Philadelphia Chocolate Tours

My husband and I went on the tour this afternoon and had a GREAT TIME ! Angie ROCKS ! Thanks for a great afternoon in our own city !

I went on the chocolate tour this afternoon. The tour guide was wonderful, she was knowledgeable and enthusiastic about chocolate.
However, I do not think this tour was worth the price. For $40/person I would have expected more chocolate at each location. The 1 tiny scoop of 4 different gelato types was very disappointing and unhygienic. I would have expected at least a kid sized gelato per person to end the tour.

We had a wonderful time on our tour! Melissa was an excellent tour guide - very personable & knowledgeable. We will definitely be recommending Philadelphia Chocolate Tours to friends! Thanks again!

I thoroughly enjoyed my Chocolate Tour last week with Dionna. I thought I knew a lot about chocolate, but I still learned new facts and loved the tastes of everything (well, perhaps the chocolate-covered bacon was a taste I haven't yet acquired!). Who knew there was great aritsanal chocolate in a women's boutique (Marcie Blaine)? The chocolate, peanut butter, pretzel piece I purchased there was to die for AND I bought a beautiful necklace, too! I had never been to Capo Giro before and, after the Academy of Vocal Arts New Artist recital that same evening, a group of us ended up there. So, after NEVER having been there, I was there TWICE in the same day! I just finished reading some of the negative comments and don't think these folks were on the same Chocolate Tour I took. I was so full of chocolate by the end that I couldn't even eat the piece I bought at Marcie Blaine until two days later! It was the pefect amount for me and there was so much extra at the first couple places that I was able to have a second chocolate-covered pretzel at Mueller's and could even have had another chocolate chip cookie at 4th Street Bakery. For me, there was plenty of chocolate!

My boyfriend and I went on the tour a couple weeks ago and we had a blast! Beth was the best tour guide we ever had -- so bubbly, energetic, fun and informative :D The samples were exquisite...I ended up buying some Famous 4th St cookies (with awesome tour discount) plus a box of Marcie Blaine Chocolates to take home ;) Thanks for the terrific afternoon!

Jessie was a friendly, joyful, and informative tour guide! We sampled a variety of chocolate, and I especially loved walking around to parts of the city I had not yet explored. It was a great way to wind down after my Philly half-marathon race that mornin', and it also helped me eat back some of the calories. ;-) Pax!

Melissa was awesome! Great fun and great chocolate!

What an awesome experience! Definitely made our Philly experience complete... Dionna was amazing and really knew her stuff! I can't wait to go on the tour again because I will definitely be requesting her! Thanks so much!

What a fun tour. We live in the 'burbs and are familiar with Philly, but we learned new things. pandora jewelry

My wife and I LOVED the tour! Our guide Melissa was fantastic and all of the chocolate was to die for!

My friend and I just finished our Chocolate Tour with Jaylene and we have to say it was a nice experience. Our guide was wonderfully knowledgeable, engaging, enthusiastic and pretty . She did a fantastic job. We enjoyed all the tasting and walking in between. It would be fun to see a more close up look of the production process but I'm sure that could be time consuming and more involved. Maybe that could be a one stop tour.
Good job and very professionally handled.
Thanks,
Maria

It was awesome! Thanks for providing such a cool event. The guide was really, really good.

My boyfriend and I just went on the tour yesterday. Angie was our tour guide and she was awesome. She had a lot of information and gave us all the perfect amount of time to check out the store and buy whatever chocolate we wanted. I loved all the places we stopped on the tour. All the samples were great, and all the shops gave us a great presentation and information.
Living in Philadelphia, I already know a lot about the city and know a lot of places, but I learned a lot of new information about the city and chocolate, and I was also able to discover some new favorite spots in the city.
Overall, we had a great time walking around, learning about the city and sampling different chocolate!

Hello. My husband, stepdaughter, & I attended the 1145a tour today. We were 30 minutes late due to traffic & finding parking. Our tour guide, Jayleen, was awesome! She called me every 10 min. to see where we were so we could catch up. Once we caught up she gave us the 3 pieces we missed. I think she went above & beyond to be sure we had a good time even though we were late.

