- This program is part of WQED'S Pittsburgh History Series.

- Oh my god!

A potato chip is so good.

- Oh, chocolates.

They're not something I've ever immediately associated with Pittsburgh, but I've learned that we are lucky to have a lot of chocolate shops in the area around our city.

- And there are little towns along the way.

They all know their their little chocolate spots.

- Oh yeah.

- Every town had their candy shop.

- I eat chocolate every day.

- I love any kind of chocolate.

- You like the chocolate?

I mean, you know what makes us, us in our area?

- Everybody wants something sweet in their life.

- Oh, excellent.

- First, the smell of the chocolate is just intoxicating.

- Something you want to to eat.

It makes you feel good.

- But my grandparents and my mom used to get us our Easter candy here every year.

- At Easter time in 2025, I saw a list online of Best Places in America to celebrate Easter and Pittsburgh was number two.

Because we have lots of churches per capita, as well as a lot of chocolate shops per capita.

- We do things by hand.

So no two pieces are ever exactly perfectly the same.

- There's a lot involved when it's quality chocolate.

- It's very creamy, milky, delicious.

- I quickly came up with a list of about 25 chocolate shops and thought we should visit a few.

- It's still the same chocolate for over a hundred years, and I think that matters.

- This program is called Lucky To Live In Pittsburgh, but this time it could have a subtitle: A Few Luscious Local Chocolate Shops - And oh, it is so good.

- We apologize if we didn't get to your favorite, but there can always be more programs like this.

- This program was made possible by contributions from wonderful viewers like you.

Thank you.

- So where do we start?

One of the engineers at WQED suggested that we head out Route 88, south to Finleyville, where just off to the left of the highway, there's a bright pink building.

That's Pink House Chocolates now owned and run by Debbie Sargent.

- It is out of the way, and that's one of the reasons that we really had to focus on making it a destination point, making it worth people's stop.

So we do do a huge variety for such a little kitchen that we have, and I love being a small business because we can pivot to any direction.

It's, it's a happy place.

- It's also a very busy place, both out front where customers have an astounding variety of chocolates to choose from.

And in the production kitchen where there's a vintage conveyor-belt-type machine that processes the many types of chocolates, - I always tell everybody of the older generation, this is our Lucille Ball machine.

And we say that comically because the chocolates are gonna work their way through.

And even though everything's at the same speed, it seems so fast.

Sometimes when it's coming out, the candies will go on at the bottom.

They're centers that we make here prior days.

It gets the bottom, it goes on the belt and cools, then it goes under the fountain of chocolate.

After these get their double coated chocolate bath to be able to tell what it is, I put a little swirl on top of the turtle.

- And then it goes in the cooling tunnel and comes out the end and somebody great at the end will grab it and that product is ready to go.

These are turtles - And what's in them?

- It's pecan and caramel and chocolate covered.

- The product then usually goes to an upstairs room first where Susan Burger carefully puts labels on everything and seals the little bags.

- Well, the girls downstairs are really sweet to me.

Every now and then they have something that doesn't fit and they'll send it up on the tray.

And I know that's for me.

You know what?

It's hard to pick a favorite.

- The finished products with their classy labels may look like they were produced in a factory, but so much here is done by hand.

And even broken pretzels get special treatment.

- So they're, they're broken pieces.

These, these bags hold the broken pretzels that do not go into a regular bag where we're selling like in a stack of pretzels or in a small bag of pretzels.

And, and that's what it says.

No Pretzel Left Behind.

- There are handmade specialties too, and on certain days, Debbie herself carefully creates cherry cordials.

- I start with maraschino cherries.

I put them in the tumbler and they tumble in there until they have a nice coating of fondant on them.

Then I bring them out here and after I put a little dollop of chocolate in a cup to make the base, I put the cherry in and then I'm just gonna go around and cap each cherry with some chocolate.

And as it sits, all of that powdered sugar fondant is gonna dissolve into liquid.

And that's how you get your maraschino cherry with the liquid inside.

I've done several million of these - And these juicy cherries will end up out front where on many days you may encounter Holly Orlando, who dresses up as Strawberry Shortcake.

- I am like this every day of the week, all the time.

Come see me.

I have so much fun.

- That's all her.

- She came aboard and she loves this job to no end.

And you can tell, - I like to take it above and beyond every time, every chance that I can, all the new faces that I get to meet, all the new people that I get to see.

I want it to be a special experience for everybody.

And anybody who comes in the store, - They probably want the dark.

Debbie's husband, John Sargent is an art teacher, but he has lots of jobs around here too.

