Chicago Chocolate Tours

The tour was a blast! Fav places were the first stop on the South Loop tour and the Little Branch Cafe by Mayor Daley's house. It was a nice walk, too, especially around da mayor's house. The ice cream shop was kind of anticlimactic after the other places, though. Definitely need to go back to some of the stops. Also, small world: when I started taking a jewelry-making class at the Lillstreet center yesterday night, one of the girls from the chocolate tour was in the same class! Hope you and Valerie are well, and I might see y'all on one of the other chocolate tour routes sometime.

I recently went on one of your tours to celebrate my birthday and was very disappointed. A friend from my office told me about your company and said she had a wonderful experience. Although I enjoyed the walking tour and energy of our guide, I felt it was too expensive for the small samples we received. I also felt that we were expected to purchase from each of the shops. We visited 5 places and tasted 6 miniature samples in total. At Macy's we were given a stale frango mint. I expected much more since I heard such great things about your tours! -Kate


Note from Chicago Chocolate Tours:

Dear Kate,

We are so sorry that you had a bad experience on your tour and didn't get enough chocolate, and we are grateful to you for letting us know, so that we can fix this and make it right. We want the experience of a Chicago Chocolate Tour to be a consistent product that is equally fabulous for all customers, with not only lots of chocolate (most people find there is so much chocolate that they can't finish it all, and they take some home!), but also lots of chocolate facts and history. We generally receive rave reviews, as seen on our Guestbook page, and if something isn't right we want to know so that we can take care of that customer and solve any problems. Showing our customers a first-class time is the most important thing to us, and again we are glad you have given us this opportunity to see what went wrong, and make it right.

We're sending you free gift certificates so that you can come back and take a different route or the same route; we really want to make it up to you and show you the first-class tour that we want all of our guests to experience.

The tour is not supposed to be just about walking from store to store, but about finding hidden treasure stores that guests might not have discovered, sampling kinds of chocolate that people might not have picked up before, and about getting chocolate information that guests might not have known. That said, there is supposed to be lots of chocolate! We want our guests to feel that they got more than their money's worth, and we want to share uplift through chocolate through both education and degustation.

I'm so sorry you felt an obligation to make purchases at each store. Our Tourguides are asked to announce at the beginning of the tour that purchases on a tour are completely up to each guest. We have no financial connections with any of the stores, and I'm so sorry if you felt pressured. We do have many guests on tour who are so excited about the chocolates they taste that they can't wait to shop, and we don't want to take business away from these great shops by not allowing shopping on the tour, but no guest should ever feel like this is an obligation!

And, standardization is important to us, so that no matter when a guest takes a tour, she'll have the same wonderful experience as another guest who takes the tour on another day.. We are so sorry that your experience did not meet the expectations based on the reviews you've heard from other guests; each tour is supposed to get lots of chocolate, and it sounds like something must not have gone right.

As for Frango, I am so sorry the chocolates were stale! That is of course unaccepteble. We have let the Macy's manager know, as I'm sure she wants to make certain that the presentation of her chocolates is flawless. We have also alerted our Tourguides to try the samples and make sure they are fresh, and if they're not, then the Tourguide will immediately ask for fresh boxes for our guests.

Again, we apologize, and we hope to welcome you back soon as our guest to show you what Chicago Chocolate Tours is all about: first-class chocolate in many of its fascinating forms and varieties, first-class information on America's favorite flavor and nature's perfect food, and first-class entertainment delivering uplift through chocolate!

Can you please let me know which date and time you took your tour and send me your address, so I can mail the gift certificates to you? Thank you!

Best regards,

CatieLeigh

I just wanted to thank Valerie and Kelly for the wonderful tour on August 9th. We all had a wonderful time and enhoyed lots of chocolate!!! I look forward to coming for another tour the next time I am in Chicago.

My husband and I had a lovely time on the South Loop tour. Canady le Chocolatier is just the best! And the Italian food shop and Marble Slab were great.

You guys are doing a wonderful job! I wouldn't change a thing.

Awesome! Thank you so much for the pictures! What a great time!

