Birnn Chocolates

I just ordered a box of mixed dark and light cashew turtles. I hadn’t tasted a Birnn Chocolate since I moved from New Jersey in the 60s! But memories of the delicious chocolate came back immediately when a friend recently brought me a box. I didn’t even realize the Birnn chocolate factory was still open. Anyway, the dark chocolate is delicious and the cashews are huge, fresh, and crunchy. I wouldn’t mind having a bit more caramel in the turtle, but what’s there is excellent and not too sweet. All in all, the cashew turtles are awesome and not to be missed. Except maybe on the Birnn Chocolate website which, for some reason, doesn’t include a photo of the cashew turtle.

Pros: Cute shop, friendly service, large selection, decent chocolate
Cons: You choose a chocolate and then they take it out of a little drawer behind the counter, instead of from the display case (?!), hard to tell what is made there vs. off premises, decent chocolate

Awesome chocolate. Cutest place. What more could you want?

It’s Highland Park’s treasure: a little chocolate factory/​store tucked into a mostly residential section. I grew up very close to Birnn, and my mother would give me and my friends a dollar each to get a little white bag of candy. «A dollar’s worth of chocolate break-​up, please!» Just enough to eat on the walk home. Even though we were only spending a dollar, Bill Birnn was so kind to us that we might as well have been spending $ 100.
Birnn has delicious milk and dark chocolates – truffles, turtles, bark, caramels, chocolate-​covered graham crackers, mints, and whatever else you can think of, all made right there, except maybe the truffles, which I believe are made in their Vermont location, where the Birnn brothers are now based. The people who work there are also extremely friendly, and they even give you a free piece of chocolate of your choice, just for buying something. (If you resist, they’ll tempt you with, «Come on! You gotta try something!») Even if you don’t live near Highland Park, Birnn is totally worth the trip, and worth the cost.

OK, maybe only four stars, but how many chocolate factories do you know of in New Jersey? Off on a side street but worth a trip. Walk in and the smell of chocolate hits you big time. Very nice selection of chocolate truffles and novelty items. Want to impress the office? Bring in the three foot tall chocolate Santa. 35 pounds of goodness at $ 270.