Hays ? It doesn’t take long after entering The Mall to know candied nuts are roasting nearby. The aroma of warm cinnamon and vanilla greets customers soon after stepping through the double doors.

“That’s my very best advertisement is that smell,” said Jean Isaacson, who runs the Nut Place along with her husband, Tom. “And if I can’t get them with the smell, I give everybody a sample as they’re going by, too. So if I can’t get them with the smell, surely the taste will get them.”

The Salina couple has spent the Christmas season in Hays for the past 14 years, offering up the sweet holiday treat. Besides cinnamon roasted almonds, pecans, cashews and peanuts, this year’s menu also includes homemade fudge. Gift baskets also are a top-seller, she said.

The small booth, conveniently located behind a large Christmas tree and in front of J.C. Penney, has become a regular stop for many mall patrons, she said.

“After this many years, you get to know a lot of people,” Isaacson said. “And we have a lot of fun.”

The booth opened Nov. 4 and will close Christmas Eve. It is open during regular mall business hours.

The treats are prepared using a special roasting machine manufactured in Germany. The nuts are roasted in a blend of cinnamon, sugar and vanilla, a process that takes about 15 minutes, Jean Isaacson said.

After retirement, the couple found themselves looking for a part-time occupation that would enable them to travel. Jean Isaacson’s sister had begun selling roasted nuts and encouraged them to look into it.

“We started doing this basically so we could travel wherever we wanted to go, and it paid for it without using all of our retirement money,” she said. “I’d never been to California, so we booked shows in California.”

More recently, the couple has chosen to stay closer to home, limiting business to Kansas and the surrounding states.

“We used to do 17 different states,” Tom Isaacson said. “Until the gas got so high.”

While the nuts are high-volume sellers during the holiday season, the couple has learned the product does not generate many sales during summer. Thus, they have expanded their business to include a warm-weather alternative — homemade root beer. The traditional soda has been sold at several Kansas festivals and summer events.

But for now, the Isaacsons are enjoying the best-selling holiday season they can remember.

“We have just done better this year than ever before,” Jean Isaacson said. “We always do well in Hays. That’s why we always come back. But this year, it’s been even better yet.”

She then paused to ring up a sale.

“Would you like a bag, or are you going to eat them?” Tom Isaacson asked.

“No. I’m going to eat them,” Hays resident Tom Schenk replied.