The Clark Bar is the most famous candy bar originating from Pittsburgh's North Side created in 1917 by Irish immigrant David L. Clark.  It originally sold for five cents and became an extremely popular treat with U.S. soldiers during and after both WWI and WWII.

The Clark Bar became the first successful "combination" candy bar with a crispy, peanut butter-filled chewy taffy-like consistency, coated in milk chocolate.  From 1911 until 1983 the candy bar was produced at a manufacturing facility on Martindale Street. 

The slogan for the Clark bar was, "I want a Clark bar". Though you may have wanted a Clark bar, often times you weren't able to get the confection.  When the manufacturing of the Clark bar left the Pittsburgh area, the only reminder of the city's candy-producing past was the Clark bar sign atop its former production facility.  It has changed ownership several times with production being taken over by the Boyer Candy Company in Altoona, PA after a 2018 discontinuation bringing it back to its Pennsylvania roots.

They say that necessity is the mother of invention and the story of Boyer Candy is a great example.  During the Great Depression, brothers Bill and Bob Boyer needed a way to make more money to support their family so they decided making candy was the way to do it!  It was a family affair from the start, with Bill making fudge and nut raisin clusters in their mother Emily's kitchen.  Mother and sister (also named Emily) would wrap the finished product and Bob would sell their delicious treats door-to-door in their Altoona, Pennsylvania neighborhood. The candy was an immediate success!

As the demand for their candy grew, the Boyer brothers would often try making innovative varieties of candy to sell.  One of those experiments included covering marshmallow with chocolate.  However, they kept finding that the marshmallow remained too soft.  Emily, their sister, offered a solution:  Why not try using cupcake paper to hold everything in place?  Emily's idea worked perfectly and it was on that day the Mallo Cup became the world's first cup candy!

By 1936, their kitchen had grown too small for their Mallo-Cup-making operation and they moved it to a candy-making facility.

Boyer Candy Company Inc. is an historic candy company located in Altoona, PA famous for its Mallo Cup.  It operates an outlet store next to the factory where customers can buy a wide variety of its products including bags of "seconds" at a discount and the Mallow Cup with the iconic cardboard coins still part of the packaging. The cardboard coins is a nostalgic tradition where coins from the packaging can still be saved and redeemed for candy or merchandise.  

The outlet offers a chance to learn about the company's history through videos though factory tours are no longer available.  

The signature chocolate-covered marshmallow creme cup is also available in dark chocolate.  The outlet store offers samples, often a free Mallow Cup.  

Boyer Candy Company

821 17th Street

Altoona, Pennsylvania

"Momma" Boyer, identified as Emily Boyer, was the mother of Bill and Bob Boyer, the founders of the Boyer Candy Company in Altoona, Pennsylvania.  During the great Depression, she assisted her sons by hand-wrapping the homemade candy produced in her kitchen and notably suggested using cupcake papers to form the company's famous Mallo Cup.  This occurred when the brothers struggled to keep marshmallow centers in their chocolate candy from flattening.  Emily Boyer suggested using paper cupcake cups to hold the shape, creating the firsts cup candy in America.  By 1936, the business outgrew her home kitchen, leading to the establishment of their first factory in Altoona.