Ethel M Chocolate Factory in Las Vegas

Who doesn’t love chocolate? Well, I do know some of you who dislike this essential food group. But, many of the rest of us dream of swimming in chocolate. Those dreamers may not be able to swim in chocolate goodness. However, they can tour the Ethel M Chocolate Factory in Las Vegas and experience a working chocolate factory.

You won’t find just chocolate at the Ethel M Factory. There also is a succulent and cactus botanical garden to stroll through and admire.

Join us on a tour of the Ethel M Chocolate Factory and Cactus Garden.

About Ethel M

Forrest Mars, Sr. created The Ethel M Chocolate Company in 1978. A member of the Mars family, Forrest (creator of Milky Way and M&Ms) worked at the family business for 40 years, retiring in 1969. He then decided to create a new confectionary company, naming it after his mother, Ethel. Ethel M Chocolate opened in 1980, Mars, Inc purchased the company in 1988.

The Ethel M Chocolate Factory in Las Vegas is the company’s home base. Ethel M chocolate is made on site.

See Chocolate Made

The factory is open for self-guided tours daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Reservations are not needed to come in and watch the chocolatiers create their confections. The self-guided tour is free. However, you can purchase add-on experiences. Upon enter the facility, a host welcomes you and explains what you’ll find during the tour. The host also gives you samples.

From here, you watch from behind a glass window as the staff works to create their goods.

On the day we toured, there was not a lot of action or chocolate making going on. We did see some employees (donned in scrubs and hair bonnets) inspecting the machines. I guess we caught the factory during a routine maintenance inspection.

Even though there was little at play behind the glass window, we viewed all of the chocolate making equipment, including molds and tempering machines.

In the main visitor’s room, we also watched as one employee made chocolate covered strawberries from her smaller workstation. Her workstation included a small, table top tempering machine, where we could watch the molten chocolate swirling before she dipped the strawberries.

I also insisted on my picture at the Chocolate Wall.

Sample and Buy

You don’t have to watch the staff make chocolate only. You also can purchase at the Cactus Garden Cafe.

At the cafe you can purchase pre-packaged chocolates, or order milkshakes, hot chocolate, and other delicious treats.

We purchased some of those chocolate covered strawberries. And we bought some packaged chocolate to take home.

Explore the On-Site Cactus Garden

It’s fun to tour the factory. The site also has a cactus and succulent garden worth exploring. The garden includes more than 300 species of desert plants.

You can stroll leisurely through the gardens, listening to music piping through speakers throughout the garden.

I read that the botanical garden is decorated with lights during the Christmas season. That makes it a popular stop during the holiday season

Final Thoughts

This was a fun, quick stop for our family during another trip to Las Vegas. We do visit the city often, and we are always looking for new things to see and do.

The chocolate factory fit the bill. It gave us an hour to explore, taste and buy. You only need an hour to explore the premises.

When we return to Las Vegas, we might drop back at Ethel M again to stroll through the Cactus Garden, or get some samples.

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