She was a great leader & we had a awesome time!

Great and delicious tour! I don't know how anyone could say there was not enough chocolate - we couldn't finish it all! We had whole chocolate chip cookies at Famous 4th, chocolate pretzels at Muellers, a variety of samples at Pennsylvania General Store, chocolate nut and berry bark at Marcie Blaine Artisan Chocolate, Champagne Truffle at Teuscher (and they said they never sampled to anyone but the Philly Chocolate Tours groups), and 5 gelato flavors at Capogiro plus hot chocolate, wow!

The emphasis was on tasting and learning, and we learned a lot (how chocolate comes from cocoa beans, that chocolate has little to no caffeine, etc.), with shopping being optional so that people who wanted to make a purchase were not stopped from doing so the way you are stopped on some tours. We shopped!

This was a very chocolaty tour, plus education, and fun!

**Note from the Founder:
Thank you, Stephanie! I'm so glad you enjoyed the tour, and glad we "chocolated you out!"
Stay sweet!
~Valerie

Our guide, Angie, was personable, knowledgeable, and absolutely perfect for this tour. Thank you, Angie.

**Note from the Founder:
Hi, Elaine! I'm so happy you enjoyed having Angie as your Tourguide! She is a star for sure!
~Valerie

We had a private tour with Beth on January 13, 2011. First and foremost, Beth was phenomenal. She was both knowledgeable and personable--by the end of the tour, she felt more like a friend. We loved her! For us, Marcie Blaine and Teuscher's epitomized what we thought the tour would be. It would have been nice for the chocolatier at M.B. to speak with us, but Beth did a fantastic job explaining artisinal chocolate. The gentleman at Teuscher's was wonderful, and spent quite some time with us. We certainly hope to visit him again in the future! The first two stops in Reading Terminal were fun, and we do love the 4th St. cookies, but for us, we were more interested in the places whose focus truly is chocolate. The people at the gelateria were incredibly nice (they even had a candle in my gelato, as the tour was a birthday gift from my husband), and they offered more gelato than we ever could have finished (especially on such a blustery day!), as well as the richest hot chocolate we've ever had. I do wish we had known in advance that "shopping time" was built into each stop, as we ended up buying a bag to carry all our purchases. It was definitely a more expensive day than we had planned for, with a greater emphasis on purchasing than tasting. It also would have been nice to hear more about Philadelphia's "chocolate story"--how chocolate has progressed in our city. However, overall, we really had quite a fun afternoon. Thank you so much!

**Note from the Founder:
Hi, Michelle & Steve! Thank you for letting us help make Michelle's birthday sweet!
I'm happy you loved your Tourguide Beth - she is a true "Choc Star!"
I'm glad too you loved the stops such as Marcie Blaine and Teuscher! We can't always promise that the chocolatiers will be available in person; the chocolatier at Marcie Blaine owns several other restaurants as I'm sure you heard, so she is often running around with multiple responsibilities but is always glad to know you enjoyed her store.
Yes, Bruce at Teuscher is fabulous!
I sense you are a chocolate purist - cool! I'm the kind of chocolate maniac who loves exploring chocolate in all of its forms or "delivery mechanisms": chocolate chip cookies, chocolate gelato, etc. Our tours definitely reflect that; plus, there quite frankly aren't enough pure chocolate shops in walking distance to have a tour that focused solely on chocolate shops to the exclusion of bakeries and the like.
I like hearing that you couldn't finish everything - we believe in chocolate abundance!
I'm also glad you enjoyed being able to shop! I've been on tours where they don't let you make purchases, and so I made sure from the start that people who wanted to shop on our tours would always be able to do so. We certainly don't put an emphasis on shopping over tasting: tasting is built into the tour, and shopping is optional. I agree: many of the items are simply irresistable!
Our materials do include the story of chocolate in Philadelphia, such as the fact that more cocoa beans enter the Port of Philadelphia than any other port in America, and it's good to know you'd like even more local chocolate history.
I'm so happy you had fun - thank you so much!
~ Valerie

