Sweet smell, taste of chocolate comes to downtown Neenah

Cheryl Hentz

Contributor

August 25, 2025

NEENAH – John O. Houlihan said opening Wilmar Chocolates’ second location at 220 W. Wisconsin Ave. in Neenah felt like the perfect move to grow the family business.

“We decided to have a retail store in downtown Neenah because we wanted to grow our brand, and it’s such a wonderful downtown shopping area,” he said. “They have a wonderful coffee shop, flower shop, bakery, restaurants, nice cocktail lounges and it’s just a wonderful, very charming downtown.”

Though relatively new to the region – purchasing Wilmar Chocolates in Appleton in 2021 – Houlihan said he and his business partner/father, John E., are not new to selling chocolate.

John O. Houlihan said he started Four Brothers Chocolates in Wheaton, Illinois, eight years ago after graduating from college.

Though in the beginning, Houlihan said his father still worked full-time outside of the business, he joined the operation full-time when he bought Wilmar Chocolates in Appleton.

Houlihan said the decision to open a second shop in Neenah seemed like it would be a perfect fit with the downtown and provided a clear opportunity to expand the business.

“We thought [it] would be an excellent place to have a chocolate shop,” he said. “I was surprised there wasn’t a chocolate shop already here.”

Continuing the tradition

The Houlihans are the third family to own and operate Wilmar Chocolates – which was founded by Wilbur and Mary Jane Srnka in 1956 as Wilmar Candies.

Per its website (wilmarchocolates.com), Wilbur found a “perfect location for the business” at the corner of Superior Street and Wisconsin Avenue in Appleton – a building that was constructed in 1907.

Wilbur crafted all the original recipes – which included chocolates and a variety of other candies – assisted by Mary Jane and their seven children in running the store.

After 28 years of carefully nurturing and growing the business, per the website, Wilbur decided to sell the business.

In the spring of 1984, Wilmar Candies was purchased by the Garvey family – Liz Garvey, her brother Paul Garvey and his wife, Lisa. 

As part of the sales agreement, the website states, a one-year apprenticeship was included so the recipes and techniques used in perfecting the chocolates could be learned and properly passed on.

The business, staff and brand grew under the Garvey’s ownership. 

In 1990, the name was changed from Wilmar Candies to Wilmar Chocolates – to, according to the website, better reflect what the shop sold and what people most loved about the Wilmar brand and products.

With the name change came some new, additional recipes, and the Golden Boxes, synonymous with the Wilmar Brand, were introduced along with its Signature Assortments.

Fast-forward 37 years, and the Garveys decided to sell their business to a new generation of confectioners – the Houlihan family, who shared their passion for quality chocolate and love and devotion to family. 

Houlihan said there were a few reasons why he and his father wanted to buy Wilmar’s Chocolates.

“The family-owned story of Wilbur and Mary Jane and the Garveys really spoke to us,” he said. “We’re a family-owned, father-and-son team, and it’s really exciting to be able to steward this brand and grow this brand and maintain it.”

Though ownership switched hands, Houlihan said there haven’t been any changes to the name or the recipes.

“These are things we wanted to honor and steward,” he said. “And it’s really unique for me to be in business eight years and to be owning and operating a 70- or 80-year-old business. That’s very exciting for us.”

Wilmar’s large production space in Appleton, Houlihan said, “is beautiful.”

“There are windows on Wisconsin Avenue where people can look in and see our production space,” he said. “We thought as we were growing our brands, we wanted to expand our production ability, and owning Wilmar Chocolates would give us that capability. Those were the two draws.”

Houlihan said “the awesome Wilmar staff” was an added bonus for them.

Among the staff in Appleton, he said two of the employees are celebrating 20 years with the business this year, while another employee has been there 38 years and another is celebrating 24 years with Wilmar. 

“When we saw that, as prospective buyers, we realized it was a great business – not only for the customers, but also for the staff, and we wanted to be a part of that,” he said. “We want to continue those legacies. It just felt like everything fit.”

Wilmar’s portfolio of more than 120 different varieties of light and dark chocolate, Houlihan said, was also intriguing. 

“Four Brothers probably has 25 different varieties,” he said. “But we were trained by the previous owners on how to make all these different chocolates, and that was an awesome thing. My knowledge base of candymaking has really expanded since buying Wilmar’s in 2021.”

Houlihan said he and his wife moved to this area after buying the store in Appleton.

