Business focuses on quality chocolates

ALISON VAVRA, an employee at Riverfront Chocolates, finishes up some chocolate-dipped apples topped with nuts.

Cheryl Wetherington will be the first one to tell you that success is sweet.

As owner of Riverfront Chocolates, she’s built a successful small business around the concept that people can’t resist quality chocolates with a local touch.

“We have people go out to dinner and don’t have dessert because they are waiting for a piece of chocolate from our store,” Wetherington said of her business, which is inside the SpringHill Suites by Marriott, 1 Riverfront Plaza.

Wetherington started the business in 2002 after Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, the sole surviving business in the vacated Riverfront Mall, folded. She bought the business, dropped the franchise name and started cooking up her own array of sweets. At first, she sold her truffles, caramel apples and nut clusters primarily to the guests at the SpringHill Suites, which renovated the mall space into a hotel.

“At first, I would guess that almost 90 percent of our business came from the hotel guests,” Wetherington said.

But a slew of marketing efforts in the past two years has brought an increasing number of Lawrence residents into the shop.

At first, the company’s unconventional location made it difficult to draw in local customers, but a new sign at the Riverfront Plaza entrance and more advertisements increased walk-in traffic, bolstering chocolate sales during the Christmas and Valentine’s Day holidays.

And the company has broadened its operations to specialty markets.

One of the business’s expanding sales areas is in wedding gift baskets and dessert trays. The idea to delve into the wedding market came from Marcie Blackstone, the company’s executive sales director.

“I originally come from the East Coast, and weddings out there are a big deal,” Blackstone said.

Blackstone said she wanted to give Lawrence brides the opportunity to offer their out-of-town guests high-quality, personalized gift baskets.

“We really focus on individual attention,” Blackstone said. “It’s a lot of fun because each wedding is so drastically different than the one we did the week before.”

Despite the growth, Riverfront Chocolates’ staff remains small, with three full-time and three part-time employees. And, Blackstone said, there are no plans for major growth or expansion.

“Our goal is not to become a chain,” she said. “One of our core values is that things are not mass-produced – but rather everything is handcrafted, and that a lot of time is taken making each piece of chocolate.”

That dedication, Wetherington said, leads to her favorite part of the job – interacting with the people who eat her confections.

“You get to see how your product affects them, and how they are happy with it,” she said.