My wife and I toured on the afternoon of 12/10/11. Our guide was exceptionally personable and knew her subject well. She is a true asset for the company. We found the tour itself to be uneven in quality. The cookies at 4th St. were cold and hard. While we enjoyed the Wilbur back story, I thought going to the PA General Store was not the best choice possible in the Market. As we left, we passed several merchants who made their own candies, whereas the General Store does not; I would rather focus on places that make what they sell. As a side note, there were several persons on the tour who arrived late and then had the audacity to hold up the group while they purchases some sandwiches (in between 4th Street and PA Gen). I don't know that there is much the guide can do beyond moving on regardless of off-topic agendas of some clients. Anyway, back to the tour! We enjoyed the whole vibe of Marcie Blaine, but would have really liked to have the opportunity to have one of the chocolatiers speak with us about their craft. Teuscher Chocolates was interesting - the gentleman told us a great story (a bit pretentious, but really neat nonetheless) and the champagne truffles are spectacular. We found the gelati shop to be anticlimactic; there was nothing particularly impressive.
Some other thoughts:
1. I agree with a previous post - offer a bottle of water at the start of the tour.
2. You script implies that we would sample significant quantities of chocolate and that was simply not the case. It was not a matter of the merchants running out of product. They offered only small amount and that was clearly by design.
3. Discount coupons that extend beyond the day of the tour seem reasonable for a $40.00 tour.
4. I know much of this has been what should be fixed but my wife and I had a very nice time walking in the city and discovering some new stores. You have a good product that has the potential to be a great asset for the city.
Yours in chocolate, Bill & Deanne Snelling

**Note from the Founder:
Hello, Bill & Deanne! Thank you for your post! I'm glad you loved the Guide! I'm sorry you found the tour uneven. We work hard to give you a first-class experience, and are proud to have been named Best of Philly among other accolades.
The cookies are baked fresh for us - our Manager phones before the tour to let them know our headcount - so I'm concerned you may have been given the wrong batch, and we will look into this.
Penn Gen usually gets rave reviews, with their Wilburbuds, chocolate scrapple, and other local goodies, and I'm sorry you weren't a fan. There are indeed so many amazing artisans in Reading Terminal Market, that we could do a whole tour there and indeed we may add that to our repertoire! In the meantime, we alternate which stores we visit inside the Market, so that we can give you a sampling inside, and a sampling outside in the larger neighborhood.
The Tourguide should not have waited for latecomers to buy sandwiches, but should have let them know where to meet the group for the next stop, and we'll work with our Guide on this.
Yes, Marcie Blaine is fun! We can't always meet the chocolatier there, because she also owns several other restaurants and is often running between obligations, as I'm sure you can understand, but she will be delighted to know you enjoyed her shop.
The Teuscher proprietor certainly means well, loves chocolate, and loves our guests, and I'm sorry if there was any awkwardness somehow. I'm glad you liked their Champagne truffles - the amazing chocolate products are what it's all about, after all!
I'm sorry you didn't like the gelato shop - and I'm surprised! Many people say theirs is the best gelato in the country, or anywhere outside of Italy, and they have won about a zillion awards. Taste of course is a subjective thing, to be sure.
We've looked at the possibility of offering bottled water ever since I started the tours in Chicago 6 years ago, and in Philly 2 years ago, but it just hasn't been feasible, due to cost, storage, and Tourguides having to carry lots of heavy bottles of water. Plus, some of our customers are against the environmental implications of plastic bottles. We do put a note in the email confirmation that you are invited to bring or buy water, and that seems to work well for the majority of our customers.
I'm sorry you felt there wasn't enough chocolate! Many of our customers feel the tour has almost more chocolate than they can eat, since quality chocolate is so satisfying (chocolate is an appetite suppressant!) This too is of course subjective, and we have experimented with varying amounts of stores and chocolate to get what we feel is a great balance - again I apologize that you disagree!
I'm not sure what you mean about discount coupons. Our tours are $40 and from time to time we offer specials, but $40 is indeed the standard price and is in line with the market.
We are very proud to be part of Philadelphia, and to have been recognized by Philadelphia Magazine, the Business Journal, and others for what we do, and to have earned the respect of the stores we highlight, our charity partners, the business and tourism community, and of our truly beloved customers, an increasing number of whom are repeat customers with us.
I started the company because I'm a chocolate lover and love sharing great chocolate with other chocolate lovers. Our mission is "Uplift Through Chocolate" and I'm glad we were able to show you and your wife an uplifting time.
Thank you!
~Valerie

