Pizzelle’s Confections

At Campus 805 in Huntsville, Pizzelle’s Confections has spent more than a decade turning fine chocolate into something closer to art than candy. The shop was founded by sisters Michelle Novosel and Caitlin Lyon, who moved to Huntsville in 1986 and built a shared background in the local arts community before eventually opening a chocolate shop that let them combine both interests.

The business traces back to Michelle’s childhood dream of running a candy store modeled on the one imagined in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The sisters sold their first chocolates in 2012 at The Switch House in Huntsville’s Lumberyard district, then held an official grand opening on March 16, 2013, in an 800-square-foot space with just four tables for customers. The shop’s name comes from a different childhood memory entirely, the Italian anise-flavored waffle cookies their grandparents always kept in the house. When the sisters were brainstorming names for the new business, Pizzelle’s kept coming up, and it eventually stuck.

Pizzelle’s built its original home at Historic Lowe Mill, Huntsville’s well-known arts and entertainment complex, before eventually moving to Campus 805, a newer development that has become home to several of the city’s food and retail businesses. Over more than thirteen years in business, the shop has grown from that four-table start into an operation that now sells more than 100,000 handmade chocolates a year, all made from fair-trade Felchlin chocolate.

The chocolate menu reads more like a list of short stories than a candy case. Truffles include El Machete, a dark chocolate ganache spiked with cayenne pepper, Ceylon cinnamon, and coffee liqueur, and Sexyback, a simpler salted caramel in a dark chocolate shell. Steel Magnolia layers vanilla bean milk chocolate with dark chocolate infused with chicory and coffee, while Goodbye Earl combines milk chocolate ganache with Earl Grey tea and local honey. Date Night brings together Grand Marnier, orange zest, and tamarind, and The Pizzelle, the shop’s namesake truffle, is built on dark chocolate ganache infused with star anise, Sambuca, and espresso.

Beyond the core truffle case, the shop makes a category it calls Big Bons, oversized chocolates like She Cried S’more, S’more, S’more, built on toasted marshmallow, chocolate crumb, and graham cracker praline, and Eat the Rich, a salted caramel and toasted hazelnut piece finished with buttery shortbread. The candy bar lineup includes Mommy Dearest, a caramel, almond, and toasted coconut bar whose recipe idea came from the sisters’ mother, and Bill Effing Murray, a dark chocolate whiskey ganache bar with pecan caramel and toasted marshmallow. A vegan option, Green Dragon, built on cardamom, coffee, and burnt sugar, shows the shop is not limiting its creativity to traditional dairy-based chocolate.

Pizzelle’s is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and closed Sunday and Monday. The shop also runs chocolate-making classes and tours for anyone who wants to see how the confections are made, along with corporate and special order services for gifts and events. For visitors interested in the story behind their sweets as much as the sweets themselves, Pizzelle’s offers both, a small, sister-run chocolate shop that has grown from a handful of tables into one of Huntsville’s better-known dessert destinations.

The move from Lowe Mill to Campus 805 put Pizzelle’s alongside a growing cluster of independent food and retail businesses in that part of the city, giving visitors a chance to pair a stop at the chocolate shop with a broader afternoon of exploring the surrounding development. The sisters’ mother remains part of the shop’s story as well, having contributed the idea behind the Mommy Dearest candy bar, a small detail that underscores how much of the business has stayed a family affair even as it has scaled up to six-figure annual chocolate production. For visitors who want to understand how a piece of candy is made rather than simply buy one, the shop’s classes and tours offer a rare look behind the counter at a working chocolate kitchen.