🔒Chocolate Destination: Candy-maker welcomes tourists as it eyes growth, bigger clientele

For nearly 60 years, Fascia’s Chocolates has been making life sweeter for Connecticut residents.

And with Valentine’s Day right around the corner, the Waterbury-based chocolatier is busier than Willie Wonka, handcrafting handmade batches of chocolate-dipped strawberries, peanut butter cups, heart-shaped lollipops, and of course, heart-shaped candy boxes, filled with decadent confections made right on the premises.

Located in a 19,000-square-foot factory at 44 Chase River Rd. in Waterbury, which includes a retail store, the family-owned and operated business is still making chocolate the old-fashioned way in copper kettles and cooled on marble slabs.

The Fascia’s Chocolates story didn’t begin in a big factory. It was born out of the basement of the Waterbury home of Fascia’s founders and longtime sweethearts John and Helen Fascia.

In 1964, John Fascia, a toolmaker, and his wife were expecting their first child. To supplement their income, the couple began roasting nuts, and selling them at John’s workplace. Soon after, they added chocolate to the mix, and the rest, as they say it, is history.

The family basement served as a cooking area and small store up until the late 1970s, when Fascia’s opened its first retail store on Meriden Road in Waterbury. The 600-square-foot store wasn’t big enough to make the chocolate, so the couple and their three daughters, Louise, Lynn and Laurie, continued to whip up batches at home.

In 1985, Fascia’s moved out of the basement into its first production facility with an expanded retail storefront on Wolcott Street in Waterbury. The company made a couple more moves over the years, and ultimately landed at its current sweet spot on Chase River Road in 2013, where now three generations of the Fascia family continue to carry on the candy-making legacy.

Today, John and Helen Fascia, now in their 80s, are mostly retired, as they come to the factory two or three days a week.

Their son-in-law Carmen Romeo, Fascia’s president and husband of the Fascia’s first-born daughter Louise, is working alongside the family and 34 full-and part-time and seasonal employees to ensure the Fascia’s heritage continues to grow.

“I didn’t intend to come into the family business, but my in-laws were in a position where they needed help and what better business to come into than chocolate?” Romeo said. “It’s a real family affair, and aside from my in-laws still coming in a few days a week, their two daughters and my son, we also have four sets of mothers and daughters working here.”

While Romeo took a significant pay cut coming from his engineering job to head up the chocolate business in 2009, he’s proud to carry on the family trade and “grow it so that our third generation can continue it.”

Fascia’s future

Romeo’s son Matt recently graduated from UCONN and joined the business full-time. Romeo said Matt has been instrumental in boosting the wholesale end of the business. Fascia’s sweet treats from chocolate bars to boxed chocolates can be found in 85 retailers across Connecticut, and New York, Rhode Island and Vermont. Their products are a staple in flower shops like Dragonflies in Seymour and Forget Me Not in North Haven, Adam’s Supermarkets, and Lyman Orchards in Middlefield, which uses Fascia’s chocolate for its dipped apples.

Romeo said Fascia’s Chocolates doubled its wholesale presence in about two years, and the goal is to secure another 40-50 retail partners in the next year. While Romeo did not want to disclose Fascia’s annual revenues, he said they haven’t reached their goal yet.

“While we’re several times bigger than we were when I started, we’re not where we need to be,” Romeo said. “We’re very small, and we have room to grow. We need to sell more.”

Romeo said Fascia’s Chocolates has some corporate clients like Eversource and Ion Bank, but he wants to see that clientele grow. Serving on several local business and state boards, Romeo attends meetings armed with his calling card - chocolate. Romeo also makes deliveries himself to Fascia’s retail partners to present the company’s face and make sure everyone is happy with the product.

From Thanksgiving to Christmas, Fascia’s racks up about 40 percent of its annual sales, followed by Valentine’s Day, Easter and Mother’s Day, which contributed about 35 percent in sales. The three days leading up to Valentine’s Day and the big day itself represent the four busiest sales days of the entire year. Romeo said last minute Cupids love to create custom boxes for their sweethearts, choosing from assorted nuts, creams, salted caramels and gourmet truffles from the retail shop’s glass display case of goodies.

While Romeo noted that Fascia’s is quite small in the confectionery space compared to the big national brands, they produce more than 100,000 pounds of finished product annually. In addition to the retail and wholesale sector, Fascia’s makes customized products for the corporate world, like creating company logos in chocolate.

A tourism destination

Since Romeo came onboard, Fascia’s has expanded beyond chocolate-making. On the weekends, Romeo heads up “Experience Your Chocolate” tours, where visitors learn the history of chocolate and get to make their own chocolate bar.

Fascia’s also added a chocolate painting event, and from April to October, they team up with the Naugatuck Railroad for a Chocolate Decadence Tour, which pairs wine and chocolate with a stop at Fascia’s for chocolate-making.

Romeo said Fascia’s has sustained for nearly six decades, thanks to some basic principles.

“It’s probably cliché, but I would say it’s hard work, passion and luck,” Romeo said.

Plus, he says the chocolate is just really good.

“We start with a very premium chocolate and use great ingredients for our centers but really it is the techniques we use that make the difference,” Romeo said. “None of what we do are secrets in the industry, but very few take the time to do things the old-fashioned way like hand stir in a copper kettle and let things cool slowly on a marble slab.”

Sisters Louise Romeo and Lynn Mouanes grew up making chocolate in their parents’ basement and feel blessed to still be working in the family business.

“I went away to college, got married and moved away for a while, but I came back because there was always a pull,” said Fascia’s COO Louise Romeo, noting her favorite candies are chocolate covered nuts.

Business neighbor Selim Noujaim, owner of Noujaim Tool Co., has been a Fascia’s fan since he moved here from Lebanon in 1971. He said Fascia’s family values, charitable nature and delicious products have made them a mainstay in the state for decades.

“At a festival, I tasted a dark chocolate and was introduced to Mr. and Mrs. John and Helen Fascia; I loved that feeling of homemade,” Noujaim said. “Fascia’s is philanthropic, they promote quality and the value of family. I love everything they make, including the homemade gelato.”