BETTE MIDLER declared her love for Dietsch Brothers in a tweet Monday which reads: “BEST CHOCOLATE COVERED PRETZELS IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD! And they created these “Bettezels” in my honor. Thank you!!” (Screenshot image)
The Courier
By BRENNA GRITEMAN
LIFE EDITOR
July 6, 2017
Northwest Ohio’s most legendary candy shop got a few very public shout-outs from legendary stage star Bette Midler this week, all thanks to a little meddling by hometown hero Gavin Creel.
Midler took to social media platforms Twitter and Instagram on Monday, posting a picture of a box of specially made “Bettezels” gifted to her by Dietsch Brothers. The posts read: “BEST CHOCOLATE COVERED PRETZELS IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD! And they created these “Bettezels” in my honor. Thank you!!” and have shined a national spotlight on the locally famous chocolatier. As of noon Wednesday, the tweet had been liked 2,445 times and the Instagram post was liked 6,884 times.
Dietsch Brothers east store general manager Natalie Beall explained Creel, who starred in the Broadway revival of “Hello, Dolly” alongside Midler, is responsible for the online lovefest.
“Gavin is the one that started this whole madness,” Beall said, laughing, adding the Instagram post elicited thousands of likes in just 19 minutes. “It just went bonkers.”
She explained that when Creel was home in May to perform at the Marathon Center for the Performing Arts, he visited the shop and mentioned that he would love to take some of Deitsch’s hugely popular chocolate-covered pretzels to his co-star, who maintains a gluten-free diet and typically shies away from sweets. Beall then learned the Anderson family of Findlay, with whom Dietsch’s has collaborated with marketing materials in the past, was attending the Tony Awards in mid-June and would be visiting with Creel personally. The two collaborated again and came up with a design for a box of what would go on to be called “Bettezels,” at Creel’s suggestion.
“‘Call ’em “Bettezels”. That’d be perfect,’” Beall recalls Creel saying.
Dietsch’s doesn’t have the capabilities to market gluten-free products, as some people are highly sensitive to gluten, so the company bought a bag of grocery-store gluten-free pretzels and doused them in their signature chocolate. They sent the box, specially designed to mimic the “Hello, Dolly” playbill, to the Tony Awards, never expecting to hear a response back from their ultra-famous recipient.
(Creel, by the way, won his first Tony Award in Midler’s big return to Broadway. The Findlay High School graduate won the award for actor in a featured role in a musical, playing the hapless store clerk Cornelius Hackl.)
Weeks later, Midler’s public show of affection became just the latest feather in Dietsch’s cap, proving its appeal spreads far beyond the Findlay city limits.
“We’ll add her to the list of celebrity fans,” Beall said.
Dietsch Brothers: Phone: (419) 422-4474
