Tweet Sweet

So this evening I decided to type into Google the words “utah” and “chocolate” and see what it would come up to review.

The top listing was a link to the Utah Chocolate Show. I hadn’t heard that we had a chocolate show in our fair state, so I investigated further. The Utah Chocolate Show is the brainchild of Melanie Henderson. She concocted the idea over the summer of 2003 and convinced her two sisters, Annette and Michelle, to join her in the venture. The website says that the show offers the best chocolate Utah has to offer and includes chocolate demonstrations, hands-on classes, and a kids’ area.

It appears as though the show is based off the more famous Chocolate Show held in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Beijing, and other international locales. The Utah version seems like it does lack one of the more interesting parts of it’s older brother - an Annual Gala Fashion Show featuring the unveiling of the Chocolate Fashion Collection. Classic and cutting edge designers collaborated with pastry chefs and chocolatiers to produce wearable chocolate fashion. Cool hu? A review of last years show made me check Orbitz for tickets to New York.

But not all of us can plunk down a few hundred dollars to fly out to NYC and attend the Gala dinner ($200 a plate), so the local Utah Chocolate Show provides a nice alternative to get our chocolate fix.

The Utah Chocolate Show
November 17th & 18th, 2006
11:00 AM to 8:00 PM
South Towne Exposition Center
9575 South State Street, Sandy, Utah
http://www.utahchocolateshow.com

Check it out - You can bet that I’ll be there, and will report on it right here on Tweet Sweet!

Sweet Afton’s: Fresh Fudge, Speciality Candies, Gifts
At Historic Gardner Village
110 West 7800 South, #10
West Jordan, UT 84088
http://www.sweetaftons.com

My Ratings:

Review Summary:
Overall I’d have to say that “cute” is not a nasty word when describing Sweet Afton’s. Located in Gardner Village (which screams of “cute”), it’s a nice stopping point at the end of the bricked village road for a sweet treat. The help is friendly, the treats are tasty and the historical building an ambiance make up for some of their make-shift candy displays in parts of the store. It can be quite the jaunt to get to if you’re just looking for a quick chocolate fix, but it’s worth the walk.

My Visit:
I’ve been to Sweet Afton’s before on a couple occasions, the first time they were in a much smaller location next door to where they are now. I typically don’t find my regular paths bring me to the land of cute in Historic Gardner Village where typically I’m the only male not pushing a stroller. But today I was glad to find a couple older fellas in the store grabbing a quick sweet. (I’m sure their wives were in a craft store nearby) One of the guys grabs a bottle of Apple Beer on the shelf and says, “Can we get some of this without the Apple?”

It’s a quick drive from the freeway to Gardner Village, and then a bit of a walk through the village to get to Sweet Afton’s. Gardner Village (for all I tease about so much “cute”) is a grouping of historic houses made into 22 speciality retail shops. Each historic house has a plaque on it that outlines the history of the building and when it was re-located to Gardner Village. The day I was there a few kids were riding ponys by the entrance.

Sweet Afton’s has been the village candy store since 1990, and is located in the relocated historic Riverton City Train Depot. You get your first sense of history when you arrive to find a sign on the door that asks you to push hard because the door sticks. Walking in you find before you a fine dark wood display case of chocolates, with wood cabinetry on the wall behind - very reminiscent of a old fashioned bar. The dark wood cabinents carry around the the south side of the building and are covered in sweet treets including a large section of gummy in glass jars.

In the north part of the restaurant is an area dedicated to making fudge. Their specialty is homemade, fresh cream and butter fudge - over 60 different flavors. As I walked around an employee offered me a sample of this famous fudge and suggested the German Chocolate Cake flavor. It was a yummy mix of chocolate butter fudge with walnuts, coconuts and carmel. (I took some home and just finished it off - yum!)

In addition to having a large selection of taffy and Jelly Bellys, they also had a bunch of branded confectionary treats like Pez and other novelty candies. Over 2,000 square feet of treats their website says.

In an recent article published by Advertising Age entitled Dark Chocolate Sales Soar 40%: Top Hershey Exec Calls It ‘Real Consumer Behavior Change they report that sales for dark chocolate are up 40% this year. It’s seemed that the recent marketing of Mars new research of the cardiovascular benefits of antioxidant-rich cocoa flavanols has made a difference.

As a big milk-chocolate fan myself, I always picked over the “Special Dark” mini-chocolate bars in the Hershey Minatures Mix, prefering to grab the “Krackle” bar first. This year Special Dark chocolate sales have climbed 37% according to Hershey US commercial group and chocolate manufacturers are rushing to create more brands aimed at these buyers.

