"We will miss the downtown feel and being able to celebrate the history of Rushville, though," Dustin Cornett told the Rushville Recorder last November. That was when he explained why the Midwest Craft Chocolate Festival he organizes was moving into one building for its second year. In 2025 the festival still shared a weekend with Christmas on Main, so it kept a tie to downtown even after the move.
This year it doesn't. The 2026 festival schedule puts it on Friday, Nov. 6, and Saturday, Nov. 7, at Love Community Center. Christmas on Main is listed for Friday, Nov. 20, two weeks later. As a result, Rushville's November now has two separate centers. Downtown has its parade night. The north end of Main Street has a weekend of its own, built around the old Walmart building and a café on the same stretch of road.
How a downtown festival ended up on North Main
The festival started small. The first one, in 2024, drew 24 vendors and more than 500 visitors, according to a Livability profile published the next spring. It ran Nov. 22 and 23 that year, the weekend before Thanksgiving, alongside Christmas on Main.
For 2025, Cornett moved the whole event into Love Community Center. He told the Recorder that "to properly grow the festival and be able to control more of the logistics, it made better sense to do it all under one roof." The Center sits at 1850 North Main Street in the former Walmart building. It houses recreation space, a library, childcare, a food pantry, senior programs and social services. Chocolat Café, the business behind the festival, is up the same road at 1814 N. Main St.
The venue moved first, and this year the date followed it. The festival's own site gives no reason for the new dates. The practical effect is easy to see on a calendar, though. Anyone who used to choose between the tasting tables and the parade can now go to both without splitting one weekend.
Friday night pays for the building it's held in
The Friday VIP night runs 6 to 8 p.m. on Nov. 6, and 100% of Friday proceeds go to Love Community Center. The Recorder's Oct. 21 news briefs describe it as seven stations offering seven ways to experience chocolate, and note that tickets are limited.
According to the festival's schedule, the evening includes:
- Guided wine, bourbon and chocolate pairings, plus a separate tea and chocolate pairing
- "Find Your Chocolate Match," a guided tasting to learn which styles of chocolate you like
- Liquid chocolate served straight from the stone grinder
- A Regional Bar Challenge, where 12 makers start from the same recipe, each adds an ingredient from their own region, and guests vote for a People's Choice winner
- A chance to meet the makers and the cacao farmers behind what's on the tables
Wine and bourbon are served to guests 21 and older, and a food truck will be on site. A Friday ticket also covers all of Saturday. Ticket sales run through the link on the festival's site, which is the place to check current Friday pricing.
Saturday is the cheaper way in
Saturday runs 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for ages 12 and up, and free for children 11 and under. The ticket includes chocolate samples, access to the tasting tables, and the speakers and classes. There's also a Children's Activity Center open all day, and a hands-on station with fresh cacao pods.
There's enough programming to fill the day. Here is the full Saturday lineup from the festival's posted schedule:
| Time | Session | Led by |
|---|---|---|
| 9:30–10:30 a.m. | Workshop on holiday foods | Kim Galeaz |
| 10–10:45 a.m. | Talk: "Inside Apoy Benit's Award-Winning Filipino Cacao Farm" | Ronee de Guzman |
| 10:30–11:30 a.m. | Workshop on hand-painting truffles | Denise Steele |
| 10:30–11:30 a.m. | Guided chocolate judging tasting, extra fee | Karla Schade |
| 11–11:45 a.m. | Talk: "Keep Growing" | Leila Carvajal Erker |
| 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. | Workshop on chocolate history | Brook Johnson |
| Noon–12:45 p.m. | Talk: "The Tierra Bendita Story" | Laura Cruz |
| 12:30–1:30 p.m. | Workshop on creativity | Susan Brown |
| 1–1:45 p.m. | Talk on cacao botany | Karla Schade |
| 1–2 p.m. | "Hops & Nibs" tasting, extra fee | David Nilsen |
| 1:30–2:30 p.m. | Workshop on holiday foods | Kim Galeaz |
| 2:30–3:30 p.m. | Workshop on making chocolate at home | Bhavani Veerapaneni |
| 2:30–3:30 p.m. | "Weird Chocolates!" tasting, extra fee | Karla Schade |
| 3–3:45 p.m. | Talk on cocoa ecotourism | Nana Aduna |
The three tastings marked "extra fee" cost more than general admission. Everything else on the table is included in the $10 ticket. Kim Galeaz teaches her holiday-foods workshop twice, at 9:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., so a family that arrives late in the morning can still catch it.
