Thirty-two years after his father, Mike Malley, opened the first Malley's Chocolates, Bill Malley Sr. carried on the legacy when he took over the business of making chocolates and ice cream in 1967. With ice cream parlors in four of its 22 stores today, Malley's still uses Mike's original recipes to make its 35 flavors, such as chocolate chunk and butter pecan, as well as some of its own candies in its ice cream. Bill recalls the commotion of opening the second store in 1949 and what makes eating Malley's ice cream a Cleveland tradition.
We caused a traffic jam. It was just a mess up there. The police had to come up and direct traffic, and the store was jammed all night long. One time we seated 100 people in there.
We had a butter pecan that was really terrific, and the chocolate was very good because we were using the same chocolate in our chocolates that we used in our ice cream. In those days, there wasn't a great variety. If somebody had eight or nine flavors, that was a lot.
My dad always said, "Make your items like you're making it for yourself. Make it really nice, and make it good." He wanted our customers to have a good time when they came to our store, and we want them to feel welcome.
We make all our own toppings. We have a great fudge recipe that people are envious of. That's really a hallmark of our operation — the great hot fudge sundaes. We take great pride in all our syrups and toppings. You're not going to get them any better.