- I'm the accountant.

I pay everybody - And he fills orders and he makes deliveries.

- Has to be absolutely perfect because I'll be going through the receiving department and I don't want to be the one messing up the whole system.

We are in about a dozen Giant Eagles.

A few Shop 'N Saves, a couple hospital gift shops, but they come here for the real song and dance.

- I do pay a little bit more to have a selective line for some people that are gluten-free and dairy-free.

And it's an excellent chocolate.

- It's hard to pick a favorite because they're all good.

Our chocolate, I think is excellent.

- It's tough to turn away anything that's got peanut butter in it.

- People say they have a sweet tooth.

I say, all my teeth are sweet.

- The raspberry melt away is my favorite.

But the Twinkie is only here.

- I love the salted caramel.

We've - Got the peanut butter melt aways, we've got the peanut butter pretzel melts.

- I love the marshmallows.

- It's so good.

- It's all good stuff - And I like it all.

Love it all.

- We, we wanted to make it a destination for you to come to worth your time.

And that's always been what we've been trying to do.

- People do travel to spend time here.

So many grandparents say, this is our place with my grandkids.

I ask them, where do you wanna go?

They say, the Pink House.

It's been great.

I wouldn't do anything different.

- We love the Pink House, but we also knew about the Chocolate Moose in Squirrel Hill.

Mon Aimee Chocolat in the Strip, and Andy's Candies out on the Old Steubenville Pike in Bulger.

Friends told us about Valos Chocolates in New Kensington, where you will also find Catoris Candies that's getting ready to celebrate 100 years in the same location.

Then in Irwin, there's McFeely's Gourmet Chocolates, owned and run by relatives of Mr.

Rogers.

We've got Pollak's Candies in Etna.

And up in the North Hills, there's H. Grace Confections on Perry Highway.

And if you take PA Route 8 north to its end, you'll be close to Pulakos Chocolates that's been in Erie since 1903.

You can find Sarris Chocolates from Canonsburg in most Giant Eagles.

And I found boxes from Speckled Hen Chocolate Company up in Saxonburg, beside some from Pflueger's Candy Inc.

from Butler.

But two friends suggested we definitely head up the Allegheny River to the town of Tarentum, where on First Avenue, across from a ball field, you will find Joe Clark's Chocolates or Joe Clark Candies, which they now like to call just Clark Candies.

Brett Luedde runs the place now.

- We've been operating out of this facility since 1937, here in Tarentum, and my wife and I are the third generation owners.

My wife's grandfather, who, his name was Marlin Clark.

Everybody knew him as Bunny and he worked in the Melt Shop here at the Brackenridge Steel Works.

That's about a half mile down the road, and that's actually a picture of him standing there with the open arc furnace and watching a ladle full of molten steel get poured.

That area of the steel mill is called the Melt Shop, and that's why we call our candy production facility the Melt Shop.

- Brett said he'd give us a tour of the Melt Shop upstairs.

- This is where the magic happens.

Let's go.

So right now we're walking into the original, original building from 1937.

Actually, the entryway was upstairs and right through where that window is - Now, on an ordinary day, there's all sorts of chocolate making going on in here.

Margie Nasser has to stir this molten chocolate till it gets to the right temperature.

- It does smell delicious, nice and creamy.

- When it's at 83 degrees, she adds walnuts or whatever kind of nuts, and then heads for the production line where she hand dips the nut clusters.

- It's easy, but you it, you have to have the knack for doing it.

- We've got a lot of amazing old equipment here.

This is an example.

This is a caramel cutter.

- Oh, it's cool to see the caramel cutter in action too.

All right.

Brett knows how to line up the slabs of caramel and they come out as perfect little cubes.

Here we go.

This here we gotta adjust this.

- But his father-in-law, Bob Clark, who ran this place for 20-some years, can also be a help.

You know, he likes coming around and knowing that he's not the one that has to give the orders anymore.

- Yeah, that's good.

- And he, and he generally follows instructions.

It's amazing.

- Bob knows a lot about the history of this business with his Clark family since 1937.

- Brothers owned it, my, my dad and uncle.

And then they, they were doing it.

My Aunt Lois got involved with it and did a lot.

Then it grew to where it was my cousins and I, and then now I passed it on to Brett.

We have our kitchen back here and in here we still use a lot of the original copper kettles.

When we're making caramel, we have our tables where we pour out material and cut it and get it ready to go.

And then the chocolate-making process begins here.

Again, lots of cool old equipment.