For all the talk about the healthy benefits of red wine or green tea, recent tests have shown that “the antioxidant concentration in cocoa was the highest: It was almost 2 times stronger than red wine, 2-3 times stronger than green tea, and 4-5 times stronger than that of black tea.” Since a diet rich in healthy antioxidants, chemicals that have been shown to fight cancer, heart disease and aging, this is good news for chocolate lovers everywhere.

The Melting Pot: A Fondue Restaurant
340 S. Main
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
http://www.meltingpot.com/saltlakecity/home.html

My Ratings:

Review Summary:
If you’ve never had a fondue experience or even if you have - dessert fondue at The Melting Pot is a must-do. Their location is prime - near Exchange Place, just off of Main Street in downtown Salt Lake. The simple ambiance of the restaurant combined with the relaxed atmosphere makes this new dining experience and enjoyable one. The servers are friendly, and the deserts are tasty. If I were giving eBay feedback, I’d put A+++++.

My Visit:
So my first contact with The Melting Pot was a couple weeks ago when I was looking through a postcard mailer packet that I received in the mail. On the front of their card it showed swirling chocolate and had a coupon for $10 off. I thought Wow, that’s a great coupon and set it aside. After looking through the coupon pack, I read further on The Melting Pot card, and noticed that the meal per couple was $89. Wow, that’s steep. Though I’ve had fondue before, I’ve never been to a restaurant that was built around fondue. I set it aside, and didn’t think much more about it.

Last week, I was trying to think of a cool place to take my friend for his birthday. Hmmm. What would be a unique and fun place for a birthday? Then I remembered The Melting Pot. It’s so much easier to make myself splurge on something new when it’s for someone else’s special day. So I mentioned the Melting Pot at work, and one of my workmates raved about their chocolate fondue as well as their cheese fondue. So I made a reservation for 4 online.

Though they offered valet parking, I didn’t need to use it – I found a space open on Main Street just a short walk from the restaurant. The ambience in the restaurant was nice – very darkly lit with colors of brown, mustard and deep salmon. They specified a dress code of “business casual” when I made the reservation, and it seemed the majority of the clientele were dressed for going out to a nice place on Friday, and the other half were well, “Utah casual”. I’m surprised when some people think flip flops and tattered shorts are proper attire for an evening out at a $$$ restaurant.

We arrived 15 minutes early for our 8:30pm reservation, and were asked to “wait until” our reservation. At 8:30 we were sat in an area of about 10 booths, one of which remained empty through out whole dinner. (I mention it, because it seems odd that we had to wait until 8:30 when there was space available.) Every table at The Melting Pot has a built-in burner in the center of the table, larger tables have two. The place has a slight funky smell – a blend of cheese and chocolate (go figure). Our waiter greeted us and when finding out it was our first time visiting, he introduced us to the menu and the fondue style of eating. A whole dinner can take over 2 hours he said, as everything I prepared before you in the fondue pot. We ordered a cheese appetizer, which was prepared before us. The waiter told us each ingredient as he put it in the pot. Once it was entirely melted, he brought a selection of vegetables, breads, and chips to dip. It didn’t take long for the 4 of us to clean it up.

After the desert menu was brought to the table, we debated on what chocolate fondue to choose. There are several selections with names like “Yin Yang, Flaming Turtle, and Chocolate S’mores. I let the birthday-boy choose, and he selected Cookies ‘n Cream Marshmallow Dream: Dark chocolate topped with marshmallow cream, flambéed, swirled together and garnished with crushed Oreo cookies. Our waiter arrived with the chocolate in the melting pot, swirled in the marshmallow cream, and then lit it on fire while he place plates before us of fresh strawberries, bananas, pineapple, slices of cheesecake topped with chocolate covered cherries, Oreo dusted marshmallows, pound cake and brownies to dip. So needless to say – it was just as good as it sounds.

After writing down the Chocolate Cottage’s address from Google Maps (See review from yesterday), I thought I’d do a quick search to find their website and find out what they offered in their shop. I first typed “www.chocolatecottage.com” in my browser and found a nearly blank page stating that this page “had been suspended”. Hmm. Probaby a different business.

So I went to Google and typed “chocolate cottage” utah. The first item pulled up in the list was a WARNING LETTER (yes, in caps) from the Food and Drug Administration. I read the letter, and it was mostly regarding some technicalities on the labeling of their chocolates. They had labeled everything “dark chocolate” or “light chocolate” and apparently it was supposed to be “milk chocolate” and some other very minor things. But my point?  I’m big into user experience, as a graphic designer and UI designer, it’s part of my job. This experience would have scored an “F” for an online user experience. Even though they were easy to find online in an address directory, they had no web presence, and the first thing a natural search turned up for them gave me concerns me about the safety of their product. Even cute little Mom and Pop stores should be aware of how their business is percieved online.

