Seattle Chocolate Tour – Family Friendly Seattle Chocolate Factory Tour
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Check out the Seattle Chocolate Tour, a Family Friendly & Educational Chocolate Factory Tour on your next visit to Seattle Washington!
Updated for 2024
Seattle Chocolate Tour – Family Friendly Chocolate Factory Tour
If you have always wanted to take a tour of a chocolate factory, the Seattle Chocolate Company Factory is just down the road from Southcenter Mall in Tukwila and only about 10 minutes away from Seattle’s SeaTac airport, if you are on a long layover in Seattle or doing a trip up to visit Seattle for the weekend.
The Seattle Chocolate Factory offers guided factory tours 6 days a week, too, with Mondays – Thursdays as days that the factory is in operation so you can see the chocolates being made. On Fridays & Saturdays, you can still get a tour of the factory (even though no chocolate is made on those days), but you can see the machines with a guided tour guide. All tours of the chocolate factory take place along their hot pink walkway, which is up nearly 10 ft high above the factory, so you get a birds’ eye view of the entire process. The price is $15 for an hour long tour.
Make sure to check out these ideas for more things to do, places to eat, & more near Seattle Chocolates, Seattle, WA:
- Seattle Southside Guide – things to do, where to stay & best places to eat
- iFly Indoor Sky Diving – try this fun indoor adventure with your family
Accommodations near the Seattle Chocolate Factory :
- Interurban Hotel (1 mile away from Seattle Chocolate Factory) – this is where we stayed & we loved our stay! Check out our Interurban hotel review.
- Embassy Suites (1.2 miles away from Seattle Chocolate Factory) – this is another great place to stay – check out our Embassy Suites SeaTac hotel review
- Cedarbrook Lodge – (1.6 miles away from Seattle Chocolate Factory) – this is my personal favorite place to stay near the SeaTac/Tukwila area as it feels like you get away from all the hustle & bustle in a tranquil setting (even just minutes from the airport & all of the shopping/restaurants, etc)
- Radisson Hotel SeaTac (this is also close to SeaTac airport & Tukwila) – check out Sia’s review of staying here – she also had a great experience here too
- Home2Suites by Hilton (.4 miles away from Seattle Chocolate Factory)
- TownPlace Suites (.5 miles away from Seattle Chocolate factory)
- DoubleTree Suites by Hilton (.8 miles away from Seattle Chocolate Factory)
Find more Chocolate Tours in Seattle here too!
As part of the Chocolate Factory tour, we learned that Seattle Chocolates has not always been based in Tukwila, but instead was based in downtown Seattle until the 2001 Nisqually Earthquake damaged their building. But now that they are in Tukwila, they have greatly expanded their factory.
Plus, it is also home to their Flagship store, which means you can purchase any & every variety of Seattle Chocolates bars & truffles (love the awesome selection – this photo just shows half of the truffle selection!), as well as chocolates from their Culinary-Inspired Chocolate Brand, JCoCo.
For every JCoCo chocolate that is sold, they also donate a serving of fresh food to someone in need through Northwest Harvest.
The store also frequently offers factory “seconds” 1 lb bags at a discount, which is a great way to save on your favorite chocolate varieties.
What You’ll Experience:
Learn about how chocolate is made & the history of Seattle Chocolates –
The first part of the tour was spent educating us on the process of how chocolate is made from the pod that comes from Cacao trees to the pulp of the pod being ground into a powder to be used for making chocolate, as well as learning the regions of the world that produce the most cacao trees for chocolate. It was very interesting to hear about how chocolate is grown & then produced to create all of the different varieties we enjoy. During this part of the tour, we had the opportunity to try a “chocolate shot” of liquid chocolate to give you a taste of the chocolate before you start the walking tour.
Tour the Chocolate Factory –
You will leave the tasting room & go into the working chocolate factory for the tour. The walking tour is up about 10 feet in the air along a hot pink walkway. We visited the chocolate factory on a Saturday, so unfortunately we did not get to see the chocolates being made as the factory was not operational on that day. However, it was still a very informative & fun tour as our guide taught us about the whole process and they also had signs detailing the steps, along with numbers on all the machines so you could follow along with the process of making the truffles & bars. If you do go on a Monday – Thursday, you will have the opportunity to watch from above the factory & the machines to see first-hand what is happening step by step as they create the chocolate truffles and bars. {No cell phones allowed in the factory past the lockers, so this is the only picture, above, to show you what it’s like}
Taste the Chocolate Samples
Of course, this was our favorite part of the tour – the tasting of those delicious Seattle Chocolate truffles & bars! We had the opportunity to try out 6 different chocolate samples, all different, so you could determine what you liked & didn’t like & share that on your tasting sheet.
My personal favorite was the Sea Salt & Toffee. But they were all so delicious! Mmm! Such a great end to the tour & then it definitely gets you in the mood to want to buy more chocolate when you leave at the Flagship store with such a wide variety of chocolates to choose.
Things to Know About “Experience Chocolate” Tours:
- Tour times are Monday – Saturday, 10am – 3pm – however, Friday & Saturdays the factory is not in operation but you can still do the full tour & see where they make the chocolate bars & truffles & the tour guide will explain the process. If you are wanting to see the chocolates being made, though, then schedule a time from Monday – Thursday.
- Make reservations ahead of time – our chocolate tour time was completely full on a Saturday afternoon, so I definitely recommend making a reservation ahead of time so you don’t miss out (& to make sure that all the tour times are running)
- Kids must be 6 or older for the tour – they do only allow kids ages 6 & older for the tour because you are going into a working factory & not just looking from afar, but actually walking above the chocolate making, so they need to make sure it is safe for everyone
- Bring a water bottle – they do serve you water when you try out the different chocolate samples at the end of the tour, but they also served us a chocolate shot (pure liquid chocolate) before we went on the tour, and I so thirsty on the tour after that rich chocolate. You won’t be able to bring your bottle on the walking tour with you, but you can drink it right after you drink the chocolate (or just ask for a cup of water)
- Leave belongings in a locker for walking tour – Since this is a tour of a working facility & you are going to be walking above the machines producing the chocolates, you will need to leave all of your belongings, including cell phones, anything in your pockets, purse, etc in a locker with a key that you will bring with you.This is just for the walking portion of the factory tour. No glass is allowed anywhere in the factory, which is why no cell phones are allowed.
- Wear hair nets – Since this is a working chocolate factory, you will be given the ever so fashionable hair nets to wear around your head as well as around your face if you have a beard or mustache
- Stairs involved in walking tour – ADA tours available by appointment – this walking tour does involve walking up stairs to a platform so if this is a problem for anyone in your family, make sure to contact them to see if you can schedule a private tour
- 10% off in the Flagship store when you submit your tour survey – make sure to fill out the survey at the end of the tour. If you turn it in, you will then get 10% off your purchases at the Flagship store. (& this is your opportunity to suggest any new flavors of chocolate truffles or bars – you never know, they might use your suggestion!)
Special Events:
Seattle Chocolates does host special events & classes, so make sure to check out their upcoming events to see if there are any you are interested in. They have offered cake decorating classes, pasta & chocolate making class & more. In October, they offer haunted factory tours & other fun events throughout the year.
More Places to Visit in the Seattle Southside Area:
Southside of Seattle – Park, Stay or Fly or Staycation Ideas