We put product on the beginning of the line here and it puts the bottoms on the chocolate.

Then it cruises down this belt, which is nice and cold on the bottom and it goes into the chocolate.

We come out of the chocolate and we go right into the cooling tunnel.

Really important phase.

- Actually, they have two cooling tunnels here and Laci Bargerstock often uses the other one to cool the chocolates that she creates using plastic molds.

- Everything's handmade here, done with lots of love.

- These ones make two ounce chocolate lips.

- It's a workout.

Ya don't need to go to the gym working here.

Everything's handmade.

- They get shaken to remove air bubbles.

I bang it a couple times, so it's all level.

- Then sent slowly through the second cooling tunnel - And he goes to the next one.

And then we follow the cooling tunnel, which is just on the other side here.

We follow the cooling tunnel down here.

Here's where product comes out.

We call this the I Love Lucy end of the production line.

Then we come over to our picking line.

So we've got all the different flavors mapped out.

- That's where you might find Janie Baenig hard at work.

- I am packing sea Himalayan sea salt caramels.

What a mouthful, huh?

It is caramel with Himalayan pink salt on it and oh, it is so good.

- After our boxes are all put together, they come down, they go through a final weight, and then we come over to our shrink-wrapping- and-shipping area.

- We always buy candy from here.

Ever since I've been a little girl.

We love to get chocolate-covered rabbits for in our Easter baskets.

I like the... what about caramel, sea-salt caramel are my favorites.

- It's the best chocolate.

- It's good, it's good.

We're in the happiness business, you know, if you're having a little bit less-than-perfect day, a little bit of chocolate, just that bite just sweetens it up a bit.

You know, if you're having a great day, people want to share the love and the happiness, but you know, chocolate, it's, it's healthy, it's natural, and people just love that little bit of sweetness in their day.

- All of that is great, but the Clark name brings up Pittsburgh's most famous candy: the Clark Bar.

The Clark Bar was created by the D.L.

Clark Company, no relation to these Tarentum folks.

And Clark Bars were first produced around 1917.

They became favorites of soldiers in World War I and then World War II.

At its peak, some say D.L.

Clark was producing a million Clark Bars a day.

And for many years there was a neon Clark Bar sign, atop the D.L.

Clark Building on the North Side.

Part of that sign is still in a nearby parking lot.

- I know in the fifties, my dad got a letter from D.L.

Clark - And said, you need to cease and desist.

You cannot be Clark Candies because we are Clark Candies and we came before you.

- Well, the D.L.

Clark family sold their business, and owners changed, and products got sold to several other candy companies, and the family name became available again.

- And when D.L.

Clark ceased to operate, when the Clark Bar got sold off, their product lines got sold off to other companies, that's how we got the name back: Clark Candies.

- The Boyer Candy Company in Altoona, Pennsylvania, still makes Clark Bars and finds that they are still very popular, selling out fast.

Now the old D.L.

Clark building is still there on the North Shore, near PNC Park, but no chocolate is made there now.

However, back in 2003, we put together a documentary titled Things We've Made that included a visit to West View, right on the Perry Highway Horseshoe Bend, and this place is still going strong.

All this shot in 2003.

- The name of this business is Betsy Ann Chocolates, and we make high quality gourmet chocolates.

- Jim Paras is president here and stays familiar with his products.

- Literally every piece is unique.

- Everybody loves chocolate.

I mean, I don't, I don't know hardly anybody, if you offer him a piece of chocolate candy, they won't eat it.

- That's Jim's dad, Harry Paras.

- My father was a baker originally, so he's been in the confectionary industry all his life.

- And this place became available and I purchased it from Betsy Ann.

- Yes, there was a Betsy Ann, Betsy Ann Helsel.

- That was like in 1968.

- Since then, things have been busy around here in this long, tasty candy factory.

- This is what we call the enrobing room.

This is where we cover everything in chocolate.

Mr.

Paras decorates the chocolate as it goes down the belt.

- She's putting the candy on and it's getting a bottomer.

And then it goes in here and be covered, and I mark it.

It identifies the candy, so when the girls pack them in the back on the line, they put them in.

They know they look: "P."

That's a peanut butter.

- I eat all day.

- I eat, I eat a lot of candy and I, I probably more than I wanna admit.

- Do I ever eat it?

Certainly.

All day long.

- I like peanut butter cups.

Mmm.

I like them.

- I like the double dark truffle.

I just don't eat a lot at once though.

- Well, actually, I like the caramel, the pecan caramel truffles.

- Unless I go on a binge one time, once in a while.

