Craft Chocolate Experience 2024: World’s Largest S’more and MORE!

From April 26-28, the Montgomery Entertainment Collective collaborated with Dandelion Chocolate as the lead sponsor to organize San Francisco’s Craft Chocolate Experience at the Palace of Fine Arts. Dandelion, a key player in the Bay Area's chocolate scene for over a decade, initiated the Craft Chocolate Experience to celebrate the city's deep connection to chocolate and its rich history.

*All of our exhibitors from the Craft Chocolate Marketplace!*

This year's event, a revival after the COVID-19 lockdown interrupted its debut in 2020, featured a range of activities. The Industry Trade Show kicked off proceedings on Friday, followed by the Pairing and Tasting night, granting access to the Craft Chocolate Marketplace. The marketplace featured chocolatiers from all over the globe — Dubai, Hawaii, Brazil, and New Zealand — selling bonbons, bars, and hot chocolate mixes over the three-day event. Celebrity presenters were in attendance including Food Network’s Duff Goldman. Speaker sessions included topics like, “The Food of the Gods: the Magical and Medicinal Histories of Chocolate,” and demonstrations like, “Chocolate Bars with Unique, Fun Fillings” by pastry chef and TV personality Luis Rolbedo Richards. Attendees could enjoy activations like the hot cocoa station — where you could bring hot cocoa mix from your favorite chocolatier for a barista to make a cup of craft hot chocolate — or the s’mores station where attendees could bring their favorite craft chocolate bar to sandwich in between marshmallows they roasted themselves and tasty graham crackers. With over 2,500 attendees over two days, the excitement from this event was palpable — especially on Sunday with the World’s Largest S’more reveal.

On Sunday, April 28th, in collaboration with Dandelion Chocolate’s Chef Durfee broke the world record for the world’s largest s’more, weighing almost 400 pounds and measuring 49 square feet. The s'more was made with two 7x7 graham crackers baked from scratch, a 7x7 layer of craft chocolate, hundreds of marshmallows, and another graham cracker on top. The s'more also included chocolate bars from all the festival's makers.