Could chocolate be the sweet smell of success?
by Kathy A. Goolsby
On 7/25/2003

They`re a daily offering at Schakolad, so Mr. Eyer visits a local grocer each morning to find the best strawberries. The trick is to figure out how many to make to last the day without any leftovers when the doors close.

"I don`t sell anything old, and I don`t sell anything that`s going bad at a reduced rate," he said. "If I`m not happy with it, I throw it out."

It was the strawberries that lured Elizabeth Phelan, 7, of Keller into the ship this week. By the time she and her mom, Margie, checked out, Elizabeth had added cherries and chocolate-covered Oreos to the mix.

Zach Greenberg, 8, of Trophy Club chose milk chocolate-covered pretzels and dark chocolate teddy bears.

"This is my third time here," he said, while his grandmother, Barbara Greenberg, picked out champagne truffles. "Everything is good here, so it`s a hard choice."

Mr. Eyer, 41, spent 10 years in sales and marketing for a home builder. His wife, 41, ran a home-based gift basket company, but the couple wanted to find something they could do together. They researched dozens of franchise opportunities, including tool trucks and sandwich shops, before opening their store in late January.

"Everybody likes chocolate, and there aren`t a lot of shops doing what we do here," Mr. Eyer said. "There are a lot of stores that sell chocolate, but they don`t make it on site."

The only items not made int he shop are sugar-free candies and fudge. The rest are created using 14 blends of European-style chocolate, which contains no paraffin and is less sweet than American-style chocolate, Mr. Eyer said.

The shop provides a summer job for the Eyers` 17-year-old son Jacob, who said telling people he works in a chocolate factory is always a fun conversation starter. He has yet to tire of the candy despite long hours at the tempering kettles ladling chocolate into molds.

"Some days I`ll eat three or four pieces, and if I haven`t stopped for lunch it might be more," he said. "I like the white a lot, but my favorite is dark."

He also likes to experiment with different combinations and see what sells. Raspberry-filled white chocolate didn`t go over all that well, his dad said, and neither did the raisin clusters. Mr Eyer admits his efforts are sometimes lacking when it comes to writing with chocolate on the specialty items, but he`s not complaining.

"The good this is, it`s chocolate," he said. "If we make a mistake, we just eat it."