As a young Broadway dancer, Bonnie Boroian practically lived off of refined sugar. A typical meal consisted of a slice of cake paired with a cappuccino, which would have to carry her through the long days and nights of rehearsals, classes and performances. “I had a sweet tooth that I kept on trying to figure out how to satisfy without the crashes that you could get,” says Boroian. But she never expected her quest to find a healthy alternative to sugar would lead to her becoming a chocolatier.
Growing up as a child of parents in show business, Boroian believed her destiny lay somewhere in the limelight. She was dazzled by tales of her mother sleeping on a cot next to Carol Burnett at the Rehearsal Club, New York City’s famed boarding house for rising starlets. “She would tell great stories about all these young girls in New York City for the first time, trying to make it in Broadway or TV or films, and all the escapades they would get up to,” says Boroian.
Boroian would follow in her mother’s footsteps and eventually land a room at the Rehearsal Club herself and begin forging her Broadway career, performing across the country in productions of “This Was Burlesque,” “Sophisticated Ladies,” “Whoopee!” and more. But she soon found that the reality of show business was a far cry from the romantic ideal she had grown up believing in. Drug and alcohol use in the industry was rampant at the time, which put her at odds with her dream. “When you’re the only person not high on something or not really that interested in having much to drink, it can be kind of lonely,” says Boroian. Though it broke her heart, she ultimately decided to leave the business behind.
The stage door closed forever when she accepted a job at her father’s food marketing company. “When I decided I was going to leave show business, [my father] said, ‘You come and work for me … but you’re going to sign a contract, and I don’t care if Bob Fosse calls you himself and says so-and-so broke their ankle, you’re next up. … No, you have to make a commitment to this.’”
Though a fish out of water, Boroian proved adept in her role as marketing manager, and she continued working until she had her first child, at which point she decided to focus on the full-time job of motherhood. Her family eventually grew to five children, but when one was diagnosed as pre-diabetic, her pursuit of an alternative to refined sugar was renewed. “I was determined that she was not going to end up with full-on diabetes, and that I was going to try to … make things for her that she could bring when the doughnuts were showing up at soccer practice,” says Boroian.
Boroian spent years researching the perfect substitute and finally found it during a tour of coconut plantations in Bali, where she learned about the health benefits of coconut nectar. Having found her sweetener, Boroian put her years of experience in the food industry to use and set to work producing and distributing the first Blissfully Better chocolate—the decadent almond toffee—an organic, gluten-free and low-glycemic treat inspired by her mother’s Christmas candy recipe.
Blissfully Better has since won several food awards, and while new flavors have been added, each package contains the same hallmark. On the back of every box is a logo for Place of Hope, a Palm Beach Gardens nonprofit dedicated to helping kids and families break the cycles of abuse, neglect, poverty and human trafficking. Boroian has been an avid supporter for years, volunteering as an “Angel Mom” to support youths who have aged out of the foster care system. Since making the move to Boca Raton from Highland Beach two years ago, Boroian has also played an active role at Impact 100 and the Rotary Club Downtown Boca Raton, working to make a difference wherever one can be made.
“I just feel that there’s so many people out there who have not had the advantages that I’ve had,” says Boroian. “I’m really blessed to come from the kind of family I come from and to have grown up in the way that I grew up, and I feel everybody deserves that.”
This article is from the September/October 2024 issue of Boca magazine. For more like this, click here to subscribe to the magazine.
