The Chocolate Boutique — Restaurant in Raleigh

My sorority sisters and I booked a chocolate party for a hour for 12, that consisted of a crash course on the history of chocolate which was interesting and fun. Upon arrival there were paper hats on the table and we were told to write our names on one side and what we liked about chocolate on the other side (we were never told what we were going to do with the hats and info on the hats by the way). In the beginning the customer service was great but then went down hill soon after. It was a St. Paddy’s Day celebration going on the same day that began at 1pm. Our chocolate making session was from Noon - 1pm. The young lady that started working with us just walked away and began setting up a table outside of the shop for the St. Paddy’s Day celebration. So for awhile we just sat there wondering what was going on. Then a couple of other young ladies came out with the chocolate funnels so we could make our chocolates from the molds we selected. Long story short, the chocolate ran out more than twice and by time they brought out more chocolate our molds had started to cool (the molds were to go into the fridge). We weren’t offered the sticks for the molds that had sticks, one of my Sorors didn’t get to make her second set of chocolate because no one was assisting us. Five employee were all outside after 15 minutes. Finally someone came inside and asked were we ready to cool our chocolate. We stated we weren’t finished because we ran out of chocolate. The young lady instantly got an attitude with us. We said never mind. No one washed their hands from being outside but put on gloves. Next, they took our chocolate from the fridge, stacked the molds on top of each other, then left again for 5-10 minutes. By this time it’s 1pm. They laid our chocolates on the counter stacked on top of each other while customers were breathing over them. They didn’t know whose molds were whose and had to continually ask who had what. Now it’s about 1:45 pm, and one of my Sorors chocolate was missing. By this point I’ve asked to speak to the manager and the young lady (not sure if it was the owner’s daughter) and she got an attitude and mumbled’ “I’m the only one here” and wouldn’t even stop walking when asked to speak to management. 5 Minutes later a man comes inside and walks directly to our tables and says very rudely’ “What’s going on?” No hello, how are you all today, nothing! I was explaining to him about what happened throughout our visit and he continued to over talk not only me but a couple other of my Sorors. Then one of my Sorors had to get loud and over talk him, then he seemed to become more apologetic. He offered to discount us the cost for two people in our group for the inconvenience. I gave three stars because it started off great, the associate Hannah was excellent, especially since the other four associates left her to fend for herself. At least four customers walked out because no one greeted them nor assisted them because Hannah was working with us to wrap things up. It also concerned me that some of the associates were dressed inappropriately for customer service. One associate had very short shorts on that almost touched her bum cheeks and continued to roll the top of her shorts down (she had on a short shirt so you could see the rolled down shorts) and the sanitary issues...

I HATE to have to do this but this experience was TRASH. I had extremelyyyyy high hopes for our event. The reviews looked promising, the place was gorgeous but the SERVICE absolutely RUINED our experience. My Sorority sisters and I booked a chocolate party as a Sisterhood event to continue to tie our sisterly bond. We were put at a table behind the cash register and given hats with the only instructions to write out name and what we liked about chocolate. We had a very brief lesson on chocolate and we're told to pick our molds. After we did that we waited, and waited, and waited for our chocolate. There was 11 of us and they finalllyyy came out with 4 chocolate dispensers...4 and there's 11. My molds were small and I ran out. Once we asked for more it took forever again. Then we noticed...where's our host??? She was working an event outside and just left us. The one worker with the rolled down short shorts (we could literally see her pelvis) just walked around. Two workers were in the back making treats for the St Patrick day event and one worker was trying to work the store that was very much still open and attend to guest. Most of us left without completing our molds and getting the amount of chocolate we purchased. Finally we were done and decided to wrap up the event. The event was originally suppose to be an hour but due to being neglected by staff we went way over the time. This was truly a horrible experience and we will not be returning or recommending to other chapters or Sororities...

Needless to say, my sorority sisters and I participated in a Chocolate Affair event on Saturday, March 8, 2025 at 12pm. Twelve of us attended and were eager to learn the history of chocolate, sampling, and making chocolate. We began with wearing boat hats. We wrote our name on the front and shared what chocolate means to us on the back. It was not clear to us the intent of the boat hats, however, I enjoyed hearing the history of the chocolate and sampling a product.

Quite the contrary, what happened next is asking 12 people to select their molds. Everyone selected at least 2 molds, but, only 4 chocolate funnels were placed on the table, resulting in one person not receiving their product at the end. That means a considerable amount of time was wasted on waiting for additional funnels. Additionally, after 20 minutes, we all noticed there was no one giving us instructions or monitoring our progress.

Overall, it was never clear how many people were working in the store at 12pm, however, it was very clear that priority was given to the events outside of the CHOCOLATE BOUTIQUE. This presented confusion for US. We were told the event would be an hour. By the time we left it was nearly 2pm. Please note, I would visit again for an event, but not on a day that has other outside events that is more of a priority than...