The new store has more windows, more display space and room to double or even triple his capacity to turn out novelties like chocolate-drizzled popcorn and dark chocolate-enrobed potato chips.
View full sizeAssorted truffles and a solid dark chocolate heart sit in a handmade chocolate box on top of more chocolate hearts at Fantasy Candies Chocolate Factory. Chocolatier Joel Fink has just moved into a bigger store with space to more than double his capacity to make his dark chocolate treats.LYNDHURST, Ohio -- Joel Fink doesn't just want to make and sell chocolate; he wants people to eat, drink and be surrounded by chocolate.
So he's designed his newer, bigger Fantasy Candies Chocolate Factory to be much more than a candy store.
In addition to the 72-percent cocoa dark chocolate bars, chocolate truffles and novelty candy he sold at his previous shop, he's also adding educational displays about the origins and health benefits of dark chocolate, a wine bar for wine-and-chocolate pairings, and a make-your-own chocolate bar station.
The 4,500-square-foot store, at 5338 Mayfield Road just east of Winchester Road, is about 1,000 feet west of and more than twice the size of his former location.
If he gets the green light from the health inspector and building department, Fink could open by Tuesday.
Fink just hired two more employees in addition to his current five workers.
He is looking for three more part-timers that will enable him to extend his hours and possibly add another production shift.
The new store has more windows, more display space and room to double or even triple his capacity to turn out novelties like chocolate-drizzled popcorn and dark chocolate-enrobed potato chips.
Fink said he's willing to cover almost anything in chocolate, including cheese puffs, matzo and marshmallow Peeps.
Fantasy Candies has made chocolate versions of ancient shark teeth, trilobites and Madagascar hissing cockroaches for the Cleveland Museum of Natural History's gift shop.
Fink is hoping that with all the extra walk-by traffic, he'll sell more slabs of his homemade fudge, from chocolate-peanut-butter swirl to strawberry cheesecake.
He also made his store more kid-friendly by bringing his enrobing machines out from behind his counters and enabling them to see - but not touch - the chocolates as they come off the conveyer belts.
He also plans to have a table where children can make their own chocolates by pouring cups of melted chocolate into small molds.
After the chocolate cools and hardens, he'll give the children little squares of colored foil to wrap them in.
"It takes about 15 minutes, it keeps the parents here, and they can't help but look around," Fink said, smiling.
As another incentive to linger, he's also adding tables and bar stools to the bar in the back, where he plans to have tastings of chocolate, wine and hot cocoa, seminars on dark chocolate, and maybe even welcome a book club or two.
He plans to sell more than 200 varieties of wine.
Inside a tiki hut along one wall, visitors can log onto his website to learn about where chocolate comes from and how it's made via a 32-inch flatscreen TV.
Besides his Lyndhurst store, Fantasy Candies also sells its 72-percent dark chocolate barks and dark-chocolate chia bars at the Cleveland Clinic hospital shops and at Heinen's Fine Foods.
Fink envisions welcoming schoolchildren as well as kids' birthday parties, and says that if he can't find anyone willing to do magic tricks or twist balloon animals for them, he just might do that, too.
"Don't laugh," he said. "I put myself through college doing that."
Follow me on twitter: @janetcho