Why a Chocolate and Memory-Making Club Was Worth Saving

Why a Chocolate and Memory-Making Club Was Worth Saving: How Happy Cows, a Touch of Red, and a Good Atmosphere Make Happy Customers

A young girl enters the Funky Chocolate Club with her mom to pick up the chocolate she made in a workshop yesterday. Three chocolate bars wait for her in a white, paper bag at the end of the café bar. She smiles at strangers as she clutches one of her sugary creations, the plastic wrapper crinkling in her hands. Tourists sit at wooden tables, wait in line to order a cappuccino, or peruse the chocolate bars lining the walls.

Sandra Bolland, 58, never imagined she’d be the owner of a café and chocolate creation studio in Interlaken, Switzerland, but when the original founder and owner was almost forced to dissolve the store after the 2020 pandemic, she stepped in.

“It would be a shame if this business just disappeared,” she says, adding that the owner never intended on selling it until Bolland offered to buy it–and save it.

Funky Chocolate Club began in 2016 in a small shop no bigger than a kitchen. Originally, it was only a chocolate-making studio. The owner wanted to create an experience by teaching tourists the history of Swiss chocolate while guiding them through the tempering process before they decorated their own chocolate bars.

Swiss chocolate is distinct because of its “melt on your tongue smoothness,” Bolland explains. That melty, rich flavor comes from two things: the 72-hour conching process and the quality of Swiss milk.

Rudolphe Lindt, founder of Lindt chocolate, invented the conching process, which mixes the cocoa mass and butter with other ingredients like sugar and milk. After accidentally leaving the conching machine running one weekend, he discovered that 72 hours creates the perfect ‘melting chocolate’. To this day, Swiss chocolatiers adhere to the 72-hour conching process.

The creaminess of Swiss chocolate also comes from the quality of the dairy produced in Switzerland, Lara Berlot, manager of FCC explains. The superior milk is a result of “happy cows,” Bolland says with a hearty laugh, eyes twinkling as she and Berlot explain the luxurious lives of the Swiss dairy cows. In the summer and spring, they graze above 2,000 meters, eating little to no weeds. Their stress-free lives make them produce creamy, hearty milk. These details are just a taste of the information someone might hear if they participate in a workshop.

When Bolland took over in May of 2021, she expanded FCC into a café that serves coffee in the front of the house and hosts chocolate workshops in the back. Bolland and Berlot worked together to decorate the place in a way that matches its name.

Red streamers of the Swiss flag zig zag across the ceiling adding to the red accents throughout the café. A red, antique fridge pops up from behind the pastry counter where cups of rosy red strawberries fill the refrigeration case. Fluffy waffles sit next to them. Everything inside the pastry case is waiting to be smothered in creamy, Swiss chocolate.

“Hospitality gives me the most joy,” Bolland says, then buries her face in her hands and laughs as she admits she studied computer programming in college. It didn’t take long for her to realize sitting behind a computer was not how she wanted to spend her life. Instead, her desire to work with people led her to the hospitality industry. Funky Chocolate Club is now a cherry on top of Bolland’s many touristic business ventures. She and her husband own a beer house, brewery, a few Air BnBs, and are part-owners of a skydiving company. Her favorite part about FCC is how guests relive their childhood when they temper their own chocolate.

For Bolland, the most difficult thing about owning FCC is making sure the team gets along. “The team needs to be happy because it automatically carries over to the customer,” she says.

Atmosphere is a big part of the experience at FCC. The workshop room has a door that looks like a chocolate bar being unwrapped. Black paper placemats in front of each station say “I made this CHOCOLATE by myself!” in bold, white letters. Each station has its own mixing bowl, chef hat, and spatula ready for use.

“Tasting chocolate in Switzerland is like sipping wine in Italy or France," Silvia Castaño says. The 37-year-old has only been leading workshops for a month, but she’s already a chocolate-making expert. She smiles as she tells the group to grab a piece of chocolate, sniff it, then crack it by their ears. They’re in the country that invented milk chocolate after all, so they don their red chef hats and follow her instructions to become chocolatiers for the day.

Elisa Palumbo is from Carver, Minnesota and attended WJI Europe in 2024.