Meanwhile, he said his dad runs the two locations of Four Brothers Chocolates and Blue Heaven Ice Cream, another business they own.

Growing the Wilmar brand

Since opening the Neenah location just a few weeks ago, Houlihan said Wilmar Chocolates has been a hit, especially with the locals – some of whom have never heard of Wilmar Chocolates.

“We have a few customers every day where it’s their first time trying our chocolate,” he said. “So, that’s been really exciting, sharing some of the best chocolate in Wisconsin with people who didn’t really know about us before. It’s been really exciting to grow our brand that way. This is a cool brand that we have, and it’s a wonderful family-owned business with original recipes from 1956, and buffet boxes, which you don’t see very often anymore.”

Immediately upon leasing the Neenah space, Houlihan said they went to work – doing most everything themselves, including designing how they wanted the space to look, the color schemes, the penny floor tile, the painting, the furniture and cabinetry and even the trains running along a track suspended from the ceiling – paying tribute to the thousands of trains that have and continue to come and go through the Neenah train depot and switching station.

“For two months, it was quite a project,” he said. “But, we want this to be a place where people come and enjoy themselves, and that they enjoy the beauty of the chocolates, of our chocolate case, how we designed the space, our penny floor tile and everything we’ve done in the space.”

Houlihan said the goal was to create a welcoming environment where visitors can have an enjoyable experience.

“We really tried to bring in the beauty of the area, and we want to be a place where people come and enjoy everything that we have to offer,” he said.

Distinct differences between locations 

Visitors to the Appleton and Neenah locations will notice clear differences between the two – a distinction Houlihan said is intentional.

For example, the Neenah location offers 16 flavors of Capannari Ice Cream. 

“They’re a Chicago-based business, but they make all their ice cream in Madison,” he said. “It’s delicious ice cream and is all made with their family recipes. It’s kind of a new, exciting thing we’re doing at this shop. We thought it would be a great thing to do with us being in the downtown area right across from The Plaza [at Gateway Park] downtown and its skating rink.”

The Neenah location, Houlihan said, also has a drinking chocolate menu that people can choose from.

“Drinking chocolate is a hot chocolate drink,” he said. “It is not hot chocolate or hot cocoa. Drinking chocolate is a chocolate that is melted into cream and milk. It’s a very decadent, rich chocolate drink. We have different flavors. We also serve hot cocoa. So, those are some unique things we’re doing now at the Neenah store.”

Houlihan said the Appleton location is unique in that it offers a customer “mix it up” bar where on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays people can come and make their own chocolate bar.  

“We make it for them, but they can choose the inclusions,” he said. “That’s kind of a fun thing we do there. It’s also nice because people can look in the back production area and see where everything is made.”

Houlihan said the two locations are designed to have, and will continue to have, their own distinct identities, with certain specialty items or experiences offered at one store but not the other. 

“We sell the same chocolates at each location,” he said, “but the experiential things are a little different from Appleton to Neenah.”

Houlihan said the Appleton store has about 40 employees, 12 of whom are full-time, while the Neenah location currently has five or six, with further plans of hiring about four or five more – all of whom bring their own expertise in chocolate.

“One of the things we’re passionate about is providing an educational experience to our customers,” he said. “We want them to leave knowing something about chocolate that they didn’t know when they came in. We think that’s part of providing an excellent shopping experience.”

Houlihan said helping customers understand the skill and detail that goes into handcrafted chocolate is part of what makes the work meaningful. 

Wilmar Chocolates’ busy season, he said, starts right after Labor Day weekend and goes through Easter.

In the fall, he said they spin their own caramel apples sold at both locations – using apples sourced from local orchards. 

“We’re excited to kick off the holiday season, especially in downtown Neenah,” he said. “They have such beautiful fall and Christmas traditions, and we’re looking forward to being a part of them.”

Houlihan said Wilmar Chocolates is a tradition for so many people, and “we want to keep it nostalgic.”

“That’s one of the reasons our store feels old-fashioned,” he said. “On the back wall in our Neenah store, we have hung many of our old, antique copper pots and different things like that that were original to the founding of our business. We try to keep it traditional and nostalgic to handcrafted chocolates.”  

In being true to the brand and honoring the recipes created and handed down over the decades, Houlihan said the recipes have not changed in any way.

“Our team takes great pride in the history of our brand, and we are thankful for the opportunity to steward Wilmar Chocolates for generations to come,” he said.