we don’t have like this huge factory where products sit on shelves for a long time.”

Poured Candle Bar employs two to four candlemakers at any given time, who handmake candles to your order, based on a scent appointment or your selection online.

If custom candles don’t do it for you, maybe a drink will? Poured Candle Bar hosts custom candle-making sessions by appointment. Making candles takes time, so they’ve got a selection of wine, artful décor and staff willing to answer any questions you might have about a scent after taking a sniff.

All of the candle bars products, including soy wax candles, reed diffusers, and body fragrances area available in its Ithaca or Hudson storefronts and online at pouredcandlebar.com .

Why Ithaca?

Green and Tiscareno opened Poured’s Hudson Valley location amid the coronavirus pandemic in September 2020, delaying plans to expand the business until this year.

“Ithaca’s been on our radar as a location we’ve been thinking about exploring well before we even opened Hudson,” Tiscareno said. “We loved coming up here when we lived in New York City for a long time. He’s Canadian and his family is about three hours north of here, so it was a good meeting spot.”

After taking a tour of some locations available in Ithaca’s downtown with the help of the Downtown Ithaca Alliance , and not quite finding their perfect place, they were connected with local developer John Guttridge of Urban Core LLC.

“He came in, showed us the space, and it was the first space that Dennis and I thought, ‘this makes sense,’” Tiscareno said. “He explained the history and the tall ceilings, there’s some drama here, and that it just needed a touch-up, a paint job … and then our style, taking it from the cool artsy hair salon that it was to a sophisticated bar.”

Tiscareno said that Guttridge’s team helped the couple immensely to solidify the design and idea behind the space and throughout its remodeling.

“As we built up Hudson and learned what to expect there, and started looking to expand to a new location, it became a lot about distance,” he said. “[The new storefront] had to be far enough away that it didn’t cannibalize our business in Hudson, but also close enough for us to hitch and run. It’s about a three-and-a-half-hour drive, but we’re staffed now, and in the next month or two we’ll be splitting our time more between the two locations.”

Other storefronts in Press Bay Alley and Court include soon-to-open West African restaurant Asempe Kitchen (which Tiscareno said he can’t wait to visit) and a host of other restaurants and retail storefronts.

“We chose this space because of the size, because of the community, and because of the customer base. We’re also hoping to help out other businesses.”

This article originally appeared on Ithaca Journal: Hudson fragrance business expands to Ithaca's West Green Street