- Yeah, they're the best.

Are we done?

- No, we're not done yet.

In 2013, we made a program called The Joys of Millvale that included a visit to Yetter's, then owned and run by Ed Carr -- everybody still calls him "Butch" -- and his wife Arlene Yetter Carr.

- Yetter's is a combination of candy, ice cream, deli, lunch counter.

That's enough to keep you busy.

- We opened December 13th, 1950.

We were a convenience store that made our own candy and ice cream.

- And everybody in Millvale knows that Yetter's still makes their own candy in the rooms at the back of the store.

That's where we met Judy Warwick and Patty Cerney as they were working on the candy assembly line.

- We cover everything in chocolate.

- But basically it's, it's a bottom machine.

And without that you have no bottoms to your candy.

- Patty puts the pretzels on, they come down the belt, and then they go through the chocolate, get coated, and they come through on the bouncer.

It's called the bouncer.

It shakes the excess chocolate off.

Then it will come through the drying tunnel.

And then I take them off and put them in the boxes or bags or whatever we make.

- This scene may remind you of a famous I Love Lucy episode - When you first start here, it seems like it's going that fast.

- But that's what they call us, me and her: Ethel, Ethel and Lucy.

That's what they call us.

- All these chocolate shops with a production line - I love Lucy - Or Lucille Ball.

- Yeah, Lucille Ball.

- Pretty soon they were shoving them in their mouth.

- ...refer to that 1952 episode of "I Love Lucy" at the chocolate shop.

- Sometimes we have a little bit of that around here, but it all, it's all good.

- It's on YouTube.

Classic.

Well, I stopped and talked to Butch and Arlene recently and they say the place is still busy making candy, but now run by their son Jeff Carr.

- You just have to get used to working with it, you know.

- Now I also want to mention Dorothy's Candies in White Oak.

- And the tibia.

- I learned a lot about them in 2019 when I made a documentary for my NEBBY series, a program called "My Seven Weeks in Magee."

It included an amazing visit from Nan Cohen and her husband Mel and Marlene Druskin, all with shopping bags from Dorothy's, full of incredible goodies, one of which Marlene explained.

- It's a Turkey Leg.

Go ahead, explain everything.

- Tell us what a turkey leg... - This here is is our famous Turkey Leg.

That is, are two pretzel rods.

They are dipped in caramel.

They are then wrapped in cashew nuts and then double dipped in our famous Swiss chocolate.

- Oh, it sounds terrible.

- It is so bad for you that it is so good for you.

You just want more and more and more and more.

Yes, you do.

- These two women have been telling people about the joys of Dorothy's Candies since around 2015.

- Beautiful.

- So we're always asked, How do we pick what we're gonna talk about?

Right?

- Right.

That's right.

- Well, guess what we're doing today.

We're eating everything.

- We're gonna eat.

- Everything.

We're gonna taste test.

- You wanna know, you wanna know what we eat?

- They make weekly short influencer videos for social media that celebrate the store and all its products.

- There you go.

- Okay, here we go, folks.

They cut the caramel.

Look at the caramel in here.

- You cut it?

I cut it.

- No, I cut it.

Look at the caramel in here.

It's fantastic.

Here we go.

- Look at the toffee on top.

- Just eat.

- Okay.

- It's fantastic.

- I learned about Dorothy through her son, Robert Gastel, who's the current owner.

Dorothy was his mom, and she founded this literally in her home.

She used to go downstairs - In her basement - In the basement and make chocolate.

- And her son, Robert Gastel, who runs the place, still has souvenirs.

- This piece of marble is nostalgic to me because my mother used to use this back in the 1950s.

And when I see this marble, I get these pictures in my brain of prior times.

It's a good feeling.

- And good feelings can come with the chocolates.

- Mm.

I don't know what it is, but it's good.

This is big.

Look at that.

Pretzels and potato chips.

This can feed I, I don't know how many, - So this one takes it for me.

'cause you know what I'm gonna do when I taste this.

All right.

- Sweet.

- You gonna hold it while I do it?

- Well, it's the sweet and salty and that's such a fantastic combination.

It really is.

I, I love having that.

- All right.

- Yeah, go ahead.

Same with the pretzels.

D'you hear the crunch?

- Mmm.

- So promoting the chocolates has become a big part of the game too, but the shops are still crucial and extra special when the factory is close by.

So let's say you're heading northwest along Ohio River Boulevard, and when you get to the borough of Baden, you'll see Anderson's Candies just off the highway.

- We do milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and white chocolate.

