Copyright 1999 Union Leader Corp

March 29, 1999 Monday ALL EDITIONS

SECTION: SECTION A Pg. 1

LENGTH: 1074 words

HEADLINE: (IN THE CITY) Van Otis Chocolates: divinely decadent

BYLINE: JOHN CLAYTON

BODY:
If you're reading this at, oh, let's say 9 a.m., then you can bet that the line is forming in front of the counter at Van Otis Chocolates right . . . about . . . now!

Purists, like me, wouldn't have it any other way.

At Van Otis, it's not about time.  It's about tradition, and traditionally, when you are a patron of Manchester's premier chocolatier, you can count on two things.  One, there will be a winding line of customers and two, you will walk away with a divinely decadent product that is worth the wait (and its weight in gold).

Is it the only candy shop in town?  No, as recent advertisements for the Candy Kingdom at 235 Harvard St.  have properly pointed out, but there is a romanticism to Van Otis a kind of magic and mystique that can only be won over time.

How much time?  More than half a century.  It's been at least that long since the late Evangeline Hasiotis as unlikely a rebel as you would ever imagine defied her family and founded what has become a Manchester institution.

"She was working at Fuller Brush," said Chris (Labanaris) Nagios, who, in her varied capacities at Van Otis through the years, has become as much of a staple as the Swiss fudge.  "Her parents just wanted her to get married, but she had a mind of her own."

And what she had in mind was a candy stand.  In the late 1930s, she attended the Fanny Farmer Confectionery School in Boston, and before long, the family business the legendary Olympia Baking Company was offering chocolate cremes along with coffee and kourambiethes right there at 27 Spruce St., in the heart of Manchester's own little Athens.

"And she'd never leave the store," said Chris.  "Every day, she'd send me across the street to get her lunch at the Macedonia, but she never left the store."

Sadly, she has left.  Evangeline passed away in 1995, but thankfully, the store that bears a Dutch-sounding distillation of her name Evangeline Hasiotis equals Van Otis is as vital and as vibrant as ever.

These days, the store which relocated to 157 Chestnut St.  in 1961 is owned by brothers-in-law Dave Quinn and Frank Bettencourt.  After waiting through a long period of probate, they purchased the business in November.

(By the way, the business is not the only thing they have in common.  They married sisters from Manchester Jackie and Betty Marino who told them chapter and verse about the legacy of Van Otis.  Did they listen?  You bet, and we should be grateful, for these are two businessmen who are possessed of a rare gift.)

(They know when to leave well enough alone.)

"As much as it is a business, we know that we bought into an institution," Dave smiled.  "I don't know that we had any idea of the work involved, both out front and in back, to make this place go.  Now we know, and it's something that has to be preserved."

For starters, they preserved the staff in itself a stroke of genius and then lifted the veil of secrecy that had been Evangeline's trademark.  Over the years, that trademark had begun to backfire.  Rumors floated around town that Van Otis no longer produced its own chocolates.  The rumors were as false then as they are today.

You have John Costanza's word on it.

"They do have machines that do this," said John, a 30-year Van Otis veteran, as he funneled handmade coffee creme into hundreds and hundreds of molds the size of your encircled thumb and index finger.  "They call them 'depositers,' but we've never used them."

The rich smell of coffee filled John's kitchen, the same kitchen where he roasts cashews and almonds and pecans before they become chocolate-covered clusters in the surgically dexterous hands of Sandra (Gimas) Plaisance.

Sandra's title?  She's the "dipper," and given the staggering numerical challenge that faces her each and every day, she should be promoted to the "Big Dipper."

Her workplace would be the envy of every 8-year-old in the world.  To her left on this day, there are racks and racks of brightly colored lemon creme nuggets; to her right, a warm vat of silky milk chocolate.

Her movements?  The chocolate?  It's hard to tell which is smoother.

With her right hand, she draws a small wave of chocolate onto a marble cooling board.  Gently, after gauging the temperature with nothing but her fingers, she works the molten chocolate with those same fingers while her left hand plucks a lemon creme nugget from the tray.  Instantly, the nugget is in the chocolate.  Fluidly, Sandra rolls it in her fingers, returns it to the tray and with a gentle motion of her thumb, she answers forget about the Sphinx one of the great riddles of our time.

"It's called 'stringing,' " she laughed.

This is nothing to laugh about.

This is big.

Never again will children or adults have to pierce the bottom of a Van Otis chocolate to determine what lies within.  The answer is on the top, where Sandra whose fingers should be bronzed deftly leaves a letter, in chocolate, that reveals the contents.

"If it's lemon, she makes an 'L.'  If it's orange, there's an 'O.'  Coffee gets a 'C.'  Raspberry gets an 'R' and so on.  That's how we know what goes on what shelf and in what box," said Chris, who seemed unaware that she was revealing a code which, to me, is matched only by the Rosetta stone.

How many pieces will Sandra dip and sign in a day?  More than there are words in this column.  Even with that pace, Van Otis will be hard pressed to meet the demands of a demanding clientele.

Van Otis chocolates are shipped to every state in America.  Five tons of Swiss fudge that's 10,000 pounds are sold every year and in the Easter week ahead second only to Christmas in volume counting the individual chocolates would be as impossible as counting snowflakes.

What the new owners do count on are their customers.

"We appreciate their loyalty and their patience," Dave said.  "We know that in this location, we're not on the way to anywhere, so people who come here are coming specifically to visit out store, and we're doing everything we can to accommodate them.

"We put in a number system so they can browse instead of waiting in line," he said, "and we're working to serve them more quickly by packaging chocolates ahead.  Still, one thing our customers love about Van Otis is the chance to hand-pick their own assortment and that won't change.  We don't want that to change."

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