{"id":237983,"date":"2026-05-20T13:52:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T13:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/237983\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T13:52:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T13:52:26","slug":"the-healing-power-of-chocolate-aigner-chocolates-heads-toward-100-years-in-forest-hills-qns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/237983\/","title":{"rendered":"The healing power of chocolate: Aigner Chocolates heads toward 100 years in Forest Hills \u2013 QNS"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a fairly hot summer Monday at Aigner Chocolates<\/a> in Forest Hills<\/a>, and Rachel Kellner is showing items in the nearly-century-old chocolate store\u2019s showroom. There are the classics such as caramels and marzipans, the custom mades, chocolate roses, figurines for graduation and ice cream made out of their chocolate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just rolled these out,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re chamomile and chai and Earl Gray and Paris infused chocolates.\u201d
\n\"\"<\/a>Photo courtesy of Aigner Chocolates\n<\/p>\n

A therapist turned chocolatier, Kellner is a kind of Wendy Wonka who not only runs Aigner, but lives two stories above the shop.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to have boundaries,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s easy for me to come downstairs. When I come home from anywhere, I stop in the chocolate shop.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Co-owner for 11 years with a 51% stake in the store at 103-02 Metropolitan Ave., Kellner said she is in the process of becoming sole, 100% owner, buying out her partner.
\n\"\"<\/a>Aigner Chocolates co-owner Rachel Kellner assists a customer. Photo courtesy of Aigner Chocolates\n<\/p>\n

A kind of queen of chocolate in Queens, she leads the store with the slogan, \u201cBringing old world chocolate making into the 21st century.\u201d<\/p>\n

A mother with a seven-year-old, she makes chocolate the old-fashioned way, serves on the PTA and is well known to neighbors.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone knows me, because I own the chocolate shop,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen you come into the chocolate shop, all your senses are triggered, what you see, smell and touch. We play 50s and 60s music, which our customers appreciate. We have an older customer base.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saving the shop<\/p>\n

One of New York City\u2019s oldest chocolate shops, Aigner has been handcrafting fine Austrian and German chocolate in Forest Hills since 1930, originally as Krause\u2019s Candy Kitchen.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Photo courtesy of Aigner Chocolates<\/p>\n

The Aigner family took over in the early 1960s and ran it for three generations before, unable to find buyers, they prepared to liquidate and rent the space to a commercial tenant.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had gone through multiple sets of potential buyers and they had all fallen through,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n

As Kellner\u2019s boyfriend was driving, he stopped by this chocolate shop to buy her some chocolate, when he saw a for-sale sign. The couple met with the owners and bought the business four weeks later.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weighed the pros and cons. That\u2019s how I make all big decisions,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause my partner is a pastry chef, it wasn\u2019t like we were arbitrarily buying a chocolate shop.\u201d
\n\"\"<\/a>Photo courtesy of Aigner Chocolates\n<\/p>\n

She said she helped with the shop, in addition to being a therapist. \u201cI had this idea that food was therapy and I had this feeling one day we would do something together,\u201d she said. \u201cI had no idea it would be this.\u201d<\/p>\n

They kept many things, changing some, reassuring residents and worrying some that the new owners would lose touch with tradition.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of gratitude around us taking over the business that people thought they would lose,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd there was some apprehension when we came in and redecorated.\n<\/p>\n

She ran her own business as a therapist, she said, until, \u201cafter a year, we realized we both needed to be there.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

She went from therapy specializing in addition to enabling addiction, she said. \u201cEverything in moderation,\u201d she says, \u201cbut dark chocolate is extremely healthy.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

While others shut during the pandemic, they didn\u2019t. \u201cWe were deemed essential,\u201d she said. \u201cHow could a chocolate shop not? We were deemed essential because we manufacture.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

During the pandemic, they started the Rainbow Bunnie Exchange. \u201cKids in the community drew rainbows with messages of hope to frontline workers and we gave them a chocolate pop,\u201d Kellner added.
\n\"\"<\/a>Photo courtesy of Aigner Chocolates\n<\/p>\n

They ended up collecting 1,315 rainbows on permanent display at Elmhurst Hospital as A Rainbow of Rainbows.<\/p>\n

After they were burglarized during the pandemic, Kellner started the Metro Village of Forest Hills merchant alliance. And they have done other things to benefit the community, helping schools and others fundraise with chocolate.<\/p>\n

While her marketing is modern, the manufacturing hasn\u2019t changed much. All the equipment they use is about 50 years old, including a cream beater and press.\n<\/p>\n

They get 50-pound cases with five ten-pound chocolate bars from Switzerland, made with beans from Ecuador. They put the chocolate into a 500-pound melter, melt to liquid and shape it, \u201cso it cools in different-shaped molds,\u201d Kellner said.<\/p>\n

They have molds in all shapes and sizes for holidays, including pumpkins for Halloween, turkeys for Thanksgiving, Santas for Christmas and bunnies for Easter two inches to three feet tall, along with chocolate-dipped strawberries on Valentine\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery day is a holiday,\u201d Kellner said. \u201cChocolate is not just for others. It\u2019s a way for us to treat ourselves.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

They hand crank their truffles, make caramels and marzipan, filling chocolates with nuts and creams the Austrian and German way.\n<\/p>\n

In addition to selling at the store and online, they wholesale at Hudson News stands in JFK and Laguardia airports, and plan to open a store in Terminal 6 at JFK.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI love what I do. I love the challenge,\u201d she said. \u201cI love that I never know what each day will bring. I run a small business.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

She said she loves solving problems, as well as mentoring staff, and enjoys the Forest Hills community.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI find this to be a magical neighborhood,\u201d said the founder of Metro Village of Forest Hills<\/a>. \u201cIt does feel like a small village, where everyone supports everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

The store has been added to the New York Historic Business Registry<\/a>, but more important than making history, it continues making chocolate.<\/p>\n

She partners with neighborhood businesses, doing a \u201cSweat, Sip and Sweet\u201d event with a personal training gym. A restaurant-owner who got a catering job at NBC bought chocolates for the person who helped get the deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe find different ways to help one another,\u201d she said. \u201cWe support and lift one another up.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

While running a chocolate shop may be different than being a therapist, she sees similarities.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cOur mission is to spread joy and hope to communities through the magic of our chocolate,\u201d Kellner said. \u201cI found a way to help heal people in a less conventional way instead of therapy, through chocolate.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a fairly hot summer Monday at Aigner Chocolates in Forest Hills, and Rachel Kellner is showing items…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[69790,9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-237983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-aigner-chocolates","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}