What Happens When You Mix Chocolate, Caramel and Community

Cherri Emery had a caramel recipe she had been making for family since the 1970s to share on holidays. “I could never make enough of them,” Cherri remembers. “My brothers would sneak them into their pockets and suddenly they’d be gone.”

Today, with Cherri’s Chocol’art in Kalamazoo, Mich., a lot has changed—but not that! With that same caramel recipe, the store often needs to make batches of turtles for customers on the spot to avoid selling out. While Emery loves all her chocolate creations, those turtles are her favorite, “hands down.”

All of their chocolate is hand crafted in small batches, from the turtles to the s’more kits—complete with handmade graham crackers.

Cherri’s Chocol’art might have stayed just a family recipe without the encouragement of Emery’s daughter, Ashley. Emery had more than 30 years of experience in the art gallery space, but not as a chocolatier. After retiring from galleries in 2007, Ashley gave her the idea of selling her caramels at the Kalamazoo Farmers Market. The caramels were a hit, and when she started dabbling in chocolate, she was hooked.

With Emery’s self-taught chocolate skills, there was a lot of trial and error at the start. Tempering chocolate is famously challenging, and the process was erratic, affected by small fluctuations in temperature and environment. For years, Emery didn’t think she could sell chocolate at the market, but once she did “people went crazy,” she recalled, and her daughter wondered if she would consider opening a storefront.

Today, mother and daughter run a 2,500-square-foot store at the historic Kalamazoo outdoor mall. And, with the help of a $42,000 LISC small business loan, Emery was able to purchase a tempering machine to expand production and ensure her creations have the same great taste, every time. Having access to the tempering machine—which Emery fondly calls her “baby”—makes one less thing for her to worry about as a small business owner.

It gives a bit more space for her to bring her art and creativity into other aspects of the business, whether that’s through the antique wood counter that is the coffee bar, or featuring special events, like when plein air artists in Southwest Michigan crafted cocoa butter paintings on chocolate canvases as a fundraiser for World Central Kitchen.

It all comes together to create a wonderfully cozy and welcoming space for the Kalamazoo community. Emery’s attention to detail from the physical space to the confections has built a sweet following. Patrons coming in for a Monster Shake for the first time often walk in and remark, “Oh, this is like something you’d see in Chicago. Like an anchor store!”

For Emery, comments like that mean a lot. She sees being a small business owner as all about “the satisfaction of knowing that you’re doing something special that means something to someone. It’s really rewarding.” She added, “The caramels and turtles can bring people back to childhood, can remind them of something their grandmother would have made. It really brings back memories for people. That’s the best thing about chocolate, really.”