Sheri Gabriele’s world is covered in chocolate, and it’s all her husband’s fault.
“My husband kept saying we should open a candy store, and I said, ‘no,’” she said.
Since then she opened a candy store and a chocolate shop. Then she learned how to make her own chocolates.
At first, Gabriele resisted as she played over a scene from the Little Rascals in her head when the kids are slamming coins on a counter to ask how much candy they can get. But they opened a nostalgic candy story. Thanks to the candy of history, the rest is history.
Gabriele is the owner and operator of Crave the Chocolatier at 62 Hurontario St. You may have seen the sign out front about “showing off our wiener.” One of her signature chocolate figures is a wiener dog.
“It’s just for fun,” said Gabriele, who has lived in Collingwood “forever and ever.”
Indeed, fun has become the name of the game as Gabriele exercises her creative muscles to come up with new ideas for her chocolates.
Initially she ordered the chocolates in, but decided to learn how to make them on her own.
“I said, ‘I can do this my way and better,’” said Gabriele.
She has created many kinds of truffles including barrel shaped chocolates with a filling made from Collingwood-made Side Launch beer and Collingwood Whiskey. Her latest store creation is a unicorn lollipop.
“I only have Belgian chocolate here,” she said. “Nothing else is allowed.”
According to Gabriele, Belgian chocolate is the Rolls-Royce of chocolate, and she doesn’t deal in anything else.
Two of her biggest sellers are her chocolate dipped brownie and her chocolate dipped butter tart. The dipped butter tart was a customer request that stuck.
Her favourite thing to make and eat is her toffee crunch. Though she eats less chocolate now than before she became a chocolatier.
However, not everything works out according to plan when you let your imagination run wild.
She maintains her biggest failure was an attempt a chocolate dipped banana.
“It just didn’t look right,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter how long you do this, you can still have a day where everything goes wrong. And then you shut it down and come back in the morning.”
Her store is a mix of her hand made chocolates or chocolate dipped items and nostalgic candy. She has a kitchen in the back where she works on her chocolate, and in the summer she sells scooped ice cream.
Gabriele loves being downtown Collingwood.
“Everything is really nice,” she said. She’s been in business in the downtown since 2005.
Gabriele has built and curated a busy social media presence and creates intricate displays and decorations in store. Check out her Facebook page for some elaborate Elf on the Shelf photo stories.
On what she calls “chocolate holidays” she said her store is like “Old Home Week,” as all her long-standing customers come in to stock up for Valentine’s Day or Easter or Christmas.
“It’s a little gathering in here,” she said.
Gabriele also does custom chocolate orders. Most recently she filled an order for chocolate horses for a Kentucky Derby party. One time, she dipped garlic cloves in garlic as an April Fool’s joke. That particular item didn’t make it into the regular rotation.
Check out Crave the Chocolatier on Facebook here.