We cover pretzels and nuts and fruits, and we make many chewy pieces like caramel, nougatine, peanut chew.

- Oh, there are lots of sweet reasons to shop here.

And Mary Anderson Cardwell is in charge nowadays.

- Well, my grandparents started the business in 1916.

We were in Ambridge till about 10 years ago, and then my parents took over when my grandparents passed away, and my mom ran it till just five years ago when she passed away.

And I'll take you back and we'll give you a tour.

- Mary invited us to see what goes on behind the shop.

- I'm right back here to the factory, - And the factory is big with a number of activities going at once.

- We run chocolates usually from seven in the morning till about four.

Every day, Monday through Friday.

During the holidays, we're here a lot later.

- They create most of their products in this part of the building.

And Mary's sister, Pam Anderson Smallis, also still works here and offered to show us one of her favorites.

- These are liqueur cups.

They're little cups that you can fill, and you can put any type of drink you want in, any type of liqueur.

Then you eat these after you're done with your liqueur.

- In this room, Damon is making all the novelty items.

He's making dark chocolate nonpareils right now, - But there's all kinds of stuff going on.

- We're running chocolate covered pretzels today, and we're also running dark chocolate turtles.

These are the freshly roasted pecans.

We freshly roast them and salt them every day before he puts the caramel on it.

And that's how we make the turtles.

- A turtle is an anim... is a reptile, right?

But we call them turtles because when they're chocolate covered, it resembles a turtle.

Now we, ours are called pecan treats.

- A pecan treat is caramel with pecans of course.

And whatever else Ted puts in our secret recipe.

Don't ask anymore, please.

- Ted is Ted Gagianas, and right now he's working with Travis Baumiller.

- Some of them do resemble turtles, but not all of them.

But I see, I could see the resemblance.

I love them.

- These are bald turtles or naked turtles or whatever you want to call it.

That's what you know, naked pecan treats.

- Without the shell.

- Without the shell.

Right.

And Travis is putting them onto the belt.

This is a feed line, and they go over a bottom coat, and those are refrigerated plates underneath.

And then waterfalled with dark chocolate.

That machine is called an enrober.

- The chocolate comes from the melter and it feeds up through the ceiling, and then it feeds over into the melters over there.

And then it feeds the enrobers.

- And then we have a woody stringer at the other end that puts a beautiful design on the, on the turtles.

And then they go into our 60-foot tunnel.

- This is called the tunnel.

They come down the tunnel.

- At the other end, the girls are cupping them and putting them into boxes.

- And occasionally Jane Paraniuk and Ashley Hileman will do a quality check.

- Mmm.

Mmm, They're excellent.

- What are you gonna run next?

- You know what?

These folks seem to like working here.

- Hello.

- Well, I started 13 years ago.

- I started here about 10 years ago.

- I'm here 38 years.

How's that for loyalty?

- I started 48 years ago.

In October, it was 48 years.

And I started as Mr.

Anderson's apprentice.

- Yeah.

- Jill Chirumbolo was packing pretzels.

- I love the people.

We feel like family here.

We all get along very well.

And who doesn't like chocolate?

- I love the feeling of it in my mouth.

I love everything about it.

- Everybody loves chocolate.

- Oh.

Because it's sweet.

- I think it releases endorphins.

Right?

I think it has the happy... - That's the truth, - ...happy feeling of the enjoyment.

And it's just really good.

- It's the same recipe my grandfather used 109 years ago.

I think it makes people happy.

- All these chocolate shops bring a special, delicious quality of life to Western Pennsylvania.

Sampling these fresh house-made candies can make you feel lucky to live around here.

- Are we lucky to live here?

- Are YOU lucky to live here?

- Yes.

Yes.

- Growing up in this area in general, we have such a long history of making things here, making everything.

- I'm grateful every day.

- Yeah.

I think Pittsburgh's a great, a great city.

- And a lot of delicious food and chocolates, good pizza places, good pierogis, especially in Ambridge.

- Yes.

I do feel lucky to live here as well.

I have my family around here.

Everybody stayed close, so get to see my grandma.

- I think everybody in our area just likes to have a good time.

- We're all such a community.

- People are just friendlier.

- I'm from Philadelphia, so it's a different environment out here, and I love it so much.

- People I think are very nice in this part of the world.

- It's just a spirit that you can't really describe.

- Just everything.

The culture, the sports.

I tell you what it is: it's the family traditions.

- I was born and raised here and I raised my daughters here.

And now my grandchildren live close by.

- Oh, it's the best place.