A couple weeks ago, one of my workmates was looking to buy some chocolates for his girlfriend (now fiancé, yes, things do move fast here in Utah in that respect), and another workmate mentioned a shop nearby. I remembered this previous conversation yesterday and asked my workmate what the name of the chocolate place was, and where it was located. That’s how I ended up at the Chocolate Cottage (See review from yesterday).

He didn’t remember the name, but typed “Chocolate” and “Sandy, UT” into the search field on Google Maps, and located it on 106th South here just a few miles from my employer. Since I’ve talked about the naming of Tweet Sweet (MY future sweet shop) in a previous post or two, I thought to make a note of the naming of Chocolate Cottage. Putting your product in the name of your company (Chocolate) – what do you think? A good move? In this case it put them at the top of the list in Google Maps for our search. It makes it clear that they sell chocolates, but it does seem to round down their offering quite a bit. What about the other confectionaries they had there? What if they wanted to do catering?

Chocolate Cottage: The Ultimate Sensation
720 East 10600 South
Sandy, Utah 84094

My Ratings:

Review Summary
The Chocolate Cottage is a home-grown, mom-and-pop neighborhood chocolate and confection shop. What you can expect is friendly service and a wide assortment of candies and fresh chocolates. Though it’s close to the main drag (106th South) it’s strip-mall location behind a gas station leaves much to be desired, as does some of the decor inside. Have a chocolate-covered grape and instantly you’ll know you’re in the right place.

My Visit
I drove out to the Chocolate Cottage on my lunch break, and found them located right off 106th South past 7th East behind a Tesoro Gas Station in a rather old-looking strip mall. There were several people in the store when I walked in, one of which – a young boy – seemed overwhelmed at all the packaged confectionaries and brightly-colored candies covering the walls. I was immediately drawn to the well-ordered chocolate case, where I selected some milk chocolate haystacks, mint truffles, nut-covered toffee, and a couple other tasty items with the word “divine” in their names to take with me. All the chocolates in the case were neatly placed in glass dishes on paper doilies and rung up by the pound as I chose them. I thought it cute that when I went to unknowingly select a “sugar-free” chocolate, the lady that was helping me said “you might want this one over here, since those are sugar free.” (I’m rather slim, so I suppose she thought I could handle the sugar). The shop itself had a very “home-grown” look that seems very common in Utah - the whole lace and wallpaper approach.

It was no surprise after seeing the shop that I didn’t find a website for them (see below), it’s a very neighborhood-like place. As far as appearance, it was very different than the way I image Tweet Sweet looking – it was more like a candy-store meets grandma cute.  I grabbed their business card while my treats were rung up. Founded in 1991 (according to the card) and run by Gary and Kim Smart, it looks like they’ve been successfully serving the area for over 15 years. Their tagline read “The Ultimate Sensation” (hu? what’s that?) and also had “Candies and Gifts for All Occasions” stamped on the card (ahhh, that’s better).

Their shop had a little to be desired as far as it’s “look”, but their chocolates were tasty. I shared a few with people down at work and they agreed. On the way out she gave me a chocolate-covered grape – my first time eating one of those. It was awesome – a nice flavorful pop inside a sweet chocolate layer. They also dip strawberries and rasberries daily. I’ll be back for more of those.

So I went through a stage a few years ago where I was addicted to Hot Cocoa. I drank it literally all the time during the cold snowey Utah winter. I had purchased every flavor that was available here locally and had mixed them up with cream and chocolate bars trying to get a richer and richer flavor. That’s when I wondered - we have coffee shops, why not a hot cocoa shop? That was the thought that spawned in my mind the concept of drinkable deserts, and the desire to have a sweet shop.

It wasn’t until May of this year (2006) that the idea of calling my future desert shop Tweet Sweet came to me. In high school, I hung out with a close-nit group of friends who would often come up with funny phrases or sayings that we would use with each other to remind us of events, or have perhaps “personal” jokes that only us 5 could understand. This is where the phrase “tweet sweet” came from. Anything that was cool, awesome, very good, or otherwise we would call “sweet”. Anything that was above and beyond sweet was “TWEET sweet”. To be called tweet sweet by one of our gang was one of the highest ratings you could achieve.

