LANGLEY — Nutty. Chewy. Hot. Cold. Creamy.
Sweet Mona’s Chocolates has treats for all tastes.
About 300 varieties of handcrafted sweets fill the bright yellow shop at 221 Second St. in Langley.
“I never dreamed about being a chocolatier,” founder Mona Newbauer said.
Now, decades later, she can’t imagine not being smudged in chocolate.
Her customers can’t imagine life without Sweet Mona’s creations.
Mona Newbauer fills peace sign molds with chocolate inside her store Sweet Mona’s Chocolates on March 21, 2024 in Langley. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
Sweet Mona’s chocolate-covered caramels are a top seller. Caramel is stirred in a copper pot.
Can’t make it to the candy shop on Whidbey Island? Boxes of the caramels are sold online ($30 for 12 pieces) and at SeaTac Airport.
“My mom never let me play in the dirt as a child so now I can get messy as I want with chocolate,” said Newbauer, 63.
On this day, she was melting chocolate to pour into molds of slugs, those slithery garden pests.
Here, slugs are solid chocolate delights.
“What’s more natural in the Pacific Northwest than a few slugs?” Newbauer said. “It started with Mystery Weekend. They were having a slug in their mystery and asked if I could do that.”
There’s not much she can’t do, be it white chocolate whales or peanut butter mice. Lollies are in the shape of sunflowers and daisies.
Chocolate whales are displayed inside Sweet Mona’s Chocolates. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
In the glass case are trays of marshmallows, haystacks, marzipans and meltaways. Truffle fillings include chili-cinnamon, pomegranate-strawberry, triple berry, and ginger.
Hand-wrapped caramels are in licorice and lavender flavors. Cookies, bars and brittles are packaged to-go.
Coffee and gelato bars offer hot and cold choices.
Can’t decide?
Order an affogato, gelato drowned with a shot of hot espresso.
Mona Newbauer scoops gelato while a child watches inside her store Sweet Mona’s Chocolates. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
Newbauer opened the first Sweet Mona’s in 2006 in what is now Langley Kitchen. Eight years later, she moved into a bigger space across the street. She painted the new place yellow because, she said, it is a happy color.
The path to the store has plants and flowers. In front are orange Adirondack chairs and cafe tables. The window lettering says “You can’t buy happiness but you can buy chocolate!”
“The smell of a sweet shop is a top tier aroma. Maybe second only to a bakery,” said Ben Watanabe, a former island journalist. “It was always fascinating to watch them make the treats in the shop, and see throngs of people in the store on a busy summer day.”
The village of Langley is a dessert destination.
In the town square is Sprinklz Ice Cream Parlor & Coffee Shop and Whidbey Pies Pie Shop. Ultra House ramen restaurant has Japanese snacks. The Clyde Theatre has boxed candy and hot popcorn.
Why not try them all?
Peanut butter cups are displayed inside Sweet Mona’s Chocolates. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
Newbauer worked in offices before chocolate changed her life, with her husband, Tony, a willing accomplice.
“We were talking about chocolate one weekend,” she said. “My oldest son worked at a bakery and told the bakery manager I wanted to make truffles for the bakery. He came home all excited. I was like… ‘huh?’ I didn’t know what a truffle was.”
Things came together.
“I looked online, and treated a truffle like a cookie recipe,” she said. “I’ve always been open to happenstance and serendipity.”
Starting out, she met the chocolate distributor by the side of the road. “He opened his trunk and I opened my wallet and gave him money,” she said.
She took online courses at Ecole Chocolat in Vancouver, B.C. and joined professional organizations to hone her craft.
“I bought my first recipe book for 5 bucks from a candy company in Chicago that had closed and their children had inherited it,” she said.
At first, she cooked out of a commercial kitchen and sold truffles at farmers markets. She added brittle and toffee to her candy chest when she scored a deal on used equipment.
Her caramel confections took off.
“When we started we slabbed it out on a marble table between metal rulers and we cut it with a pizza knife,” she said. “After we partnered with Seattle Chocolate Company to sell Sweet Mona’s chocolate caramels under their label our business was forced to grow to meet demand and change some processes.”
Mona Newbauer pours caramel into a machine inside her store Sweet Mona’s Chocolates on March 21, 2024 in Langley. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
She uses origin dark chocolate from Ecuador and milk chocolate from Venezuela.
“To temper chocolate is like tempering steel,” she said. “You bring it to a point where it is malleable so you can work with it.”
There’s more than tweaking recipes and playing with chocolate.
“You have to figure out how to do the books and fix all the equipment you buy, do some marketing, manage people,” she said. The shop employs six.
Tourists mosey in and become repeat customers.
Redmond couple Belinda Cheah and Jonathan Perkins are among the regulars. She likes the nut chocolates. Her husband likes the creams.
They come to Langley to take their dog for quarterly vet visits and to stock up at Sweet Mona’s.
“We always stop by here. We buy it for friends and neighbors,” she said. “People say, ‘Why do you even have a vet in Langley?’”
Answer: “The vet is good and the chocolate is good.”
Andrea Brown: 425-339-3443; abrown@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @reporterbrown.
Other sweet spots in Langley
Sprinklz Ice Cream Parlor and Coffee Shop, 224 First St.; sprinklz-icecream.com
Whidbey Pies Pie Shop, 111 Anthes Ave.; whidbeypies.com/pie-shop
Ultra House, 221 Second St., #9A; ultrahouse.us
The Clyde Theatre, 217 First St.; theclyde.net
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