Restaurants and bakeries in Bloomington are celebrating Valentine’s Day by offering heart-shaped foods. Whether you split the food with a loved one or eat it by yourself, you can enjoy both savory and sweet options. Here are a few heart-shaped foods you can enjoy Feb. 14:
Cookies
You can get heart-shaped cookies at Rainbow Bakery, Two Sticks Bakery and both Soma Coffee House and Juice Bar locations.
Donuts
Square Donuts will add a heart donut to its menu for the day.
Chocolate
Blu Boy Chocolate Café and Cakery offers strawberry and champagne flavored chocolates and heart-shaped chocolates flavored with some of the same ingredients used in one of Upland Brewery’s ales, owner David Fletcher told the IDS earlier this month. He said they will be available for purchase at Blu Boy and the Upland Wood Shop.
Macarons
La Vie en Rose Café will sell heart-shaped strawberry and vanilla macarons. Owner Stephanie Laparre moved to Bloomington from France in 2016. She said she wants to offer an authentic French experience to her customers.
Valentine’s Day isn’t as widely celebrated in France as it is in the U.S., Laparre said. But she said she likes the “let’s make it big” spirit of Americans around the holiday.
“French people are not like this at all,” she said. “For Valentine you would just give a rose and maybe a card to your husband or your lover, but that’s it.”
Although she can make her own macarons, her convection oven makes it difficult to mass-produce the treats. But she still wanted customers to have authentic macarons, so she ordered them from Chic Pat, a French artisan.
Bagels
Bloomington Bagel Company will offer both savory and sweet options with its annual red heart-shaped bagels and heart-shaped sugar cookies. Retail manager Rachel Sherman said the bakery is excited to spread love to its customers.
“If you’re single or if you’re taken, we want to be the one to show you our appreciation and show you the love,” she said.
Chicken
Chick-fil-A in front of College Mall will sell heart-shaped chicken biscuits during its breakfast hours and heart trays of chicken nuggets and cookies throughout the rest of the day.
Pizza
Papa John’s will sell medium, one-topping, thin crust pizzas in the shape of hearts. Both Bloomington locations will participate.
Local pizza places will also offer choices for the day’s celebration.
Both Mother Bear’s Pizza locations will offer heart-shaped versions of their 14-inch pizza. And Swing-In Pizza will sell Valentine’s Day bundles that include a large heart-shaped pizza and a “bouquet” of breadsticks. Swing-In Pizza owner Nick Helton said they will also write custom messages inside each pizza box per the customer’s request.
“It just feels good to offer something that people want to send someone to show they care about them,” he said. “It’s more unique than grabbing a box of chocolates from CVS or calling 1-800-FLOWERS.”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article stated heart-shaped chocolates would be available for purchase at Upland. It should have said the chocolates will be sold at the Upland Wood Shop. The IDS regrets this error.
