Ronnie Roberts, owner of Gosanko Chocolate Art on A Street Southeast, talks about some of the recent changes to his establishment.

Q. Well, what’s new?

A. We haven’t done fudge in the past, now we are doing it, and we are going to have 15 different fudges on a rotating basis. That is a nice addition to what we are doing. We introduced that about a month ago, and we also added espresso, using Caffe D’Arte, a great coffee. Coffee and chocolate go together. We have added ice cream, and we have 16 different kinds of ice cream. So we have kind of become a sweet destination for people. We have huckleberry, raspberry, blackberry, vanilla, death by chocolate, expresso explosion. We have bubblegum, we have sherbets, traditional vanilla and more. We do homemade milkshakes. We have also hired a couple new people to help with expanding our market.

Q. What inspired you to do this?

A. We did this to become a destination for people here in Auburn. For one thing, I love fudge, but until now we just haven’t had the room to display it. The espresso, that was just for me because I’m stopping every day having an espresso, so why not have it at my place? And the ice cream is just because there’s not a whole lot of places doing ice cream anymore where you can get a scoop. I thought it all went together.

Q. How long has this been in the works?

A. It’s taken us probably over year and a half, just because we weren’t really rushing. And as we could afford it, we did it. Just to get everything all lined up and have the cabinets made takes a long time. And to correlate counter tops and counters and having it all made is a slow process that creates its own problems. Just getting approved by the Health Department takes a long time, too. Ice cream and espresso require a permit from the Health Department to do those kinds of things. It’s not inexpensive to do that. You tend to think it’s going to go fast, and you put things off to the end that you should have done earlier.

Q. And what have you been hearing from customers?

A. They have been really supportive of what we are doing. As far as the ice cream goes, we are getting towards the latter part of the year. We don’t sell a lot of it now, but we still have done well with it. The fudge has been the thing that surprised me. We are moving a lot of fudge. I am going to say in that since we have been doing it, we have moved close to 600 to 700 pounds of it. I never thought we could sell that much that fast. Anybody who comes in is offered a free sample.

Q. Any other surprises?

A. A good friend pointed out to me that we are missing the boat. Most people don’t know that we are Gosanko Chocolate Art, and this is the chocolate factory. We actually make it all here. Most people think we are just a chocolate store.