Tahoe City Chocolates offers quality handcrafted treats and a uniquely engaging experience

Mike Akay hand-selects a collection of his favorite chocolates for a gift box

Just off the main drag in Tahoe City, up the wide wooden staircase of the Boatworks Mall, sits one of the area’s most unlikely treasures. Most people pass right by it. These days, few even wander into the aging building, which feels half-abandoned since Jake’s on the Lake closed its doors. Empty storefronts outnumber the open ones.

But tucked into an upstairs corner is a chocolate shop that feels almost hidden in time. 

The moment you step inside, the air changes, warm with the scent of cocoa and caramel. Glass cases packed with handmade sweets glow beneath fluorescent lights. Within seconds, someone is offering a sample, making it nearly impossible to turn around and leave. 

Behind the counter stands a man who isn’t your typical chocolatier: Mike Akay, a former speed skier with the timing and wit of a stand-up comedian. He is the unlikely caretaker who helped rescue this small Tahoe confectionery from fading away.

A Delicious Tradition Lives On

Chocolate itself has traveled a long road to reach places like this. Its origins stretch back more than 3,000 years to ancient Mesoamerica, where the Olmec civilization in southern Mexico first fermented, roasted and ground cacao seeds (commonly known as beans). The process was later refined by the Maya and Aztec into a bitter, spiced drink. 

Spanish explorers in the 1500s carried cacao to Europe, where sugar and milk were used to transform it into the sweeter chocolate we know today. Caramel followed as sugar became widely available in Europe, while buttery toffee emerged in nineteenth-century England. By the late 1800s, these traditions had crossed the Atlantic, taking root in American kitchens and eventually in small shops like Tahoe City Chocolates. 

Mike Akay’s mother designed the labels on the chocolate gift boxes

The Tahoe shop itself began in 1981, when a Sacramento confectioner who operated a candy store at Arden Fair mall decided to open a second location in the mountains. Over the decades, the business passed through several hands before landing with its current owner.

Akay, a Bay Area native fresh off a ski racing career and still dabbling in comedy, was working as a journalist for the Squaw Valley Times and Tahoe Weekly when his passion for desserts began spilling into his professional world. He had learned the basics of chocolate-making from a shop owner in San Francisco and often crafted handmade chocolates as holiday gifts, quietly building a reputation for his sweets.

The shop’s third owner repeatedly urged Akay to buy the business, recognizing his talent, but Akay never seriously considered it until he heard the store might close for good.

“I stepped up because I didn’t want to see the community lose that flavor,” he says.

Akay purchased the business in 2008, ensuring the small Tahoe tradition would continue.

Today, he runs the store alongside his son, Everett, and together they’ve created one of the region’s most unusual, sweet experiences, even using watercolor artwork by Akay’s mom for the packaging on some of the products. 

Sweet Experience

Finding the shop is part of the adventure. It appears almost like a mirage in a commercial desert, but stepping inside feels like entering a candy lover’s wonderland.  

Mike Akay runs Tahoe City Chocolates along with his son, Everett, in the Boatworks Mall

With more than 500 products lining the shelves, visitors can choose classics like English toffee, rocky road and buttery caramels, or sample treats Akay has sourced from around the globe: Turkish delight, halvah, Japanese Kit Kats, coffee-crusted macadamias from Hawaii, and various sweets from every European chocolate-producing country. The store also features a unique selection of Pez locked in a glass cabinet and has every kind of gummy one could ever imagine.

But visiting isn’t as simple as picking out a few chocolates and heading to the register. Walking through the door means entering Akay’s world of endless taste tests, where curiosity is encouraged, samples are inevitable and being on the receiving end of a joke is part of the game.

The Tahoe City shop primarily uses chocolate from the Guittard Chocolate Company. Founded in 1868, the company, based in Burlingame, California, is the oldest continuously family-owned chocolate manufacturer in the country, spanning five generations. Akay says a member of the Guittard family still comes to the store whenever he visits the Tahoe area. 

Chocolate has always been a special treat passed down through generations, across continents and between people, putting smiles on their faces. Tahoe City Chocolates reflects that lineage not only through its four owners, but through its customers as well—families returning year after year, drawn by the simple pull of a sweet tooth.

On a recent visit to the shop, Tahoe City resident Skyler Hazen is looking for Icelandic dark chocolate. Before long, Akay fires up a batch of Amish Country Popcorn on the stove, tossing it with savory spices. A quick stop has turned into a memorable experience—and another unexpected offering from the man behind Tahoe City Chocolates.

While waiting, Hazen mentions he’s been coming in about once a month for the past few years. “Everything is rotated, so every time I come here, there’s something new, something I’ve never seen,” he says, reaching for a bag of popcorn he had not planned on buying.

Ryan Salm is a Tahoe-based photographer and writer. After tasting some delectable samples courtesy of Mike Akay, he highly recommends dropping by Tahoe City Chocolates.