The Chocolate empire on Third Avenue
The owners of The Chocolate Shop had no idea how popular their shop would become
The first thing that hits you as you walk into The Chocolate Shop at 532 S. Third Avenue is the smell. It’s an inviting aroma of delicious chocolate flavors that wafts through your nostrils.
A woman leaving the store tells me as I hold the door for her “you won’t want to leave.” I quickly find out why.
The Chocolate Shop is the creation of Paul and Kristin Zaal, and when they started the business retail was mostly an afterthought as their real focus was their growing wholesale business.
It didn’t work out that way, and afterthought probably isn’t the right word. The shop is meticulous in its arrangement and detail, and the warm inviting atmosphere along with the delicious smell of chocolate prompt people such as the one I passed on the way to remark that I won’t want to leave.
That’s probably why the retail side blew up the way it has, as customers flocked to the store to pick up the European chocolates on offer.
Word of mouth is spreading about the chocolate the couple imports from Holland, which is very different than any of the chocolate typically found in central Wisconsin. Dutch (and frankly, European) chocolate makers use far less sugar. Despite that, the flavors of the chocolates are hard to compete with. It reminds me of chocolate and pastries I experienced in Asia (including Japan and Thailand); they’re not loaded with sugar, yet still delicious.
The Zaals are hardly new to the chocolate business. The couple started a franchise with locations all over the country. Paul, originally from Holland, and Kristin met while working on a Carnival Cruise, and have lived in Holland and in the U.S. Paul Zaal had also managed the Wausau Center mall prior to getting in the candy business. Paul oversaw the renovation of the mall, including the food court.
The chocolate franchises resided in malls, and quickly the Zaals realized as all the stores shut down that they needed a more anti-fragile business model. So the idea of the wholesale business and an online shop was born.
Some of those ideas stuck around though. All the chocolates are priced by weight, and all the same so people can come in, make their own bag with an assortment of chocolates and candies and pay one price. They can also do that online too, something unheard of in the business. (There are also pre-sorted boxes perfect for gifts.)
Paul points out a photo behind a candy station — it was a photo of his grandfather’s store in Amsterdam. Not only was his grandfather in the candy business, but so was his father, making Paul the third generation to be in the business.
The building itself has history, the couple says. Kristin told City Pages about a 100-year-old woman who said she used to go to the church across the street on Sundays, and afterward get her hair done. The 120-year-old building had been a hair salon, a grocery store, a meat market and even a wallpaper store. It was last an antique before becoming the chocolate shop it is today.
The retail side is booming, but so is the wholesale. A set of corporate orders rests nearby us during the interview, and plenty of other stores sell their product: Evolutions in Design, Wisconsin Rapids Floral, Vino Latte and even Sawmill Trampoline Park.
The formula for success seems to lie in a pretty basic premise: a quality product at a good price. A box of “cookies” (think like a Whopper but 10 times better) costs $8.95 for a box of 75. $14.95 worth of chocolate gets you more than a pound.
“We’ve never been focused on doing things on the cheap; we focused on having a quality product at a normal price,” Paul Zaal says. “Chocolate doesn’t have to be expensive.”
That’s been a winning formula for the couple so far, as their online business grows at a rate competitive with their retail establishment. Wausonians seem to simply love it.