Every good name needs a good story - that’s what I’ve always thought. For a recent long plane ride I purchased the book From Altoids to Zima by Evan Morris. If you enjoy trivia, history, branding or any combination of the 3, you’ll enjoy this book. He shares stories of many of our favorite brands - some that worked, and others that didn’t. Since this blog is not about branding specifically, I won’t go into details but Morris lists in his introduction 6 criteral for successful naming:

1. It must be simple
2. It must be easy to remember
3. It must be impossible to mispronounce
4. It must not infringe on any existing trademark
5. It must not have any negative connotations in English
6. It must not mean anything nasty in another language

Something I also noticed about Tweet Sweet once I had begin to type it and use it was that on a QWERTY keyboard it’s all typed with the left hand. And would you guess? I’m a southpaw.

One of the first decisions someone will make about their company will be it’s name - it’s a core essential element to every brand. So what kind of deciding factors go into creating a name? (Which in my mind is one of the most difficult parts to commit to.)

And what in the world do you call the greatest sweet shop of all time?

Lady Godiva and Godiva Chocolates
Let’s take a big brand like Godiva Chocolatier. Godiva was founded more than 75 years ago in Brussels, Belgum when Joseph Draps named his chocolate company in honor of the legend of Lady Godiva. In short, Lady Godiva rode through the town of Coventry in 1057 wearing nothing but her long flowing hair in a deal to reduce taxes from their Lord (her husband). To demonstrate how honorable the Lord’s serfs were, they stayed inside with their shutters closed as instructed, and Godiva successfully convinced her husband to reduced the taxes.

So, a chocolate company named after a celebrated historic figure who’s name also means “gift from God”? You decide if it’s a good chocolate name. But have you ever refered to a chocolate as a “Godiva”? As in “Let’s get a Godiva today.”? Still, I’ve got to admit that Godiva and chocolate are inseperable.

Milton and the Hershey Chocolate Company
Most everyone I know will be able to understand that I’m talking about chocolate when I mention a “Hershey Bar”. Hershey is another one of those names that’s synonymous with chocolate. As with many company names, Hershey didn’t start as a brand name, but the name of its founder Milton S. Hershey. Milton founded the Hershey Chocolate Company in 1893 after launching a successful carmel company that he eventually sold. He spent years perfecting the recipe and brought the treat which was once only a luxury for the rich to the common man. Milton Hershey is an amazing historical figure, an entrepreneur who’s legacy lives on today.

My question is, do you think Godiva Chocolatier would have performed as well by being named after it’s founder? “Draps Chocolatier”? Naming a company after it’s founder isn’t always so successful, but overtime - does it matter? (More on that in a later post) Perhaps a Draps Bar could could have been just as successful as the Hershey Bar.

V Chocolates
So you haven’t heard of V Chocolates before? Well, you should check them out. I was given a box of V Chocolates toffee at an open house I attended for Omniture a couple years ago. I was immediately impressed by the quality of the packaging, which a fellow designer told me was the award-winning work of Blain Olsen White Gurr Advertising here in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Ron Best, the founder of V Chocolates leaves the interpretation of his company name open to your own imagination. He suggests that it could sound like “vie”, the French word for “life”, but also offers a genuine “V” apron in exchange for other ideas “vmailed” to him. My first thought on the “V” was simple - Valentine - though nothing on the teal and rusty orange packaging would give me the impression of a cheesy red-heart box of chocolates you see crowding the stores starting in mid-January.

So whether you name your company after a 9th Century ‘diva, emblazen it with your family name, or even leave the whole company name open to interpretation, does it really make a difference in the long-run? “What’s in a name?” asked William Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet, “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” (How about make that “taste” as sweet?)

I feel like I should say “Welcome to my Blog” or something like that since this is my first posting of this blog. Or I think I should talk about Tweet Sweet in general terms, or in terms of this blog. I also feel like I should explain that I’m not much of a writer, or even write “testing testing testing” and then see how it looks before I make this live. But it’s live, and it’s here for all of you to read.

Tweet Sweet? What in the world is that? Well, it’s all about a dream of mine that started bouncing around in my head a couple years ago. Well, maybe it started when I was born, but became more vivid in the past couple years. Tweet Sweet is my dream to create the greatest sweet shop of all time. A website you ask? No, a REAL sweet shop - the whole brick and mortar, bell-on-the-door, touch-feel-smell-savor shop.

And then, why in the world would I need a blog then? Since the Tweet Sweet only exists in my mind (right now) - my life is filled with all these opportunities to gather ideas from places I visit, people I run into, and crazy thoughts of what would make a sweet shop a fun place to visit. And my blog is a place to record these ideas, to share and take comments on, and to take the dream closer to a reality. (Oh, and practice this whole “blog” thing as well)

Much more to come, thanks for stopping by!