Chocolate in Indianapolis Part 1

Your Chocolate Priestess rarely gets a vacation.  By vacation I mean going away from home with a loved one (I don't like traveling alone) without the obligations to see family or sell books.  I don't believe I've had a vacation in well over five years, probably seven years.  We used to get away right after Christmas and go somewhere for a few days for our wedding anniversary but since changing my profession from academic to full-time author, I've had to do conventions and promote my books.  Not the last week of May and the beginning of June this year, nope we went on a vacation to celebrate 20 years of marriage.  We went to Indianapolis that is an easy day trip for us but we stayed there for six nights and seven days and got to explore that section of Indiana.

But let me be honest, I can't just stop working period.  I'd go crazy.  No laptop of my own meant I couldn't write but I did find some chocolate shops in Indy and we visited three of them.  So for the next three weeks, one day a week, I'm going to take you "On the Road" with me to visit these three locations.  Later throughout the rest of the year we'll do some Saturday Sacraments with them as well since every shop gave us some samples to bring home.

Our first stop was in northwest Indy as we traveled from the Children's Museum toward our second B&B.  Out in a commercial district with other little shops we found Abbott's Also Candy Shop, opened in 1993.  The name Abbott's may be familiar to you all if you remember The Chocolate Trail we traveled last year as a group with four other members of our cult.  This shop is located at 3744 E. 82nd Street, Indianapolis, IN 46240 in the Clearwater Crossing Shopping Plaza.  As you can see there is a retail space next to them available, wouldn't be great to have a shop and be able to drop in every day to buy one piece of chocolate?

This is one of their satellite locations but there the manager Jay is also a chocolatier so they make products onsite.  While everyone at the other shops was a bit camera shy I convinced Jay to let us take his photo.  I wanted you all to see what a nice guy he is. I thought I had been corresponding with him on email, yes I did give every shop we hoped to visit a warning we were headed their way, but it was really his wife.  I didn't get to meet her but Jay was very nice and very professional.

We talked about having chocolate shop in this location and the challenges to small candy shops.  Jay told me that most of their sales are doing the late fall to early spring, especially around major holidays but they are open year round.  In this photo you can see the area near the front door where they keep the fresh chocolates and candies; they are primarily famous for their caramels but they don't have a chocolate variety of that so we won't discussing that much other than to say that it melts in your mouth.

The motto for the business is "Abbott's Also, as good as candy gets" which I think is very sweet.  They also have a Greenwood shop (opened in 1999) that I've been to a year or so ago, I just happened upon it as I was helping a friend clothes shop at a nearby place she loves that I'd never heard of before.  In this photo you see the other side of the store with more of the gift items, other candies, and containers you can purchase to wrap up or supplement your main candy purchase.

The shop is larger than you might imagine from the outside.  Along the back before you'd go into the kitchen where Jay does his creating and where they have their office for shipping out orders, there are more candies to choose from and more gift items.  Chocolate or other candies and stuffed animals seem like common themes in most candy shops I've visited.  Perhaps the idea is something sweet for now and something cute for later.  If you don't want to pick individual pieces of chocolate out from the main displays you can find prepacked boxes to as well throughout the store.

The shop wasn't difficult to find with our GPS and I'm sure folks who live up in northern Indy could find it easily. But if you live and Indianapolis or nearby and haven't discovered Abbott's Also, you need to go check it out this summer and give them some off-season business.