Spoonfudge! The Shoppe and Cafe co-owners Tarah Boykin and Alesia Johnson jokingly recalled a phone call from a customer in Norway who figured he would finally inquire about the exact location of the place with which he routinely conducted business.

Perhaps the last order of fudge he indulged in was the tipping point.

“He ordered pretty regularly, and he said he had to Google Sebastopol, Mississippi, because there’s a Sebastopol over there,” Boykin said. “He said he was surprised to find out there were more people in his apartment building than there were in our town.”

Spoonfuge! boasts scoopable fudge of more than 100 flavors that will tease and tantalize your taste buds. Pearly Gates (plain cheesecake), Salted Caramel, Fudgey Fudge and White Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake are just a few flavors offered. There are seasonal fudges, too. But creamy confections aren’t the only thing offered. Visitors can order from The Shoppe!, which offers sandwiches, paninis and salads, in addition to desserts like floats, ice cream and more. Custom-designed cakes can be purchased, as well.

The two-story, 1,800 square-foot shop is situated at 24 MS-492, and the contents inside have drawn in-store visitors from as far as Birmingham, Ala. After acquiring Spoonfudge! four years ago, Boykin, Johnson and their five part-time employees have helped put Sebastopol, Miss., on the map – literally. A map marked with the states and countries they’ve shipped their products to hangs from the ceiling of the first floor near the cash register. 

Boykin and Johnson met 10 years ago as co-chairs of Sebastopolooza, and purchased the original business in 2012. But the two said they didn’t expect things to progress so quickly. 

“When we first opened, we were just opened two days a week,” Boykin said. “And, we just thought we were just going to have this location… cook the fudge out of our home and not have boxes and everything in (our home) for shipping. Then people began coming in and being curious and giving suggestions, and we thought, ‘Well, let’s do coffees and pastries.’ Our signature drink is the Fudgey Freeze – it’s a blend of milk and ice and any fudge flavor. So, we started doing that. Then it became, ‘we have to do birthday parties’. And so, we just started growing a little more.”

Spoonfudge! is open Tuesday through Saturday, and underwent renovations in 2014 to accommodate the demands of the growing clientele. 

“We knocked down walls, added a bigger production kitchen in the back and added a room upstairs,” Boykin said. “That has been a game changer, totally. Because once we did that, we had all this room for tables and everything. And we thought, ‘OK, what are we going to do now?’ So, people said we needed to start serving lunch. And we did. We thought we would just be accommodating local customers. On Saturdays, we are wrapped up with people coming from Alabama, Madison, Meridian, Starkville, everywhere, to have lunch with us and fudge.”

The shop’s rise in popularity didn’t happen by accident. Boykin and Johnson, having prior experience in business and marketing, used their acumen when drafting their blueprint for the company. 

“The first thing we did – since my background is in marketing, and Alesia and her husband own a small business in town, too – was rebrand in the best way we could,” Boykin said. “We just had a vision of invoking a kind of old-family ice cream shop – that type of thing. So, we put together a new logo, and now, it’s just kind of boomed. We now have 120 flavors.”

Out of the more than 100 flavors of fudge, a couple have emerged as fan favorites. 

“In the store, Fudgey Fudge – it’s plain chocolate, and you can’t beat that,” Boykin said. “We have a school right here in town, so when school’s out, the kids come. That’s what the moms bribe them with for grades. You can’t beat that in the store. We do a birthday cake flavor called Happy Birthday, and at Christmastime, we put red-and-green sprinkles in it and put a really fun label on it with Santa kneeling at a manger, so we call it Happy Birthday, Jesus, and we sell a ton of it. We also have a fun one that’s lime green, and it’s a pistachio-white chocolate flavor, and we call it The Grinch. A lot of people like to give that (flavor) as a gift. On our website, Salted Caramel is the most popular.”

With business booming, Boykin and Johnson said additional Spoonfudge! properties might not be outside the realm of possibilities. 

“Our next step – we hope in the next couple of years – is to maybe have another location,” Boykin said. “We have people ask us all the time about opening up another store. That’s our goal, eventually, and then maybe we can franchise the café and go from there. Maybe leave our kids a little legacy.”