PapillionBusinesses.com Interviews Suzie Bonnett, Owner of Chocolaterie Stam in Papillion

I always love coming to your shop and always find something new and wonderful, besides my old favorites.

How did you end up owning the store? 

The story I always tell, and it’s true, is when we had the opportunity to live in Europe for five years, in Germany, we discovered Belgian chocolate… good chocolate, real chocolate, and gelato, and nice coffees over there, too. And so when we came back to the States we missed all that, of course. And I have some sisters and sisters-in-law that live in Des Moines, and that’s where Stam, the United States, is based. And so they took me to one of those stores when we first got back from Europe, telling me that that’s the same chocolate that I had overseas. And I didn’t believe them, of course. And of course it is. It is the same, because Mr. Stam imports his chocolate blocks from a chocolatier over there, following his recipe that’s over 100 years old, and so he makes all of it right there in Des Moines.

I called Mr. Stam out of the blue one day about 16 years ago now, asking if he ever franchised and if he wanted to be in the Omaha area, and he said yes to both of those. So we opened in November of 2009 here in Shadow Lake and Papillion, and we’ve been in the same slot the whole time, even though people find us every day asking how long have we been here and did we move and is this new and all those things. No, we’ve been here…we’re going to turn 15 years old now here. And this November, we’re going to have a big Open House party.

It’s beautiful. Beautiful curtains, drapery, chandeliers, everything… that just gives the right ambience to such a special chocolate.

Right.

We didn’t have anything like this in Papillion for quite a while. How did you end up picking Papillion and this area?

Well, I live in Bellevue and at the time, the kids were all still home, living home and going to school in Papillion schools. So the girls went to Papillion South and then Devin was still at Papillion Junior. So this was kind of equidistant between me having to drive to the high school all the time for events. And then, living over in Bellevue, Chad worked on base at the time. He’s my husband and he’s since retired. But that was a good spot for us to live. And then the kids were all there. This slot was available in November of ’09 and it had never been built out yet, so we thought this was a perfect spot. Shadow Lake is a nice mall. They keep it up nice. It’s a beautiful mall, and we wanted to be on this side of the street where the sun would show on us but not bake us. And then we’re right beside Bath and Body, right across the street from Victoria’s Secret and right beside Kay Jewelers. So we’re on the women’s end of the mall, I thought. And so it worked out.

Any advice or things that you learned from being in business so long? And then starting right after the typical year given to the recession of 2008, and then 2020 COVID… you had a lot to go through besides just regular life.

There was a lot. Just besides, yes, having three kids going through high school and getting ready for college and coming out of the recession, not being able to get any bank to talk to me. Funding was a big challenge. I seriously think I went to 17 banks and they all said no. And so I said, “Well, Mr. Stam, I don’t  know how this is gonna work.” But he said, “Well, we’ll figure it out.” And so with a little creative financing there, and we had some savings. Yeah, it was a risk, but small business is always a risk. And it got off the ground and it stood by itself. Within three or four years it was doing fine. We get through our first ten years, and in year 11, COVID hits. And quite frankly, COVID was good for us because we have the type of product that people want when they are stressed and worried and can’t go anywhere and want to gift each other good-feeling things, and it helped us. It helped certain businesses. I know it crushed others, and we were just lucky that way. But we have come off that high where we’ve slipped a little bit back, but we’re still doing just fine. You just never know what’s going to walk in the door every day in a small business. It’s a lot like teaching, which I did briefly before this. You’re always pivoting, you’re always changing, you’re always thinking ahead, you’re always planning, and hopefully things go well. They don’t always. We’ve tried different products in here, of course, that have flopped, and we’ve tried things that have really taken off. So now we’ve got to keep up with it.

So what are some of people’s favorite products? And then what do you have coming up here for fall, which is one of my favorite chocolate times. Actually, before Christmas and the holiday giving, I really love your fall…

The fall line is yes, definitely coming up, and of all the lines, I think it might be the favorite. It’s beautiful, it’s by far the prettiest chocolates that Stam makes. They’re all in the shape of leaves and nuts and grapes and things like that. They call it the fall harvest line. We stick to the seasons. I don’t have my fall even yet, and it’s September 10, but it’s very soon here and we won’t have Christmas until fall is pretty much gone. Caramel apples are going to start. We don’t do them year-round; we only do them in the fall. We try to keep that very European tradition of let’s don’t rush the seasons. Let’s honor each holiday and each season. We actually are going to have things specifically for Thanksgiving. It gets left out anymore, between Halloween that started in August and then Christmas comes right in as soon as Halloween is over. November 1^st it’s all Christmas stuff. But no, we have some specific chocolates for Thanksgiving here. I think the seasonal stuff is the favorite in the chocolates.

