An apple a day may be just what the doctor ordered, but Melissa Hoen gets hers twice a month with a twist at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory in Provo.

Resisting the mint and chocolate-dipped Oreos and nutter butters, fresh made fudge, nut clusters and truffles, Hoen, a Rocky Mountain regular since she first discovered the store at Park City Mountain Resort, sticks to her New Year's resolution and gets her favorite strawberry shortcake caramel apple.

"Sure I'd love to get the chocolate, but I feel better about getting the apple," said Hoen, who was at the chocolate store in The Shops at Riverwoods Thursday. "Plus, I like that they cut up the apple for you, which makes it easier to eat."

Laura Wood is another Rocky Mountain fan relieved to not have to make the long trip to Park City for her caramel apple fix. "I'm so happy now that I don't have to drive to Park City. Before the Rocky Mountain store opened in Provo, I did once drive up to Park City with a friend just to get their caramel apples," said Wood, who was at the Provo store Thursday for Valentine's Day candy.

Clients like Hoen and Wood help confirm that Dan Ray's gambit opening at Riverwoods paid off. Ray, owner of the Provo franchise and former retail manager of stores at Park City and Salt Lake City, opened the Provo branch last June after receiving numerous inquiries from Utah County customers visiting the Park City stores.

"I had a big hunch it would go over well in Provo because of our existing clientele who were passionate about our product. For a new store, we've been getting fairly good numbers," Ray said. Store sales average about $1,000 on a typical day, but can jump to as high as $4,000 during Valentine's Day and around $3,000 daily two weeks before Christmas.

"January seems to be the slowest month of the year for us because there're so many New Year's resolutions and gym memberships going up. But by the time Valentine's comes around in February, people snap out of it," he said. The company expects to reach $410,000 in gross sales this year, of which $30,000 will be generated by corporate accounts, and the remainder from in-store sales and mail-order catalogs.

Ray, an aspiring chef and snowboarder, began his career at Rocky Mountain's first store at the Snowbird Ski Resort in 1990. When its lease ran out, the Snowbird store's franchise owners Chip and Kathy Pederson, along with Ray, then their partner, moved to the Gateway mall in 2002 and opened one more location in Salt Lake City and two others in Park City. Ray left the partnership in 2004 and opened the Provo store last year. There are now seven franchise stores in Utah.

For Ray, opening at the Riverwoods mall was a big gamble, at first.

"Franchises don't typically expect their franchisees to open at slower foot traffic locations and then hope it becomes a destination store," he said. "But I was gambling on the fact that people already know us, and people in Utah County love their sweets and are passionate about it," he said.

Of Rocky Mountain's 307 franchise stores nationwide, 60 are in high-traffic tourist areas including Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. Most of Rocky Mountain's chocolate pieces are handmade at its franchise parent's 53,000-square-foot plant in Durango, Colo., and shipped fresh by its fleet of refrigerated trucks to its franchise stores.

Ray also had initial reservations about the mall's visibility and growth prospects. "When Riverwoods first opened in 1998, they had Gap and Banana Republic. But those two later opened at Provo Towne Centre and University Mall and left Riverwoods in 2001. To make things worse, the economy took a downturn after the 9/11 attacks. The mall then developed a stigma, which made it an uphill battle getting tenants in there," he said.

But Ray, who had considered opening at University Mall, changed his mind about Riverwoods last year after Happy Sumo opened there. "Happy Sumo was already at the Gateway and the restaurant is doing very well. That made me lean more towards Riverwoods," he said. "I like our location at Riverwoods because we're sandwiched between Bajio and Tucanos, two of the busiest restaurants there, and Happy Sumo is just three doors down."

Having fewer direct competitors at Riverwoods also helped, Ray said. "University Mall may have much more foot traffic, but there are already three existing chocolate shops and the lease was more expensive. I also did research on the desserts at the Riverwoods' restaurants. To my knowledge, few have extensive dessert menus."

The mall's proximity to the Riverwoods Business Park is another advantage, he said. "Riverwoods Business Park is growing, adding new businesses all the time. We get lots of customers from the medical centers there and we've also made some sales calls at the park."

To improve Rocky Mountain's visibility along University Avenue, Ray had a sign mounted on the back of his store, and a smaller sign along the front. "That worked from day one," he said. "One of my first customers told me that his wife, while driving along University Avenue, saw the Rocky Mountain Chocolate sign, slammed on the brakes and swerved through two lanes of traffic to get to the store. That story put a smile on my face, especially since I spent $14,000 on the two signs."

Ray is planning to open more stores at the Crossroads in Salt Lake City, and possibly at proposed regional lifestyle centers such as the Terrace at Traverse Mountain in Lehi and Sundance Commons in Pleasant Grove. The timing of the store's opening could make a difference in its success, he said. "Gateway, which opened in 2001, wanted us in their mall before the Olympics in 2002. But we knew the mall was new and needed time to attract people and grow, so we timed our store to open in May 2002 right after the Olympics and it was perfect. That's why we're waiting with Crossroads and Traverse Mountain."

Building a loyal customer base through customer service is just as important, especially with gas prices wreaking havoc on the company's produce and shipping costs, Ray said.

"Our chocolate costs have jumped because of higher gas prices. Granny Smith apples and strawberries have also doubled and tripled over last summer," he said. "But the biggest surprise we had was when UPS recently hit us with a fuel surcharge of $1.79 for each chocolate package we shipped to our customers. That's an unplanned cost that I can't recoup from my customers."

Happy Valley Chocolate Inc. doing business as Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory

Founded in June 2005

Owner: Dan Ray

Industry: Chocolate making and retailer franchisee

Location: Provo franchise at 4801 N. University Ave., Suite 740, The Shops at Riverwoods. Corporate headquarters in Durango, Colo.

Employees: 8 workers

Start-up costs: $225,000-$400,000

Contact: 224-0511