Just like a scene out of the movie Chocolat, two elderly gray-haired women gaze, wide-eyed, through the window at a three-tiered marble-topped table full of chocolates. They’re residents at a retirement home next to Marly, a new chocolate shop in Evanston. “I can imagine what’ll be going on in that home once we open our doors,” says owner Gail Robinson, who recently took her two-year-old mail-order and corporate-gift company, Marly Fine Chocolates of Historic Distinction, from a production basement to this Davis Street storefront. The table the women were so taken with is the store’s main display. “It tells the story of the progression of chocolate from bean to finished product,” says Robinson. “On top there’s a replica of a cocoa tree with giant pods. Then the second tier shows chocolate in the form we use for baking or molding”–thin and thick bars of dark, milk, and white chocolate, along with glazing tabs for melting and shards for decorating. “And the main level, well, that’s all the beautiful handcrafted chocolates.” There are imported Swiss truffles, toffees, caramels, and crowns (her name for turtles) and dipped almonds, graham crackers, and citrus fruits.
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Robinson had dreamed of owning a retail business since childhood. “When I was eight my father fell ill, and I had to help out by working in our family’s fabric and drapery store,” she says. “I loved it so much that when my father came back, I would play a make-believe game of store while the other kids were playing outside.”
