Winans Coffee & Chocolate

Winans has been making chocolate by hand in Ohio since 1961 — the company's own site puts it as "handmade since 1961" — and its signature product is the buckeye: a peanut-butter center hand-rolled and dipped in chocolate using a recipe passed down through generations, famous enough in Ohio to be treated as a category of its own rather than just another candy. Coffee roasting joined the chocolate business over time, and today the two are sold side by side — single-origin and flavored beans alongside buckeyes and a proprietary Wurtles line — through cafes that pour both espresso and pour-over next to the chocolate case. The German Village shop in Columbus is one of at least a dozen Winans locations across Ohio, spanning towns from Celina and Marysville to Piqua, Sidney, and Wapakoneta, with some towns carrying more than one location. Seasonal drinks like a Strawnilla cold brew sit alongside the standing chocolate and coffee menu. It's a combination that's unusual to find under one roof — a confectioner and a coffee roaster growing up together rather than one added on as an afterthought — and Winans has kept both going for more than six decades.