The melting of chocolate and the dipping of strawberries — 5,000 of them — began at dawn.
That’s when the first workers at Edible Arrangements in Littleton started their push on the day before Valentine’s Day.
The workers swiftly placed the fruit on skewers at one station in the kitchen and ran them to another table where the sweet, colorful “flowers” were arranged in bouquets.
“The strawberry arrangements are the most popular,” said store manager Lori Bohn. “People love the strawberries.”
Most of the hundreds of arrangements made over the past few days were for phone and Internet orders, but Bohn said the store will try to have between 30 and 50 available off-the-shelf for the last- minute shoppers.
“Men are so funny,” Bohn said of her male customers. “They hate to be mushy.”
Bohn and her family operate three Edible Arrangements franchises in the Denver area.
They are year-round businesses, but Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day are especially busy, Bohn said.
While the efficient assembly line was cranking out Valentine sweets in the back of the store, customers were buying candy and sharing valentine stories out front.
Boston resident Lauren Jlatzer, 39, said she needed to pick up gifts for her 8-year-old daughter and other relatives before her flight home late Sunday but was afraid her gifts wouldn’t survive the flight.
Bohn told her not to worry: She serves plenty of customers headed to the airport.
“It’s one of a kind,” Pat Casias of Denver, 58, said of Bohn’s business. Casias said she wanted to get arrangements for her mother and her husband’s mother.
Adrienne Hernandez, 25, stopped in to get a gift for a man in uniform. Her boyfriend, 28-year-old Staff Sgt. Jose DeLuna, is stationed at Fort Carson and would be leaving her to head back to the base.
“We’re celebrating early,” Hernandez said.
Bohn said she planned to open the doors at 7 a.m. today and said the fact that she expected a crowd to be waiting doesn’t faze her operation. “We’re like a machine,” she said.
Kyle Glazier: 303-954-1638 or kglazer@denverpost.com
