Every June, thousands flock to Midland for Ontario’s Best Butter Tart Festival. Audiences try delicious butter-rich samples and determine a winner.
Here in Sudbury, Huckleberries chocolate shop has a butter tart of its own.
Known for its chocolates for 30-plus years, customers can grab a butter tart enveloped in a thick chocolate coating and topped with pecans.
Denise Regaudie, the current owner of Huckleberries, introduced the chocolate-dipped butter tart a while ago. She celebrates her seventh anniversary in the downtown core this month.
The store, 110 Durham St. near the YMCA, offers all kinds of chocolate-covered treats for its sweet tooth customers, including chocolate-covered marshmallows, pretzels, a variety of truffles and now even a chocolate dipped pickle.
Regaudie admits she never went to chocolate or pastry school. She learned everything while growing up and baking with her mother.
“I learned by trial and error by growing up in Texas,” she said.
Regaudie moved to Sudbury and struggled to find work as an insurance adjuster as she was trained in the U.S.
“I was enjoying breakfast at Gloria’s Restaurant 13 years ago and saw a For Sale sign on the Huckleberries location there and the rest is history, " she said.
At first, Regaudie worked in partnership with a friend. They moved the store to the downtown in 2017. Just before the pandemic, she became the sole owner.
“Funny how life works because now my daughter is marrying the son of my old business partner next month,” Regaudie said. “We will be mothers-in-law together.”
When it comes to making chocolate, she said a lot of the heavy work is done by an automatic tempering machine. It allows her to do many tasks at one time, but it also means a lot of the labour is done in house now rather than relying on chocolate from other vendors.
“Keeping my maker operation here means I can better answer allergy questions,” Regaudie added, speaking as someone who suffers from allergies herself.
Some might think that with two chocolate shops downtown — Raven Rising Global Indigenous Chocolate on Cedar Street and Huckleberries on Durham Street — competition between the owners would be fierce, but it’s just the opposite, Regaudie said.
“Last year a pipe burst in the loft of my storefront (and) I had to throw away 700 pounds of chocolate,” Regaudie said. “Tammy Maki, the owner (of Raven Rising), was the first to call and offer me space to work and sell in her storefront. We support each other and lift each other up.”
With the latest warmer weather, the shop has been very busy serving Farquhar ice cream by the scoop.
The ice cream counter boasts flavours like Moon Mist, Captain Cyclone and Granny’s Cupboard flavours, as well as frozen yogurt.
Huckleberries, 110 Durham St., is open Monday to Friday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturdays from noon to 5 p.m.
The hours will be slightly extended during the summer months.
Learn more about Huckleberries by visiting the website. You can also look for the chocolate shop on Facebook and Instagram.
Anastasia Rioux is a writer in Greater Sudbury. Let’s Eat! is made possible by our Community Leaders Program.