By LOUISE CONTINELLI
News Staff Reporter
8/28/2006

With his Buffalo chocolate factory, Dan Johnson's a downtown Willy Wonka.

"Willy's for kids - me too!" the creative chocolatier said. Like the fabled chocophile, Johnson builds his own empire from the cacao tree.

He knows the golden ticket can be found in the city.

Ronald J. Colleran/Buffalo News
Dan Johnson, owner of Choco-Logo at 141 Broadway in Buffalo, cuts fudge in his factory.
Johnson invested in the historic building in the early 1990s and completely restored it.
"This place is a find - walk in any direction downtown," he challenges. "Turn the corner - find another find! We are a little part of what is downtown, we do our share."

Actually Johnson started out as a philosophy scholar. At the University of Wales, he studied philosophers who have, throughout the ages, searched for the secret to happiness. Now science has confirmed Johnson's contention that chocolate really does enhance mood, firing those pleasure sensors.

"Philosophy and chocolate both leave a good feeling in the heart," says Johnson, who hails from a whole philosophical family - his mom, dad and older brother all earned philosophy degrees.

Back in the early 1990s, Johnson owned not much more than the shirt on his back. He invested in a run-down historic property on the fringes of downtown before the Michigan Avenue Heritage Corridor project was formalized.

With two buildings on Broadway, a stroll from the Department of Motor Vehicles, between Elm and Michigan, next to the Colored Musicians Club, he renovated them into two thriving enterprises with assistance from the Buffalo Economic Renaissance Corp.

His Choco-Logo Confectionery Design is around the corner from the proposed historic Michigan projects, a secondary tourist destination.

"Now I have a big building downtown - I don't even know how I did that," he said, crediting help he received. The completely restored gem of an artisan chocolate factory and retail shop attracts chocolate lovers all over the globe because he points out:

"Buffalo let me afford to be here."

Johnson sponsored a benefit chocolate-tasting last year for the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, among other civic projects including a recent art party for child patients at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in the Paint Box Project.