Gelato—we make that here.

Your gelato is amazing.

And that’s become more and more popular every year. We make more and more gelato every year, and so that’s been a nice surprise. We didn’t really know how that would go, but there’s very little gelato—actual gelato—in the whole Omaha area, so when people find out what it is, which we are constantly educating on what it is, and when they find out what it is, it’s a great product.

What makes it authentic or actual gelato?

So gelato, the big difference between it and ice cream is a question we get every day… is gelato is made with milk instead of cream. By law, in the United States to be considered ice cream, it has to be at least 10% butter fat. Some of those really high fatty ones, the decadent ones, they come in around almost 20%, so ice cream can be very fatty. It makes it good, or course. Gelato is around 3 or 4%. It’s really low-fat, but it doesn’t taste that way because the way it’s churned in the bag, it hardly has any air whipped into it, so it’s very dense, which makes it seem creamier, even though it’s very low fat. It all has sugar in it, but it’s low-fat. Now, we also have some no-fat—the non-dairy ones, and those are technically sorbettos—sorbet, sorbetto, English, Italian—and they are no-fat, no-dairy. Generally they’re fruity ones, but we’ve developed some nice chocolate ones. We have a root beer in there right now. He’s done a coffee one that’s non-dairy, so we have lots of non-dairy options in this store.

Including some non-dairy chocolates as well. 

Yes, dark chocolate covered nuts, dark chocolate covered orange peel. We have a dark chocolate covered raspberry and then just solid bars and chips and yeah. So we have a big allergens list. I have a whole big folder of what’s in everything. And since we make the gelato, we certainly have total control over what’s in that. And then also are the chocolates: I know who made it when it was made and what’s in it, because I’m in contact with Mr. Stam all the time. All the time.

Is there a question you would have wished I asked and didn’t ask, or something you want to share or promote?

Let’s see how to…other than the maple chocolate I’m looking forward to… How to drum up more business. That’s always on the mind of any small business owner. As we’re getting close to holiday time, I’m always wanting to get a hold of more corporations and get in their ear about corporate gifts. That’s been a big challenge for me over the years.

I’ve been here quite a lot over the years…I think when you first opened as well. And to me this is just like the quintessential corporate gifting.

Yeah, I agree.

And the gifting to anybody, it’s not something they’re going to be opening up on any other holidays or birthdays. And if anyone is giving chocolate, this is the wow chocolate.

Yeah, chocolate is the thing to do.

So what kind of corporate gifts…ideas…do you have? 

We can do any size box, from your little two-piece favor up to your giant 80-piece suitcase box, we call it, and within those you can totally choose if you want all dark chocolate, no nuts, no alcohol. You can really personalize that. And on top of that, you can get your logo printed on the chocolates, if you have the rights to it, of course. And we’ve had lots of different corporations and groups and squadrons on the base and over the years do that, and it really looks sharp. Their logos really stand out. Then you brand that box yours, and it’s still a Stam chocolate box because of course we’re going to have branding on our boxes. So it works both for getting Stam chocolate into people’s mouths and them realizing, oh, it’s from my employer, or my banker, or my financial planner.

I’ve done the logo chocolates with you before, and those were very nice. 

Yeah, that’s right. So that’s just a little extra thing, and on top of being able to pick for your price point, even. Whatever your price point is, we can handle it. We can figure it out.

Any special time needed for ordering things ahead of time, or what type of things and when should they be ordered ahead of time? 

I like a month for the logos. We might be able to ratchet that down a little if Mr. Stam isn’t crazy busy. He can churn those out usually, but a month’s a nice time. We certainly don’t need six months or anything like that. You can walk in, and if we have the non-logo chocolate boxes, we can make those, as many as you want.

Thank you. 

Chocolaterie Stam
7474 Towne Center Pkwy #123
Papillion, NE 68046