Ethel Mars' Wonderful World of Chocolate and Cacti.
Written: Oct 13 '09 (Updated Oct 13 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Free tour is nice enough. Amazing cactus gardens. World class chocolate.
Cons: Not enough to justify a special trip here if I was a tourist. Expensive chocolate.
The Bottom Line: Nice visit for locals or tourists who find themselves in the area or who want a break from the strip. The chocolate is delicious and the cactus gardens are great.
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| mickp's Full Review: The Ethel M® Chocolate Factory and Botanical ... |
Being a Las Vegas local I get to see some of the sights around Vegas that you might not expect to find in a town most famous for gambling and partying. One of the first of these sort of places my wife and I visited upon my arrival was Ethel M Chocolate Factory and Botanical Cactus Garden.
For those who haven't seen any of the ubiquitous chocolate documentaries (chocumentaries?) on History Channel, the M in Ethel M stands, of course, for Mars and even if you aren't up on your Mars family tree, you'll quickly be brought up to speed by the presence of an M&M themed gift shop that must be traversed to enter the chocolate factory itself. This shop sells all sorts of M&M themed merchandise and is basically a miniature outpost of the multi-storey M&M World located on The Strip. Here you can buy M&M's in a variety of colours and themes - souvenirs, board games, plush toys - you name it. It's all rather dull if you've seen this sort of thing before and unless you're a huge M&M fanatic I'd advise a quick skip through to the beginning of the tour.
The tour is largely self service and takes place down a single corridor situated between the M&M shop and the larger Ethel M chocolate shop. The entire left hand side of this corridor is one large glass window which looks out onto the complete Ethel M factory floor. If you have come during operating hours you get to witness the various stages of chocolate manufacture, however if you turn up on a weekend or after hours you might be disappointed by an inactive room of machinery. Since the tour of the factory is completely free this isn't too much of a concern, however I know there are bus tours out here from The Strip and I can imagine feeling like my time had been wasted if I was here on vacation and had shuttled out here NOT to see chocolate being made!
On the opposite wall to the viewing window there's a bit of the history of Ethel M and a timeline chronicling the history of chocolate - from a crude Mezzo American drink to the scrumptious treat we know it as today. This is pretty interesting and informative, despite some appalling punctuation and capitalization issues. As you progress along the short tour there are a couple of display cases showing solid chocolate moulds and other chocolate making paraphenalia.
People expecting a guided tour of all the ins and outs of a working chocolate factory are going to be bitterly disappointed by the casual stroll down one corridor - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this most definitely isn't - However if you haven't paid anything and take this for what it is you'll be happy.
Once you reach the end of the "tour" you'll be treated to a free sample of Ethel's chocolate which is absolutely delicious - some of the best I have ever tasted. You'll then enter their main shop which sells a wide variety of chocolate products, chocolate drinks (not unlike the cream-based frapaccinos from Starbucks - but better), chocolate coated apples, truffles, bar chocolate, liquer chocolates - the works. The only real drawback here is this stuff runs VERY expensively - We have trouble not buying the 48 piece back which costs $45 every trip here. At around a buck per piece this is a major indulgence. If you're lucky they will let you sample a few as you pick out your 48 pieces so take my advice and pretend to be indecisive! This will get you some free yummies!
If the interior tour seems a little lacking, one of the most interesting features of Ethel M's is their Botanical Cactus Garden right outside the factory. This is attached to an on-site water purification plant which cleans up all the water used in manufacture for use in watering the gardens. This is rather cool and visitors may tour the gardens and read the little explanations (sometimes straight off wikipedia - lol) of various cacti and native Nevadan plants. You can even see the various stages of water purification and there's a rest area with benches that would be pleasant if chocolate factory staff didn't use it as a place to chain smoke during their breaks.
Ethel's happens to be right at the end of the landing path of McCarran International Airport, so plane entusiasts can get some great shots of aircraft from the cactus gardens. A low-flying airliner comes over roughly every minute during the day. For everyone else, they aren't too loud to be distracting.
In mid October every year the huge cactus gardens are decorated with thousands of lights and other Christmas props for the holiday season - this is a real must-see at night in the latter parts of the year. Quite a sight to behold an a really different take on the usual christmas decoration setup.
Overall Ethel M Chocolate Factory and Botanical Cactus Gardens is a place I really enjoy visiting and am happy to have in town. I'm not really sure how much a tourist to Las Vegas, particularly one with limited time, is going to get out of this, but the combination of the free low-key self tour, free chocolate to try, delicious chocolate available for purchase and the impressive cactus gardens makes this a plate that my wife and I enjoy visiting every time we drive past on some other errand. Now I have a box of chocolates here that is in desperate need of consumption - you'll have to excuse me.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
mickp
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Member: Mike Price
Location: Aussie in Las Vegas, Nevada
Reviews written: 431
Trusted by: 270 members
About Me:
An Australian living in Vegas - Eating too much buffet and writing too many Epinions.
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