Our tour was fabulous! Canady le chocolatier was a real experience - we could have spent the entire evening there. And thank you for introducing us to the Little Branch and Three Peas. They were Chicago treasures I would never have found on my own. It was just so much chocolate! What a great value, and a great learning experience, and a real sybaritic treat.

I had a blast on my Chocolate Tour!!! This was my 1st trip to Chicago and what a great tour to take!!! Thank you so much for making my cousins bachelorette party weekend more enjoyable!!!

Hi Valerie!

Just wanted to let you know what a wonderful time we all had today with Kelly-very sweet young woman! Raves all around from the entire group!! I think you should be receiving a few more requests for tours in the near future!! Thanks again for bringing to Chicago tours that highlight the unique and high quality chocolate shops the city has to offer. A very creative idea. All your hard work and efforts are certainly appreciated by our group. Have a great chocolate weekend!

Peg

I've been on several of your tours - and enjoyed all of them. The stores are always generous with their samples, and I know that whatever I buy is very high quality. You certainly won't find these chocolates at your local store. I think you do a fantastic job and always go out of your way to see that everyone is happy! I look forward to going on another tour - perhaps one of your new ones.

Valerie - Our recent visit to Chicago included a fantastic private tour of the Mag Mile/Gold Coast Chocolate establishments. Celebrating our 40th birthdays and our womanhood was highlighted by the many women-owned and inspirational stories that Lauren, our tour guide, shared. We left rejuvenated, inspired, and very full! What a wonderful business you have created, what a wonderful event. Thanks for taking the simple pleasures of life and creating a memory for our group! We are inspired to take the next 40 years to live our dreams! As a fellow 'great-lake-hugger' thanks! Your great city by the lake is inspiring for a city by the lake who has great potential. Sincerely, Buffalo, NY native

My daughter and I are anxiously waiting to see the photos of the South Loop Tour that we took on Wed. July 15th.

It was fantastic! Everyone I talk to is going to look into the tour for themselves.

We especially liked (LOVED) Mr. Canady's le Chocolatier. We purchased some of his chocolates to take home. We will definitly be ordering more of his wonderful creations. We also purchased some of the New Tree chocolates from Wine Styles to share with friends.

All I can say is THANK YOU for making my stay in Chicago so sweet! I know Erin and I had a blast. Thanks for the pics! Hope you have a great day ladies :)

Hi there! My daughter and I had a great time on the 10 July walking chocolate tour, thanks to my husband. The chocolate was heavenly as well as heathy, who could ask for more? We met some very nice people, ate and drank chocolate and discovered some interesting facts about Chicago along the way. I think I must have told everyone we met about the tour. Once again, thank you CatieLeigh and Valerie for a good time. Warmest wishes, Rita

Hi,
Just wanted to thank you for a fun tour. My husband and I had a great
time and enjoyed the chocolate. Please thank Kelly for suggesting the
Grand Lux Cafe it was wonderful. You have a great company with great
people. We wish you the best in your business.
Thanks again,
Lori

Thank you for a lovely tour!!

Heidi,
I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed our Chocolate Tour on June 27. This was a Mom's Day gift from (and shared with) my daughter--great idea, Katie! Your chocolate venues were so interesting and unique--as were the samples we tasted. Thank you for a lovely tour!

My group was with Lauren on June 27. We had the most fun and Lauren was great! She is so enthusiastic and made the tour so enjoyable. I have recommended the tour to several friends. Thanks for a great time!

I was on a Chicago Chocolate tour last Saturday, part of the bachelorette party group, and had the most wonderful experience. The chocolate treats were excellent and our guide, Heidi, was fun, funny, interesting and full of information. I would highly recommend your company to family and friends with Heidi as their tour guide.
Thank you for a fun-filled day in Chicago.

Just wanted to thank CatieLeigh for the tour - Katey and I had a great time!!! A friend is going to Chicago this weekend - I told her next time she goes to book a chocolate tour and to be sure to find Lavazza's!

I just wanted to say Thanks to you & Heidi for the AWESOME tour we had for Kelly's bachelorette party! We still can't stop talking about it! I've done many tours of Chicago (trolley, etc) and this one was my favorite - you ladies really do a wonderful job of unlocking the hidden treasures of this great city!

Lisa