The vendor list reaches well past Indiana
The 2026 roster lists more than 25 vendors. The named exhibitors include Eka Chocolate, Sweets Escalier, Fjorden Sjokolade, Yahara Chocolate & Tea, Pollinator Chocolate, Dwaar Chocolate, Maverick Chocolate, Ohene Cocoa, Theobroma Cacao & Co, Indigenous Chocolate and Yellow Bird Chocolate. The Institute for Cacao & Chocolate Research and the University of Colorado–Boulder are also on the list, along with title-sponsor CocoaSupply and Chocolat Café itself.
Last year's Recorder story described Sweets Escalier as a maker from Japan and Eka as one from Madagascar. Both were new in 2025, joining 19 returning makers. The 2026 schedule adds programs for the industry itself. On Friday, vendors meet for "Craft of Chocolate Conversations" and a Chocolate Exchange, where they can sample and buy from each other. The public doesn't attend those sessions. They do mean a lot of the people working the Saturday tables will have spent the day before in town.
The café a short walk up the road
The festival grew out of Chocolat Café. Dustin and Mai Cornett own it, and they moved the business from Beattyville, Kentucky, to Rushville in early 2024. Cornett told Livability that his parents were from Connersville. He said Rushville appealed because local leaders worked together and thought creatively, and because the family felt welcome. He added that he brought the festival here partly to connect a farming community with cacao farming, since the Midwest had no dedicated craft chocolate festival. He started making chocolate after finding his grandmother's candy recipes.
The café is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. It serves coffee roasted in-house, a changing selection of pastries, and bean-to-bar chocolate. Both festival days land inside those regular hours. Saturday's festival opens at 9, an hour after the café, so you can get coffee on North Main before the tasting tables open down the street.
The rest of November on the same stretch of Main
Love Community Center stays busy after the festival leaves. On Saturday, Nov. 21, it hosts Trivia Night, with doors opening at 6 p.m. Teams of players 16 and older pay $150 to enter. First place wins $600 and a trophy, second place wins $250, and third place gets 12 day passes to the Rush County Recreation Center. The night also has a silent auction, snacks and mulligans.
The Rush County Community Assistance Food Pantry shares the same address, 1850 N. Main St. It's taking applications for its Prince and Princess Contest for children in kindergarten through third grade, which ties in with the pantry's holiday food drive. Applications are due Oct. 31. Families can drop them off at the pantry or email them to [email protected].
Here's how the month lines up across town:
- Fri., Nov. 6, 6–8 p.m.: Chocolate festival VIP night, Love Community Center
- Sat., Nov. 7, 9 a.m.–5 p.m.: Chocolate festival, Love Community Center
- Thu., Nov. 12, 6 p.m.: Road to Riverside Open Mic preliminary round, Mocha Moose
- Fri., Nov. 20, 5–8 p.m.: Christmas on Main downtown, with the parade at 6
- Sat., Nov. 21, doors at 6 p.m.: Trivia Night, Love Community Center
The Mocha Moose night is the last of four preliminary rounds in the Road to Riverside Open Mic Competition. Each round allows up to 10 acts with two songs apiece. Every round's winner advances to a January championship at the Princess Theatre, and the overall winner gets an opening slot in the Riverside Park Amphitheater Concert Series, according to the Recorder.
Christmas on Main, hosted by Heart of Rushville, runs from 5 to 8 p.m. with vendors, open shops, food trucks, kids' activities, and Santa's first visit to Rush County. Parade lineup starts at 5:30 p.m. at Main Street Christian Church. The parade steps off at 6 and ends on 2nd Street, and Santa continues on to the courthouse lawn. In 2024 and 2025, Cornett's festival shared that weekend. This year, the same night is downtown's alone.
We follow how Rushville's calendar fills in because we live and work just up the road. That includes what's taking shape on North Main and how the old Walmart building has become a regular weekend stop. If you have questions about Rush County, or want to talk with someone who knows the area street by street, The McKown Team is glad to hear from you. Contact Us.
