WESTFIELD, Ind. — Nothing says Valentine's Day like a box of chocolates. Of course, the only thing better than a box of chocolates would be a ballroom full of chocolates.
“When you arrive, you're going to walk through the door and just see tables of chocolates!” said Steve Latour, Westfield Chamber CEO.
The first ever Hoosier Chocolate Fest is coming to the Bridgewater Club in Westfield on Valentine’s Day weekend, with Latour serving as your honorary Willy Wonka, if you will.
“Just come prepared to eat nothing but desserts for two hours,” Latour said. “This first year, we wanted something that was a great date night.”
You could call it a Valentine’s dream come true.
“We've got cakes and pies and cookies and brownies and superfoods,” Latour said. “We're going to do mixology demonstrations, some chocolate-making baking demonstrations. We've even got some salsa lessons that we've got planned for people to take upstairs.”
LaCretia Allen, the owner of Cretia Cakes, will have chocolate-covered strawberries, cake pops and chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes at her table.
But Latour is quick to point out that his idea for a chocolate festival was inspired by a certain city in southern Indiana.
“In 2019, a group of my friends went down to French Lick and they had a Chocolate Fest, and we spent four hours gorging ourselves with delicious chocolates,” Latour said. “On the way home I thought, that'd be so fun to have in the Indy area. It’s a chance to see some things that maybe you had no idea existed. I didn't know there was chocolate-flavored whiskey.”
But the chocolate-flavored whiskey might not be the most unique attraction at Chocolate Fest.
“We have ‘edible’ chocolates,” said Sarah Cotterill, the CEO of Shift Superfood. “We have chocolates that have Delta-8 and Delta-10 THC in them, which are essentially cousins of Delta-9, which is marijuana. It is legal in the state of Indiana.”
Westfield’s first annual Hoosier Chocolate Fest takes place Saturday, Feb. 12. There are three different tiers of tickets you can purchase. To buy tickets or if you want to be a vendor, click here.