How a Small Business Went from Niagara Falls to a Presidential Inauguration

Niagara Falls is known as, “The Honeymoon Capital of the World,” and one local small business owner incorporates that idea into her company name: Niagara’s Honeymoon Sweets. Mary Ann Hess lives and works in Niagara Falls, primarily as a hair stylist– she owns her own salon– but also as the owner and chocolatier of Niagara’s Honeymoon Sweets, LLC, which has retail space on Porter Road in “The Falls,” as it’s known around Western New York.

Hess started her chocolate business more than a dozen years ago to help pay for her grandson’s medical bills– he has Crohn’s disease, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that affects the lining of the digestive tract. As is the case with many small business owners in the food industry, her desserts became so popular among friends that she was encouraged to take them to the open market.

She has connected with Buffalo-based Delaware North, a global food service and hospitality industry leader. This partnership allows her goods to be transported to events far outside the immediate region.

Her chocolates are enjoyed at various events like weddings, baby showers, conventions, and eventually made it to the second inauguration of President Barack Obama in 2013.

In Western New York, her chocolates have been purchased by doctors, dentists and other professionals. Though many of her customers come from Western New York, she also provides for events including the Oscars, the Emmy Awards, the Golden Globes, the NFL, Miss USA, and the Kentucky Derby. She has been dubbed, “The First Lady of Chocolate” and finds herself meeting several celebrities each year at red carpet events.

To manage the business, Hess uses Microsoft Office and the Adobe suite. Both programs are utilized to make invoices, brochures, ads, and for setting up pictures for edible chocolates.

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Image

Latest

human-centered
How Human-Centered Design Led to a Startup Accelerator for Education: A Conversation with Transcend Network’s Co-founder Michael Narea
June 20, 2025

The convergence of human-centered design and education innovation is reshaping how edtech ventures emerge and scale. As AI enables hyper-efficiency and bootstrapped entrepreneurship becomes more viable, the real differentiator is empathy—founders who listen deeply to users before building solutions. A McKinsey study of 300 public companies found that design-led organizations significantly outperformed their peers, with…

Read More
care navigation
AI-Powered Care Navigation Reduces Healthcare Spend and Improves Patient Access
June 20, 2025

The U.S. healthcare system is strained by rising costs, uneven quality, and fragmented care navigation. Employers are bearing the brunt, spending more without always securing better care for their teams. According to the RAND Corporation, one effective strategy is to “change their network and benefit designs to encourage patients to use lower‑priced, higher‑value providers…

Read More
edge computing
Building the Wireless Future: Low-Power IoT, Edge Computing, and the End of the Gs
June 19, 2025

As the global race to 6G heats up, telecom providers, governments, and tech companies are investing billions to advance the next generation of hyperconnected infrastructure. European operators urge regulators to release more spectrum to stay competitive, while U.S. programs like the USDA’s ReConnect have funneled over $1 billion into rural fiber backhaul. Meanwhile, companies like…

Read More
healthcare operations
Healthcare Operations Improve with AI That Unites Data, Automation, and Ethics
June 18, 2025

Generative AI has captured the public imagination, but its most transformative use cases may lie far from flashy consumer tools. In healthcare operations, where complexity, inefficiency, and fragmentation remain persistent challenges, AI is now driving measurable improvements. Research suggests AI-enabled healthcare systems could cut administrative costs by up to $360 billion in the U.S. alone….

Read More