Pittsburgh Chocolate: Sarris Candies

I'm writing this from the living room of my dad's house. It's Christmas morning, but I'm the only one awake. We do most of our celebrating on Christmas Eve, so there's a big garbage bag full of wrapping present to my left and a pile of presents to my right. The only thing we save for Christmas are the stockings, and, without peaking, I know mine will be full of "Christmas balls" and other sweet treats from the best candymaker in the world: Sarris.


Sarris has always and will always be my favorite chocolate. Not that I'm an authority or anything, but I do have quite the sweet tooth. I would bring bars of Sarris back from Pittsburgh to share them with my Boston friends. This came to be known as "Pittsburgh chocolate" and also came to be expected. Not a problem! Disseminating amazing chocolate throughout the country is definitely a task I'm up for.


Allie and I took a drive out to the Sarris factory and store to stock up on some goodies before Christmas. It's a little overwhelming walking in there and becoming surrounded by chocolate, but we survived!




In the corner of the store is a wall of framed photos with the Sarris founders/owners with various celebs and important folk. Right there you'll see good ol' George W. But below...

Pittsburgh's classiest kicker in the history of life: Mr. Jeffrey Reed.

(And Jaromir Jagr! Circa-awesome curly mullet!)

There's a castle made of chocolate. I always forget that this exists, so it's always a pleasant surprise when I see it and think "OMG A CHOCOLATE CASTLE!"



There's also an old-fashioned ice cream parlor attached to the store. Allie and I split a sundae, but it was so big that we couldn't finish it. (It's not often that I leave ice cream on the table, but Sarris definitely had me beat.)


Pretty soon, my brother will wake up (sometime in the neighborhood of 2 p.m.) and we'll dig into those stockings. My supply of Pittsburgh chocolate will be replenished. And all will be right in the world.