Lolly shop purveyor Glenn William Bourke at Packing House Sweets in Tyabb reminds us why we love sweets. He doesn’t just stock products, he curates confections and creates gorgeous displays that delight the senses. This is no run-of-the-mill sweet shop. Glenn searches the world over to find the most mouth-watering treats. His criteria is simple: quality, purity and value. He doesn’t stock anything with GMOs or toxic ingredients, just good clean sweets in an ever-evolving variety.
Glenn’s own sweet spot is gummy snakes. “I love the smell when opening a fresh bag of snakes. It reminds me of walking into the milk bar to buy lollies when I was little,” he says. He loves the history of classic sweets like bananas, teeth and milk bottles. They elicit memories of the old-fashioned milk bar.
He wants to create that childhood fantasyland of the old-fashioned milk bar or lolly shop experience with jars of colourful sweets and a friendly face behind the counter. One of his favourite things, beyond flavour, is beautiful packaging. He loves the artistry of European lolly shops with sweets in beautiful tins. He has plenty of those in his shop.
Glenn never expected to own a lolly shop, but the most consistent thread in his life is his capacity for reinvention. When he was young, Glenn wanted to be an artist. He was always drawing and painting and had a keen interest in art history. During Years 11 and 12 he also went to night school at TAFE to study curation and arts. For university Glenn was diverted to a horticulture scholarship and dutifully completed a four-year degree at Albury/Wodonga Horticultural College.
It was is the food industry where Glenn got his first job at Simply French in Toorak Road. He then became personal assistant and shop manager at Phillipa’s in Armadale where he created marvellous visual merchandising among other duties. It was voted Melbourne’s Best Bakery. He moved on to Spoonful in Prahran which rocketed to success with its daily rotation of fabulous food. Meanwhile, he was still doing professional gardening.
Then Glenn took a break from his busy work schedule in Melbourne to travel in Europe. He went to London first and then to Paris to study at the Le Cordon Bleu Cooking School. He wanted to move from front of house to behind the scenes, but that didn’t last. Back in Melbourne, he took over Spoonful again to revamp its look by redoing the interiors. Then they opened their provedore shop and cafe, Teaspoon, next door.
He escaped to London once again for a bit of fun which he has been doing for about ten years. When he returned, he created a take-out food department in a boutique supermarket in Port Melbourne. It was the first time Glenn had created his own food. Like all of his other ventures, it was very successful. After that, he started to renovate properties with his late partner and they were brilliant at it.
His next venture was opening Oxford Larder in Collingwood which led to him being featured on the front page of Epicure magazine followed by an article in Vogue. He was also writing recipes for Broadsheet. This wildly successful business was bustling with an a la carte menu, take-out food plus cake and coffee on Sundays.
After this venture, he and his partner left Melbourne for Daylesford. They renovated a beautiful old home and lived there. Glenn found peace and satisfaction in creating a magical garden on the property. Sadly, his partner died just before COVID so he moved back to Melbourne.
While renovating another property, Glenn ran into an old friend who ran an art gallery in Fitzroy. With his education in curation, they were able to showcase hundreds of artists creating fabulous success for the gallery. Even with all of this going on, he was still working in Daylesford running events, styling weddings and arranging flowers at Poet’s Lodge for several years. The gallery closed post COVID. He pivoted to something totally different.
In life, you should never be stagnant. If there’s an open door and it’s interesting, you should go through it
When he met his new partner, Neil, who has had an antiques shop in the Tyabb Packing House for ten years, they opened an antique décor business together called cox and furnell. Glenn found himself painting once again; this time it was furniture. Then the lolly shop owner at the Packing House wanted to sell. Glenn bought the business and totally reinvented the space, basing his design on memories of the old-fashioned lolly shop.
With his passion for food and experience in customer service, Glenn knew what’s important to people: good quality, good value and good memories. He fondly remembers visiting his Grandma who would bring out biscuits in beautiful tins so he stocks lots of beautiful sweets in tins, such as chocolates from Germany, Belgium and Spain, biscuits from England and fudge from Scotland.
“In life, you should never be stagnant. If there’s an open door and it’s interesting, you should go through it. Do it with every part of your being,” he says. That’s exactly what Glenn has done time and again. Now, he loves to educate visitors about good quality lollies and where they come from. You can practically taste his passion. Sweet success.