Had a great time on the tour. Beth was very knowledgeable about chocolate and I actually learned a few things. After reading some of the reviews, I was going in concerned about the size of the samples but, we found the samples to be ample and very satisfying.

**Note from the Founder:
Thank you, Kevin and Cindy! I'm thrilled you had a great time on the tour, enjoyed Beth and the chocolate knowledge, and found the samples to be plentiful and satisfying! My team of Choc Stars and I work hard to give you a first-class experience, and I am so happy you enjoyed it.
Thank you - "keep eating chocolate!"
~ Valerie

For those chocolate lovers who were disappointed with the amount of chocolate they ate on the tour, I highly recommend, if you are ever in Seattle, to definitely visit the Theo Chocolate factory. The tour costs only $6, you can sample as much as you like and their products are of supreme quality:
http://www.theochocolate.com/

**Note from the Founder:
Hi, Ana! I'm sorry anyone was disappointed with the amount of chocolate on our tour! We aim to give all of our beloved customers an amount of chocolate that lets you explore chocolate in a variety of forms, from a variety of chocolatiers and chefs, while not putting you over the line into a chocolate coma! We've experimented with different numbers of stores and samples, and have reached a balance that most of our customers say is perfect or even a little bit too much chocolate!
You are so sweet to share the Theo Chocolate factory tours info for those of us who may be visiting Seattle. Theirs is a quality brand of chocolate, and the Theo team are friends of ours and we admire them.
"Stay sweet!"
~Valerie

What a disappointment! This tour was definitley not worth the $40. fee or the 2 and a half hour time commitment. We spent an hour and a half in the Reading terminal, standing around, tasting a miniscule amount of chocolate and waiting for people to buy chocolate. The tour came off for us as more an opportunity for the merchants to sell chocoate than for us to learn much about the making of chocolate. We had hoped to see chocolate in the making and the only place we evern got a glimpse of making chocolate was in the back room of a gift boutique where we had to peer thru a window obscured by merchandise and the backs of the girls making chocolate. It was a waste of our time and money. Sorry, but even though Beth gave her all, it couldn't make up for what just wasn't there.

**Note from the Founder:
Hi, Jan - I'm terribly sorry you were disappointed! My team and I work hard to give you a first-class experience of tasting, education, and enjoyment. Our motto is "Uplift Through Chocolate" and I'm sorry you didn't have that experience with us. The majority of our customers love exploring Reading Terminal Market, feel the samples are just right or even too much, and come away having tasted new chocolates, learned exciting facts about chocolate, and gained an uplifting experience that will last in happy memory forever. Some of our customers choose to purchase chocolate from our store partners - we take no commission - and shopping is optional. I've been on other tours where shopping wasn't allowed, so wanted to make sure my tours would allow you to shop if you felt moved to do so, with no obligation.
Many of the stores do not make the chocolate onsite, as downtown real estate simply isn't always conducive to this. The tours are not a chocolate making lesson, nor do they purport to be so, but are a tasting and learning experience.
Again, I am sorry that the experience we work hard to create and that the majority of our customers love wasn't right for you.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
~Valerie

