At Ethel's Chocolate Lounge in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, couples and families relax on plush pastel-colored furniture, eating champagne chocolates and sipping mocha drinks. Behind a glass pane, espresso, pina colada and honey-flavored truffles sell for about $42 a pound. A sign reads "Chocolate is the New Black."

More precisely, Mars Inc., the closely held candy giant behind Ethel's, is betting that chocolate is the new coffee. Decorated with pink-and-brown striped wallpaper and whimsical lighting, the new chain is Mars's attempt to make lingering over a plate of premium chocolates in a cafe space as mainstream as drinking a morning latte at Starbucks. For a company best known for making mass-market products like Twix and Snickers bars, this means transforming a lowly commodity into a high-price luxury.

The first Ethel's opened in April, two more opened this summer and the Chicago area will have a total of six by the end of the summer. The company plans a nationwide rollout later this year. An average serving at Ethel's is a four-piece plate of chocolate priced at about 90 cents to $1.50 apiece, and a cup of cafe mocha costs $4.50.

"You see an attorney and his administrative assistant both standing in line to splurge on a $4 cup of coffee," says John Haugh, president of gourmet chocolate and retail at Mars. "Why not chocolate?"

The $14.5 billion U.S. chocolate industry could use a shot of espresso. Dominated by decades-old products like Hershey bars and M&M's, the industry has posted annual sales increases of less than 3 percent from 2002 to 2004, reports the National Confectioners Association, an industry trade group. Meanwhile, sales at upscale coffee and cocoa stores (a category that includes Godiva as well as sit-down spots like Starbucks) rose 20.6 percent in the same period.

"The only way for chocolate makers to see real growth is through innovation," says Susan Fussell, a spokeswoman for the National Confectioners Association in Vienna, Va.

Signs of Starbucks envy are visible across the chocolate industry. This summer, Campbell Soup Co.'s Godiva Chocolatier Inc., which has 270-plus boutiques in the U.S., introduced its first in-store beverage: the Chocolixer, a tart, frozen drink available in three chocolate flavors for $4.50 per 12-ounce cup. Godiva still doesn't feature seating in its stores.

In June, Hershey Co. opened a 3,600-square-foot retail location in Chicago, adding to its existing stores in New York's Times Square and at its headquarters in Hershey, Pa. The new space includes seating areas, a bakery with Hershey Kiss-topped brownies and a beverage bar. A 20-foot-tall Magnificent Chocolate Works machine lets people customize their chocolate using different products, like Reese's Pieces and Hershey's Kisses.

The sit-down approach might take some convincing. "With two out of three Americans overweight, the last thing we need is another excuse for consumers to eat chocolate," says Bonnie Leibman, director of nutrition at the Center of Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit nutritional advocacy group in Washington.

Mars's Mr. Haugh says that in small quantities, chocolate isn't any more unhealthy than other popular indulgences. A four-piece serving of Ethel's chocolate has about 160 to 220 calories, about the same amount as a latte made with whole milk. "Ethel's is about maximizing the chocolate experience. It's not about volume," says Mr. Haugh. The company says it expects customers to stay for a couple of hours during a typical visit.

Thursday afternoon, on the patio of Ethel's in Lincoln Park, Tiffany Lopez and Penny Heatley sat in pink chairs, sipping tea and eating truffles off a silver platter. The women had just picked up their children from music class when they stopped in at the lounge. "We're literally eating bon-bons while our husbands are hard at work," said Ms. Lopez, a 32-year-old stay-at-home mom.

But in their bid to become the next Starbucks, chocolatiers are finding themselves on a collision course with the Seattle company's push into the chocolate world. In 1999, Starbucks Corp. launched branded chocolates and chocolate-covered espresso beans. Last fall, Starbucks introduced Chantico, a steamed coco butter and whole milk drink named after the Aztec goddess of the hearth. The drink has been a popular seller, Starbucks says.

"We're always looking for ways to expand and I envision chocolate being a big part of that," says Michelle Gass, a senior vice president at Starbucks.

The chocolate lounge dates back to 17th-century London, about a century after cocoa was brought to Europe from Latin America. Designed or the elite, European chocolate houses offered comfortable seating where the upper crust could socialize while drinking hot chocolate. Today, chocolate is still consumed in Europe more regularly than it is in the U.S., where consumers and manufactures have a more populist approach to it.

Named after the late matriarch of Mars, Ethel's also sells tea, fruit drinks and special combinations like "Truffle and Tea for Two." The concept is a step up from the company's existing Ethel M. stores. The 14 midprice boutiques, located mostly in malls around Las Vegas, launched in 1981, sell only boxed products, and have no seating area or drinks. To break into the premium division and find out if consumers would indeed "chocolate and chitchat," Mars held a series of focus groups. Even the most diet-conscious consumers said they would occasionally splurge on "premium" chocolate -- in terms of calories and money -- if it was part of a broader social experience.

"Ethel's is a totally new concept created to meet a consumer need. We didn't model it on anything in particular," Mars's Mr. Haugh says, "That said, there are several successful brands out there that do well with premium items, like Starbucks for coffee."

Since many consumers expressed a dislike of fancy chocolates with mystery fillings, Mars says it made sure to sell standards like milk chocolate and creamy caramel. It also created a few unusual flavors, like key lime and peanut butter and jelly.

The specialized chocolate has made some consumers sentimental. Over a plate of mango-coconut chocolates, Tony Cuaresma proposed marriage to his girlfriend, Natasha Brasic, at Ethel's in April. "I wanted to make it special and she's a chocoholic," says Mr. Cuaresma, a 26-year-old computer consultant. The couple plans to marry later this year, and will decorate their wedding reception area with Ethel's pink and brown color scheme.