People Flock to First Peeps Store Near Washington, D.C

Their beady black eyes can either make you smile or terrify you. The same could be said for biting into them. And microwaves act like magnets to them for explosive consequences. Of course, we're talking about Peeps, those marshmallow freaks of not quite nature. And now, Peeps have their first store just outside of Washington, D.C.

Opened in November 2009, the first Peeps & Co. store is located in the National Harbor mall overlooking the Potomac River, less than 10 miles from D.C. in Oxon Hill, Maryland. Other companies, such as Hershey's and Disney have created stores to market their brands and the Peeps fowl, um fall, into this category. The privately owned Just Born, founded in 1923, is the maker of Peeps, along with other candies such as Mike & Ike and Hot Tamales. The company decided to open their store to generate additional sales for the original yellow (and now multiple other colors) of the chick, which was hatched in the 1950's.

The Peeps have come a long way from their original incarnation, when the marshmallow was hand-squeezed through pastry tubes into a mold and those beady eyes were hand-painted. The little chicks now run atop conveyer belts without fear of being cooped up until their eventual packaging.

The Peeps & Co. store features about 850 Peeps-associated items in its 3,500-square-foot space. With a giant yellow Peep sitting on top of the building's roof, the shop is pretty hard to miss. Entering the store by opening the chick-shaped door handles lands visitors in an eggs-traordinary space.

Among the variety of Peeps' merchandise sold, in addition to the marshmallow guys or girls, are chick-shaped mousepads, sweatshirts, a 42-inch-tall plush Peep for about $250 and even Peeps' china from the Lenox Corp. that start out at about $50. There is also a hand-blown glass Peep available. And the "Village Peeple" t-shirts are bound to fly out the coop.

While waiting to make their purchases, customers can check out a huge sparkling Peep that continuously changes color, video screens showing footage of the Just Born factory operations and a wall of tiles shaped like Peeps behind the registers, where few customers probably make a peep about the prices.