Sarah's Candy Cottage owners to open Boise store

Mike Swendsen and Liz Yasaitis of Sarah's Candy Cottage 

Plenty of people would say you can never have too much chocolate, which is something Mike Swendsen understands.

Swendsen and his daughter, Liz Yasaitis, who own Sarah's Candy Cottage in Idaho Falls, are opening a new store, Saroli Chocolat, in Boise later this month. "It's a capacity issue," he said. "We make more chocolate here than we can sell. When you consider that the population base here is 80,000 and the population base in the Boise area is over 800,000, it makes sense to expand there."

Saroli Chocolat will be at 755 W. Broad Street, in the BoDo District, across the street from the Edwards Downtown Stadium 9. The property is being remodeled in the style of the Woodruff Avenue store in Idaho Falls. It is about 800 square feet, compared to 1,500 in Idaho Falls. "We didn't need any manufacturing space there, so a smaller space would do," Swendsen said.

The chocolate used at Sarah's comes in slabs from Belgium. While Boise has a few good chocolate stores, Swendsen said their artisanal approach should set them apart. "This is more like something you would find in Belgium," he said.

In addition to chocolate, Sarah's offers more varieties of licorice that most people can imagine, a huge selection of what used to be called "penny candy," and Gelatto.

Since Sarah's began in 1998, its policy has been to give each customer a free truffle or piece of fudge. This will be the same at Saroli. "We want people to have a good experience when they come in," Swendsen said.