Visiting this Florida beach town? Why a chocolate factory may lure you inside
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Chocolate Emporium opened in August on Anna Maria Island's Pine Avenue.
- Store produces handmade truffles, caramels, fudge and antique-style taffy.
- Shop sells 200 truffles daily and features vintage candy-making equipment.
What do you do when getting some R & R at a Florida beach town? Hit the beach, of course.
But a new shop on Anna Maria Island, near Bradenton on Florida’s Gulf Coast, might bring you inside for a bit.
Who can resist chocolate as it spins on a wheel? Or the taffy stretched on a machine that was built in 1910.
The sweet stuff is at Anna Maria’s newest shop, the Chocolate Emporium on Pine Avenue. The confectionery opened at the beginning of August.
The emporium makes everything in house — caramel, truffles, turtle candies and salt water taffy. Hershey’s ice cream is sold at the counter.
“Just trying to be just a happy vibe beach shop,” said Tiffany Searcy, who owns the Chocolate Emporium with her husband, Jason.
She said Anna Maria is special, and they just wanted to serve the community. The Searcys, originally from Tennessee, moved to Manatee County in 2016.
So when the space, previously home to Pink & Navy Boutique, became available, the Searcys snatched it up. They signed a lease in April, opening their confectionaries up to Anna Maria Island four months later.
“Every product that you see is made with love,” said Tiffany Searcy, who has dabbled with chocolate and candy as an annual family holiday tradition for years. “I think love makes the difference.”
Continuing a salt water taffy tradition
The Searcys have a chocolatier, Liv Baker, who has five years of experience tempering and molding chocolates. But for the taffy, the duo flew to Iowa for training at Isabel Burke Salt Water Taffy, a popular confectionery company formed more than 100 years ago.
The taffy is stretched on an antique machine to give it an authentic feel.
“What people grew up with and seeing by the boardwalks in New Jersey,” Jason Searcy said. “They’re harder and harder to find. So to keep [the machine] running is kind of fun.”
New Jersey is often credited as the birthplace of salt water taffy.
The strawberry-banana, banana and strawberry and cream flavors are the most popular taffy at the Chocolate Emporium, he said.
Meanwhile, cookies and cream, Key lime pie, and the milk, salt and chocolate are the top-selling truffle flavors.
How the chocolate is made
Crafting the chocolate truffles can take 30 to 45 minutes. Baker said she has molds and will put a tray out next to the wheel, a machine that spins chocolate until it is tempered at the right temperature before it turns off.
“I’ll fill a bowl up with chocolate and I’ll pour a bowl over the mold, and tap it out, wring it out so it just makes a thin mold,” Baker said.
From there, she lets the chocolate truffle base set in the fridge and focuses on making the ganache — a mix of heavy cream and chocolate. Baker said she pipes the ganache into the molds and tops it with chocolate.
The mold produces between 60 and 65 chocolate truffles per batch, Baker said.
The truffles are a customer favorite already, Jason Searcy said, and the shop sells about 200 per day.
Store information
In addition to chocolate truffles, fudge is sold at $4.95 for a quarter-pound serving. Taffy sells for $7.99 per half-pound. And the chocolates are individually priced. Children’s toys and boxed candy also are for sale in the shop.
The store, 216C Pine Ave. in Anna Maria, is open daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
For more information, visit Chocolate Emporium on Facebook.
