Windy City Is Your Stop For Holiday Treats, No Matter The Holiday

For the next couple weeks, Windy City Sweets will be focusing its candy energy on celebration, The two holidays – Easter and Passover – are often family celebrations that incorporate food. And that can include treats like chocolate. In the case of Easter, that chocolate often is in the shape of bunnies or eggs.
“We make close to about 800 rabbits that are handmade in the store here,” John Manchester, co-owner of Windy City Sweets said.
John Manchester owns the store with his wife Jill Manchester.
“We offer rabbits in milk, dark, white chocolate and we offer a cookies and cream variety, that’s
white chocolate with ground up oreos in it,” John Manchester said.
In addition to all the flavors above, there are 25 or so selections that John Manchester calls the Rare Hare collection
“We’ll do a specialty chocolate rabbit,” he said. “We create a milk chocolate with almonds, dark
chocolate with almonds, dark chocolate with cherry and this year we are going really crazy and
offering a cherry and an almond mix.
“These Rare Hare have been a big thing over the last few years as people want something out
of the ordinary and special.”
Easter falls this year on April 20 and Passover on April 12.
Creating treats for Passover requires planning to adhere to the dietary restrictions of the holiday.
“Kosher for passover is the equipment used, can only be used for passover,” John Manchester said. “They put them back in storage when it is over.”
“We don’t make it here because it is too complicated.”
John Manchester said he is working to get some Kosher equipment into the store before Passover.
In the meantime, for those celebrating the holiday who are not Kosher, the store always carries chocolate-covered matzo.
The candy store often has customers who visit early, but John Manchester said that most of the sales for Easter happen on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday before then.
“We also do chocolate eggs and chocolate filled eggs (in) buttercream, peanut butter cream, coconut, buttercream, caramel, caramel marshmallow and nutella in milk and dark.”
The eggs and bunnies are all solid or filled.
Not in the market for a chocolate-based treat or looking for something a bit more personalized? The store is taking orders for its Face on a Cookie Product. The Face on a Cookie is a personalized image stamped on a cookie. It does not have to be a face. For Easter, a cookie could include a cross with a white cloth draped on it, for example. Passover could include a Star of David. Customers who are commemorating spring in general could decorate the cookies with spring flowers and, of course, photographs of loved ones or important memories can also be ordered. For these orders, visit windycitysweets.com/face-on-a-cookie.
Right after Passover and Easter, the store will be prepping for Mother’s Day.
“Mother’s Day comes right after that,” John Manchester said. “We will do speciality chocolates, molded hearts, molded roses, and a chocolate bar that says ‘Happy Mothers Day on it.”
Lastly, Windy City Sweets has been selling the viral Dubai chocolate bar and John Manchester
said there is a huge demand for it. Dubai chocolate is milk chocolate, filled with pistachio creme
and crunchy kataifi pastry. The demand is so large, he is working on making the pistachio
paste in house. “That is what I am going to try and do this weekend,” he said.

WIndy City Sweets is located at 3308 N. Broadway in Chicago. Visit them on their website at windycitysweets.com.