The Clermont Exchange, located at 639 8th Street, houses multiple shops, all located under the same roof.
One Utopia: This wonderful stop serves all plant-based drinks and foods including delicious lattes, mushroom matcha, kava, coffees, blue majik, chicory, coconut and flavored waters. This is their first drink specialty location, while they do have two other successful locations in Winter Garden and Clermont. One Utopia is the creation of Tina Aldrich. Her business has grown and morphed into many different ways to a one stop holistic shop, now known as One Utopia. For more information, call 407-575-7616 and visit: www.OneUtopia.com.
Teamont of Clermont: Wow! Awesome! Juliana Green and her family have launched Teamont of Clermont to her true love and passion for boba teas. Always served cold in plentiful 16 and 24 ounce sizes, they also offer an assortment of milk teas, fruit tea mixers, slush drinks. They even offer purely vegan drinks, tiger milk tea and vanilla with a brown sugar swirl. Options include tapioca or popping boba pearls. The most popular flavors are guava, lychee, passion fruit, pineapple, coconut, raspberry, watermelon, kiwi, mango, peach, pomegranate, and strawberry. Call 352-801-3524 or visit: www.BobaTeaClermont.com.
Whistle Stop Bakery: Owned and lovingly baked by Shannon Leigh, Whistle Stop Bakery offers you freshly baked cookies, cakes, old fashioned whoopie pies, brownies, macaroons and a complete array of desserts. She uses local sources for her ingredients, using natural fruits and reduced or ‘old fashioned’ sugar baking techniques. She shares something fresh and new every week! For custom-made bakery orders or more information, call 352-553-9173 or visit: https://www.facebook.com/whistlestopbakery1/.
Sweet Cups Chef: Here you will find a dessert shop with an assortment of delicious refrigerated cheese cakes in a mason jar. Amy and Frank Anastasia of Clermont have opened this store to share some great desserts and treats with you. They offer blueberry bliss, chocolate hazelnut, just peachy and all fresh fruit cheese cakes. They also offer a perfectly plain cheesecake in a jar with a Keto Diet option. They started with Farmer’s Market booths here in the Clermont and Lake County area, before it progressed into a delivery and a storefront business. Call 772-766-4791 and visit: https://www.facebook.com/sweetcupschef/.
Carriage & Key Antiques: Walton Cobb opened his first antique shop with plenty of eclectic options from typewriters, lamps, old dishware, glassware, radios and sewing machines to some very unusual and unique antique items. Cobb scours the countryside searching far and wide for estate sales and opportunities to bring you collectibles from outside of the South Lake area. For more information, call 321-228-9855 or visit: https://www.facebook.com/carriageandkey/.
Sweet Finish Kettle Corn: One of our Downtown Clermont event favorites has been brought to this new storefront by Matt Aldi of Clermont. He offers a variety of wonderfully seasoned popcorns in 4 sweetened flavors throughout the year including garlic parmesan, cheddar, jalapeno and white cheddar. He also shares special holiday flavors like white chocolate pumpkin spice for Thanksgiving and white chocolate peppermint for the year-end holidays. Call 407-467-3098 and email: SweetFinish16@GMail.com or visit: https://www.facebook.com/Sweetfinishkettlecorn/.
Nery’s Jewelry Box: Nereida Gonzalez of Clermont opened a fabulous suite of fine jewelry to match any outfit and for any special occasion. Nery specializes in providing you with very unique and distinctly different stainless steel, silver and gold-plated fashion jewelry. While Nery creates some of the jewelry herself, she also imports exotic jewelry designs from 30 different countries. She has been sharing her beautiful jewelry collections at Farmer’s Markets and special downtown events since 2008. Contact Nery at 352-404-3461 or visit: https://www.facebook.com/nerysjewlerybox/.
ZiZi’s Gourmet Foods: Frank and Chiarina Gucciardo have launched this exciting new boutique food shop with everything brought in from ‘New York’ and Italy. This includes fresh Bronx, New York bagels, Kaiser rolls, cannoli’s and assorted baked goods. They regularly feature an assortment of imported sweet and hot Italian sausages and meatballs. They also offer Italian pastas, pasta sauces and tomato sauces as well as bountiful fresh vegetables from a variety of local and regional farmers. Call 845-476-1902 or visit: https://www.facebook.com/ZizisGourmetGravy/.
Surfin’ On Ice: Carlyle Holder and Irma Macias-Holder have launched a refreshing shaved ice shop, to help make everything taste like freshly flavored snow. This new venture offers wonderful New Orleans’ style smoothies, root beer floats and Mexican inspired fruit delights. Here you can learn to eat yellow snow with sprinkles, whipped cream and caramel added to the top! They will soon be adding cotton candy. Stop by to check out all of their many very special and exotic flavors! Visit: https://www.instagram.com/surfinonice/?igshid=1pzvxgjzzbr6q&fbclid=IwAR2AhpbS5xvL8E_5JVj_24ocHi-tziicVC3Mokg6MjrnI3LZi7F7I7qVPxA
Comic Controllers: Locally owned by Jessie and Alex Weissman, this boutique shop offers an array of unique home video game control devices. Each one is custom-made and hand-painted based upon the various superheroes, comics and gaming designs. While this is their first storefront location, Comic Controllers has successfully been in business selling customized controller devices on Etsy. They will be hosting various tournaments for geeks, gamers and family events. For more information and to get your game on, call 407-476-1323 or visit: https://www.facebook.com/ComicControllers/.
Orchid’s By Charlene: Charlene Ching-Bituin has launched her delightful floral shop boutique with local and imported floral arrangements that she always arranges herself. She has been sharing and selling an array of uncommon orchids here in South Lake since 2017. Decorative arrangements are priced to fit any budget. For more information, call 321-258-2890, email OrchidsbyCharlene@GMail.com or visit: https://www.facebook.com/OrchidsbyCharlene/.
(Article & Pictures by Larry Oskins)
