Mary Jane's Chocolates re-opened at a new location Saturday, April 23, 2016, at 825 College Street. (Bac Totrong/photo@bgdailynews.com)

Mary Jane’s Chocolates is back with a new storefront located just off Fountain Square Park downtown.

As owner Gary Meszaros describes the chocolate creations that his wife, Mary Jane – yep, the store takes its name from Meszaros’ wife – makes for Mary Jane’s Chocolates, one’s mouth begins to water. By the way, the little chocolate horses and dogs on a stick taste quite good.

“My wife is a true chocolateteer,” Meszaros said. Prior to opening Mary Jane’s Chocolates the first time in 2010, Mary Jane Meszaros and her daughter, Marie, received instruction from people connected with Retail Confectioners International, a not-for-profit trade association founded in Chicago in 1917. 

RCI’s membership is composed of chocolate and candy makers, confectioners and industry suppliers with a passion for excellent confections throughout the U.S., Canada and overseas, according to the website.

Marie Meszaros said being a chocolateteer is lots and lots of work.

“You have to have a lot of patience and grit and have to want to do it,” said Marie Meszaros during a short break Saturday at the checkout area of the tiny store.

“Mom came up with the idea in 1993 and from 1993 to 2009 we took classes,” Marie Meszaros said.

She said she was amazed with all the different kinds of people and locales during the instruction.

Gary Meszaros said Saturday that a distributor once asked him if his father had been a chocolateteer or perhaps a grandfather.

“No,” Meszaros replied. “We’re starting from scratch.”

Gary Meszaros said the distributor recounted that in the 40 years he had been in the business, he had never run across anyone who started a chocolate operation from scratch.

“People said it would be a lot of work,” Marie Meszaros recalled Saturday. She and her father and mother soon realized they would be working around major holidays like Christmas and Valentine’s Day, when others had time off.

“Your holiday revolves around everyone else’s,” Marie Meszaros said.

Her father said the family is helped by Sherry Blanton, who has worked part-time for him at Western Kentucky University. Gary Meszaros is assistant vice president of business and auxiliary services at WKU.

While Gary Meszaros chatted, patrons milled around the little shop. Above them hung a rough metal roof and one wall that was dominated by two large mirrors supported by wooden cases with drawers. Meszaros said the display cases at one time were used in a barber shop.

In the middle of the store were rows of boxed chocolates. The other wall had eye-level glass display cases filled with all kinds of chocolate-covered goodies. 

Mary Jane’s, which once had a storefront in the 1600 block of Scottsville Road in Bowling Green, is now inside a little tan-colored building at the edge of the Daily News parking lot on College Street.

The 500-square foot building is right between Fountain Square Park and Stadium Park Plaza, two high foot-traffic areas. Gary Meszaros said the commercial kitchen will stay inside their house and chocolate delights such as chocolate-covered strawberries or chocolate-covered pineapple will be transported to the new storefront. There are 70 different chocolate creations and the Meszaros will also make custom-ordered items. Mary Jane’s Chocolates won best display this year at the annual Chocolate Festival in Bowling Green.

Gary Meszaros said Mary Jane’s is known in the region for its peanut butter melt and mint melt chocolates. The price point on boxes of chocolates comes in the mid-$20 range and the gift boxes come in eight, 12, 15 and 30-pieces.

Gary Meszaros said when they had the old storefront, they helped out with an engagement of a couple. A diamond was placed in chocolate and when the groom-to-be popped the question to the bride-to-be, one of the mothers hid where she could video the whole moment.

He also recalled the time a woman in her 80s gave the Meszaros family antique chocolate molds that were valued at upwards of $500. 

Gary Meszaros likes the new location in Bowling Green’s downtown..

“After the lease ended next to the BAC, it has taken a long time to find the right location,” he said. “It is in a downtown area right in the middle of everything.”

Patrons may have noticed a fundraiser this past weekend at the storefront for the Western Kentucky University Pre-College Strings Program. Mary Jane’s contributed 10 percent of the day’s proceeds to send a WKU student to Tanzania to teach violin to children.

For the occasion, Mary Jane’s made rare, single-origin Tanzania and violin-shaped chocolates.

Ching-Yi Lin, WKU assistant professor of music in violin and director of the WKU Pre-College Strings Program, said in an email to the Daily News that two of Marie Meszaros’ children, Jason and Natalie, study violin in the WKU Pre-College Strings Program and take lessons with Emily Vaughn, a graduate student at WKU.

“Marie and I spoke one day after group classes, and I told her about our upcoming trip to teach the violin in Tanzania,” Lin said. “She generously offered to help Emily fundraise for this project, and she invited us to perform at the grand opening of their new location. Emily and I will be traveling to Tanzania to begin a music program that teaches violin to children as young as age 4,” Lin said in the email.

Lin, a concertmaster for The Symphony at WKU, said the fundraiser combined two of her favorite things: violins and chocolate.

— Follow business reporter Charles A. Mason on Twitter @BGDNbusiness or visit bgdailynews.com.