I have to be perfectly honest here..we were promised an ample supply of choclate on our tour. The exact words the tour guide used over and over again were,"did I mention you will be having A LOT of chocolate today?" On the contrary, we got slivers of chocolate at places who would have benefited GREATLY by letting us chose our own sample with our possible purchase because of that sample. Instead they passed around a plate with very small slivers of chocolate or the littlest spoons you have ever seen to taste gelatti. For the price of this tour each person received about $2.50 worth of chocolate (if that)! My recommendation is to NOT say you are going to get ANY chocolate because that is more like the truth. Offer the customers a 20% or more discount as you are bringing these companies a target market willing to spend if they find something they like. Soemthing needs to change or a great tour is going to go away as people no longer pay for getting so little.

**Note from the Founder:
Hi, K.W.! I am sorry you didn't enjoy the tour! I confess I'm surprised as I read through the comments that there wasn't enough chocolate, because that is not the tour that my team and I work so hard to put together for you and all of our beloved customers. We will investigate to see if anything untoward happened on your tour.
One of our routes contains for example: a fresh full chocolate chip cookie, 3 kinds of samples at the next stop such as Wilmerbuds and chocolate scrapple, chocolate fruit and nut bark at the next stop, a Champagne truffle (that alone costs $2.50 which was your estimate for the whole tour - I'm sorry you felt that way!), and 4 kinds of gelato such as chocolate hazelnut, chocolate chip, chocolate spice, and dark chocolate. Many people are "chocolated out" after so much quality, satisfying, delicious chocolate items.
If you go to a restaurant and spend $40, of course you're not buying $40 worth of groceries. You're paying for the experience. There's the ambiance, the expertise of the chef, the ability to relax and let someone else cook, etc.
Similarly, we don't sell chocolate. We sell an experience that includes tasting chocolate in a variety of exciting forms, learning about the history and health benefits, and being entertained on an adventure in line with our mission of "Uplift Through Chocolate."
I am terribly sorry that this experience was not for you.
Thank you for taking the time to share your comments!
~Valerie

I bought the tickets on groupon.com, luckily for a discount. I would not recommend this tour to anyone. Although our tour guide Beth was great the establishments we visited lacked much! Our tour guide said we would be sampling so much chocolate we would totally get our fill...Well if "so much" is 1 lousy piece of chocolate, not even their signature piece is considered a lot it's very disappointing. We visited 5 different places and were very disappointed. The tour website was very misleading...Again i'm glad we got these tickets at a discount, even the $40 we did pay was totally not worth our 2 hours. Each establishment we feel would have made out a lot better if we were able to pick our own sample, not given 1 that looks like no one would buy in the first place... Very disappointing.

********

Hello, Zampetti's -

I'm sorry to hear you were disappointed in your tour.

Our Tourguides don't usually say you will sample so much chocolate you will get your fill, because that depends on the person. We do mention you will be sampling chocolate throughout the tour and perhaps there was a slip of a word or misunderstanding. I apologize you found the samples lacking. Sometimes the stops we visit run out of the product they usually sample, however they replace it with a product just as high in quality.

I'm glad you enjoyed your Tourguide, Beth.

Again, I'm sorry that you were disappointed in your tour and we welcome any other comments or concerns you have. Please feel free to call us at (215) 833-0044 or you can e-mail us at info@philadelphiachocolatetours.com.

Best regards,
Jean

Hi All

What a great tour we had. Our guide was exceptional & we really learned a lot but the BEST part was the taste testing-WOW

Awesome chocolate experience from cookies to gelati. Walking was great exercise to burn up those extra calories !

We will definitely do this tour again in the Spring- can't wait-see you then

Marcy & Bruce

**Note from the Founder:
Thanks, Marcy and Bruce! I'm overjoyed you loved the tour, and look forward to seeing you this Spring - we've got some fresh new goodies for you!
"Keep eating chocolate!"
~Valerie

I just wanted to write to let you know that my wife and I enjoyed your tour so much and will certainly spread the word!! It was a really fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon, and our guide, Angie, was terrific.
Thank you.